BEAR HUNTING

(photo courtesy of www.tomjonesbuckeyephotos.com) The summer of 1966 was special for me. First I turned sixteen and began learning to drive. This was such a big deal in a car dealer’s family. Soon I would be behind the wheel of all those beautiful new cars that my dad brought home. Being able to drive would open all sorts of new freedoms, not the least of which was to actually take a girl on a date instead of meeting her somewhere or having my parents deliver us to a dance. Being sixteen also meant that people in general took you a little more seriously and it seemed your parents had a little more confidence in you. After all, if you could pilot a two-ton vehicle around you must be somewhat responsible – right?

This was also the summer that I attended the Butler County Conservation School – a week-long resident camp for youth to learn more about hunting and fishing specifically, and the outdoor environment in general. The experience was one to which I trace my professional career in the natural resource management field. The following hunting season I was anxious to use some of the skills I had learned there.

At that time Pennsylvania had a one-day black bear season the Saturday after Thanksgiving. For some reason Dad had to work that day and it was the first time my brother, Johnny, and I ever went to camp by ourselves. On Friday we all went pheasant hunting (that’s another chapter). After lunch, Dad went to work and Johnny and I loaded the red 1967 Olds Cutlass sedan with all the necessary equipment and supplies for both the Saturday bear hunt and the Monday deer hunt. Over the last several months I had packed and re-packed all of my gear so my stuff was all ready to go. Johnny, on the other hand, was neither as excited about the hunt as I, nor was he very well organized. It took awhile for him to get things together. It was after 3:00 by the time we were ready to leave. Mom kissed us both goodbye and recited one last litany of all the reasons she didn’t think it was a good idea for her two boys to go off to camp hunting without their father. We heard, “Be careful starting the furnace, and unload your guns when you cross a fence (she didn’t realize there were no fences involved in bear hunting), and lock the doors before you go to bed, and hold on tight when you cross the swinging bridge, and don’t shoot each other.” Oh and also, “Don’t get lost in the woods!”

We assured Mom that we would be careful and we were on our way. Man, this felt like a big deal to me. Heading out for hunting camp with my brother. Since neither of us were much of a cook, we stopped at the Sportsman’s Paradise for supper. This was a little out-of-the-way bar and restaurant between Leeper and Lucinda. Dad had stopped there once with us on the way home from camp but here we were on our own. The place was crowded with other hunters, also on their way to camp. We must have looked like real rubes to the rough and tumble bunch bellied up to the bar. We found an empty table and both ordered cheeseburgers. This was our typical fare at any restaurant. It seemed that we should be ordering something more “hunter-like” – perhaps rabbit stew, the elk plate, pot roast, meatloaf, or even slumgullion, but we hadn’t ordered anything but cheeseburgers at a restaurant for as long as either of us could remember. Johnny ordered root beer to drink but I noticed that they had birch beer. I had never tasted it before but thought I’d give it a try. It came in a brown bottle that sort of made it look like you were drinking a regular beer. I thought that was neat. As we ate we glanced around at the various game mounts on the walls. There were lots of deer, an elk, an antelope, a moose, and two bear. Johnny pointed out that one was what they called a “dog bear” and the other was a “hog bear”. They got their names from the differing shapes of their snouts. They were both black bear just with different noses. “I guess sort of like the difference between Italians and Jews,” I said. Johnny thought that was a crude but appropriate analogy. He paid our bill with money that Dad had provided for the trip and we were on our way.

It was well after dark when we arrived at camp. That made unloading the car and carrying everything down the long flight of steps a little more difficult. There were no street lights in the area nor was there much ambient light from surrounding camps. It was about as dark a place as one could imagine unless there happened to be a full moon. The first thing you had to do when entering camp was to grab a flashlight from the mantle and go through the dark building into the corner of the bedroom where the electric box was. There were two fuse blocks that you had to pull out, turn over and slide back into place. That flooded the camp with light and made things a lot less spooky. The next step was to unlock the basement door and light the oil furnace. This was a pretty involved procedure requiring valves to be turned to start the flow of oil, lighting a piece of newspaper with a match, dropping it into the bottom of the furnace and then taking a stick and stirring the paper around to light the oil. Lighting a fire in the fireplace heated the camp up much more quickly although the heat source was much less efficient. This was normally the next step.

By the time all the groceries were put away, the gear stowed, and the camp was warming up it was time to curl up in the easy chair or on the couch and relax before turning in. Mom had the foresight to send some homemade cookies along in the big white round tin that, at one time, had said “cookies” on the side. The word had been worn off years earlier. The tin had gotten a lot of use. Johnny sat down with a glass of milk and the tin in his lap. I on the other hand made myself a cup of hot chocolate. I was on my own for a change and I was going to do whatever suited me. As we ate our cookies we talked about where we would hunt the next day. We got out the National Forest topo map that was rolled up in the corner and looked at possibilities. Johnny wanted to stick close to camp in case he needed to return early (as he always did), but I wanted to strike out into some unexplored territory. Neither of us were really considering the prospects of actually shooting a bear. We were far more concerned with scouting places to hunt for deer on Monday. A day of “research” in the woods would be valuable. We talked about a variety of things as we watched the fire burn down. I tried to focus on bear hunting while Johnny’s conversation flowed from one topic to the next. He was just too smart to limit his thinking to a single topic for very long. I finally grabbed my sleeping bag that I had warming by the fire and headed for bed.

It seemed later when we turned in but I suppose it was 10 or 10:30. I was dead tired. It had been a long day. I don’t know why we bothered to set the alarm clock. I was awake at 5:00, excited about the hunt that lay ahead. For the first time I would be hunting bear by myself. It was cold inside the camp – probably in the low 50s. This meant getting dressed quickly. Fortunately I had laid out my clothing in a logical order the night before. There was no reason to light the fireplace or to turn up the oil furnace as we would be gone soon. Breakfast was pretty simple – Life cereal and milk. No hearty hunter’s breakfast of bacon and eggs like when Dad was along. We were not accomplished cooks, too lazy to fix anything complicated, and too anxious to get out in the woods. We didn’t finally decide where we were headed until we were alone in the dark of the front porch. Johnny would cross the road and climb the mountain on the other side. I would cross the creek via the swinging bridge and work my way up Pell Run. We both knew it was Mom’s desire that we stick together but we figured this way at least we would guarantee we would follow at least one of her directions – not to shoot one another.

It had snowed a couple inches overnight but I could see stars in the sky and figured the snow was over. I loved to hunt in fresh snow for a variety of reasons. Most importantly it provided contrast to the trees and the game you were after, making spotting the target much easier. Secondly it made it impossible to get lost as you could always backtrack the way you came in. I slowly picked my way down the hill to the Tionesta Creek using the steps we had cut into the earthen bank with a shovel the summer before. It was slippery in the snow but I was careful to hold onto the small trees that lined the pathway. Once at the bottom my flashlight picked up the path that led to the bridge. The going was easier now and I was at the bridge in no time. Climbing the ladder up to the bridge was not easy as the rungs were icy. Going across and down the ladder on the other side was even worse. As I slipped and slid my way across the bridge and down the ladder I remembered my mother’s words of caution. It did occur to me that if I slipped off the bridge into the icy water of the creek below my chances of survival were slim. I loved my mother dearly and I took a little extra time to assure that she wouldn’t be heartbroken that her baby boy had ignored her advice and drowned or died of hypothermia even before the sun came up on his first bear season.

I wanted to take the path of least resistance up the mountain in the dark and snow. The old tram railroad path on the banks of Pell Run would provide just that. In the early part of the century this area had boomed with both the lumber and oil industries. Narrow gage railroads ran along the banks of the creeks and their tributaries to access the slopes. The rails had long ago been removed and the ties rotted away but you could feel the remnants of the right-of-way under your feet as you walked. It had been a wet fall and Pell Run, that in the summer was just a trickle, made a delightful rushing sound as it fell over large rocks from pool to pool. I loved this area of the forest and spent hours there seeking native brook trout in the summer. I would have enjoyed sitting down on the bank and waiting for sunup but I pressed on in hopes of finding just the right spot with a good downhill view by daybreak. I kept reminding myself that this was really more of a dry-run for deer season than a bear hunt.

It was almost 7:00 when I reached my destination near the top on the run. The sun would be up soon so I sat down on a comfortable stump to see how much of the valley below was within view. I was pretty warm from my climb so the cool breeze in my face was refreshing. It was a gorgeous sunrise – the kind that made you wonder what you did right to deserve being out on the top of a mountain to see the first rays bounce off the fresh snow on the landscape below. It had been a successful practice hike for Monday morning. Now if there were just some deer around it would be perfect. I kicked myself that I hadn’t been more observant of tracks in the fresh snow on my way up the hill. I should have been able to see if any deer had been moving along the hillside and, if so, at what elevation. One thing was sure, I was alone on this slope. This area was so remote nobody in their right mind (that left me out) would make this trek so early. If any deer were moving it would be there normal routine as opposed to being pushed. The more I thought about it, the same would hold true for bear. If there were any around they wouldn’t be pushed to cover here. I knew it was too early for them to be hibernating.

This was the first time the thought occurred to me – what if I saw a bear this morning? If I shot a bear up here there was no way I could get it out of here. Even if I could get it down the slope aided by the blanket of snow, how would I get it across the creek? If Dad had been here he would have told me I was nuts for going to all the trouble to explore this new territory in bear season. That’s what summer is for! I found myself talking to myself and snapped back to reality. There was no way I was shooting anything today. I might as well have left the gun at home but I went ahead and loaded it anyway. I had learned to be methodical about the way I loaded the 30-30 carbine so I could do it in the dark if necessary. First I opened the chamber by working the lever action. I carefully guided a bullet into the chamber and closed it. What got a lot of people into trouble was that they would forget to put the safety on by gently releasing the hammer with their thumb while pulling the trigger. I did that carefully and then shoved four more shells into the magazine through the slot in the side. All was ready now with five shells at my disposal. I decided to rest here for awhile and see what developed.

What developed was nothing. Two hours passed and it didn’t seem there was any life on this side of the creek. In addition I was getting cold. The temperature must have been somewhere in the low 20s and seemed to be dropping. I could also see some high clouds moving in. I decided a walk might be in order. Since I really wasn’t interested in killing anything today I figured I might as well see some unexplored territory. The top of Pell Run was as far up this valley as I had ever been. Back over the top and down the other side about five miles away was a Forest Service picnic area and campground called Heart’s Content. My family had been there many times but always by car. I didn’t have a clue how to get there cross country and no desire to find out. I just set out to see what was over the top of the next ridge.

I briefly wondered about venturing into unfamiliar country by myself, especially territory so remote with no roads and little hope of finding any other hunters. I remembered my mom’s final advice – “Don’t get lost.” On the other hand my ace in the hole was the fresh snow on the ground. All I had to do was track myself back to the top of the ridge and head downhill to the creek. No problem. I decided to skirt the edge of the hilltop so that I could maintain my view downhill. That way I could cover some new ground and still see where the deer were on this side.

I had only gone about a half mile when I spotted movement below. I first thought it was a hunter by the slow pace at which it trod. I had never seen a deer move like that. Then it dawned on me that there actually was a bear on this side of the hill. I raised my rifle so that I could observe the bear through the scope. It looked large, I guessed between two and three hundred pounds. This was great – a chance to observe this creature from afar, undisturbed in its native habitat. I sat down in the snow and took a good rest for my rifle. I had no thoughts of taking a shot but I wanted to get as good a look as possible as the bruin lumbered through the forest. It seemed he was looking for food. Every once in awhile he would stop and paw the ground, seemingly for acorns or perhaps grubs in the un-frozen ground beneath the snow. Every once in awhile I would get up quietly and move to a new position along the ridge. I was high enough above that he didn’t seem to notice my slow movements. I was able to do this for about an hour or so and I admit I was having a blast. Then abruptly the bear’s demeanor changed. I could tell something or someone had spooked him. His nose was in the air and he was definitely hearing or smelling something he didn’t like. It wasn’t me - the disturbance was obviously below him. Perhaps there were other hunters on this side of the mountain after all.

I watched as the bear rose stiffly on his haunches, as if to get a better look into the valley. He didn’t get up very far before he took off like a shot straight up the hill – straight toward me! I froze, still watching him through my scope. I watched as he got much bigger in the lens. I had never seen an animal move that fast. It began to occur to me that I might have to shoot a bear today just in self-defense. I sat in the snow motionless with my gun to my shoulder, my heart pounding so loud in my chest that I thought the bear must surely be able to hear it as he approached. I pulled the hammer back just in case. As it turned out the bear was only interested in getting away from whatever had spooked him below. He wasn’t watching where he was going and didn’t appear to be wary of anything on top of the hill. He passed me at about 10 yards going full tilt – snow flying and branches breaking under foot. I could hear his breathing and see his breath as he ran. Even though he had sprinted a long way up the hill it still seemed effortless for him. I knew he could keep going like this for a long distance. After he passed I again observed him in my scope as he disappeared over the top of the hill. “That was great,” I thought to myself. I began to relax and look over the top in the direction the bear had run.

Then my curiosity got the better of me and I began to wonder how far the bear had gone and what sort of cover he might run to. I had never tracked a bear before but it sure wouldn’t be hard. I knew right where to pick up the trail. So that’s what I did - I began to follow at a leisurely pace. After all I sure didn’t want to happen upon Mr. Bear in heavy cover. I just wanted to see how far he went before he slowed down and where he was headed. I had fun measuring his strides. Before long I noticed he had begun to lope and then finally he was walking again. I knew I was getting miles from where I started at the top of Pell Run. Also I wasn’t sure exactly what direction I had gone. Now the clouds had moved in and completely obscured the sun. I couldn’t depend on it to provide direction. However, I could still clearly see my tracks in the snow and so I was confident that soon I would turn and back track my way out. I decided it was a good time to eat the lunch I had packed. I sat down under a big hemlock tree that blocked the wind and where the ground was bare. I took out the plastic poncho I carried in the event of rain and spread it on the ground as a sort of picnic tablecloth. I sat down and ate my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, washing it down with some orange juice I had brought along in an old army canteen. As I finished my sandwich I reclined on one elbow and thought about the excitement of the day. I was exhausted from a short night’s sleep and the morning’s steady up-hill hike. I laid down on the poncho and thought how good it would feel to take a quick nap – just rest my eyes (as my father used to say).

When I woke up it was one of those sudden jerks like when you doze off in church and jump awake, putting those around you on notice that you’ve been asleep. This was a surreal awakening as I had no idea how long I’d been sleeping. To my horror the sky was almost dark and snow was falling steadily. A quick glance at my watch told me that it was almost 5:00. How could that be? How could I possibly have been asleep for almost five hours? I’d have to get going quickly to get back to camp. I picked up my poncho and my rifle and began moving quickly in the direction from which I’d come, but where were my tracks? It had snowed several inches – enough to obscure the morning’s tracks. I did my best to estimate where they would have been but it didn’t take long before I got confused and unsure that I was heading in the right direction. I tried to recall where the bear had come from and how I had tracked him to this point. The growing darkness didn’t help any and panic was quickly setting in. I was almost running through the woods now without any real direction. It was too dark to see without a flashlight and I finally resigned myself to the fact that I was lost. I had no clue what direction the camp was. Heck I wasn’t even sure what was uphill and what was down. I sat down on a snowy log and prayed. “Dear God, you’ve got to help me get out of this one. I’m all alone here and I don’t know what to do. Could you please help me find my way home?”

I shone the beam of my flashlight around my position. I’m not sure what I expected to see but perhaps a pillar of fire, like He provided for the Israelites in the desert. What my light did fall on was a huge boulder – perhaps 15 to 20 feet high. Underneath it was a cleft that looked large enough to provide a temporary shelter from the wind and snow. I figured this was indeed a sign from above that I wasn’t about to find my way home. I would have to spend the night here. I checked out the rock overhang and found that it would at least keep me dry. If I could start a fire I could also keep warm. I put my pack and my rifle under the rock and began to search for something dry to burn with my flashlight. I was just hoping that my batteries would last until I could get a fire going. I pulled a small survival kit out of my pocket that I had gotten at conservation camp last summer. It contained a variety of first aid stuff that I wouldn’t need. What I did need were the two kitchen matches contained in the small kit. I remembered that they had taught us to find dry leaves and sticks under large hemlocks or other conifers that would prevent rain or snow from penetrating their foliage. I also recalled that the bark of a paper birch tree could be used, like paper, to start a fire. I went about searching for what I needed and was pleased to find dry leaves, dead hemlock lower branches, and some birch bark.

I got back under the rock overhang as far as possible to build my fire out of the wind. I laid some rocks down for a base so that air could get underneath the fire. Then I shredded the bark into fairly thin strips and piled them in a cone shape. I covered that cone with the small dry twigs I found, standing them on end and leaning them against the bark. I readied dry leaves, more twigs, and more bark to add if the fire started. I also had a pile of large hemlock branches to put on the fire. I was praying hard that this worked. I believed my survival depended on this fire. When I had things as well prepared as possible I struck the first match and, shielding my kindling from the wind with my body, lowered it into the pile. To my delight the birch bark burned exactly as the camp instructors said it would – like paper. The bark also ignited the twigs. Now slowly and oh so carefully I began to add some leaves and more twigs. It was working. “Thank you, Lord,” I breathed. I tried not to get greedy and add too much fuel at a time. Slowly I worked my way up to large branches. I was limited to branches of a half inch in diameter or less as anything larger that I found was wet.

Reluctantly I left my small fire to find more fuel. I could see that gathering sticks was going to be a continual affair throughout the night. I was fortunate that there were several large hemlocks nearby so I didn’t have to go far to break off their dead lower branches. As I returned with fuel I also brought back some live branches I had broken off and piled them around the overhang to provide a windbreak. Once I was able to take a short break from gathering wood I sat down beside my masterpiece to warm myself. Despite a temperature in the teens, I really hadn’t felt too cold. I suppose it was a combination of adrenaline and exercise. As I sat by the fire it occurred to me for the first time that Johnny would be worried sick when I didn’t come home. I was normally the last to come in so he probably wouldn’t have been concerned until 5:30 or so. It was now after 7:00. Dad wouldn’t arrive at camp for at least another hour and I guessed that Johnny would probably just sit tight until Dad got there – at least I hoped so. Of course these were days before cell phones. The camp didn’t have a phone and the nearest pay phone was in Sheffield, five miles up the road. I was sure that Johnny would stick tight. I began to kick myself for striking out on my own and not hunting closer to him. Why did I have to be so darned independent?

Suddenly I remembered that they had taught us at conservation camp to shoot our rifle three times quickly if we were lost after dark. Why hadn’t I thought of this earlier? I grabbed my rifle and fired into the ground three times as quickly as I could work the lever action. I listened impatiently for a response. None came. I heard only the wind in the tree branches and the crackling of my small fire. I briefly wondered if perhaps someone could see my fire or the smoke from it. Then I realized that I was in the middle of nowhere. Just about as far from a road or camp as you could get in these parts. I guessed I was roughly about half way between camp and Heart’s Content.

I gathered some more branches and added them to what was now a pretty amazing fire (for one match). I thought I had earned a break and curled up next to the fire, trying to cover myself with the poncho as best I could. It felt so good. The adrenaline rush was over now and I fought the urge to fall asleep. I knew that if I did, the fire would go out and I might freeze before I woke up. I would just close my eyes for a few minutes. I thought of the words to the old Fanny Crosby hymn, A Wonderful Savior is Jesus My Lord, “He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock and covers me there with His hand.” As I dozed my mother’s words echoed in my mind, “Don’t get lost in the woods.” And I had done just that. Sorry Mom.

Again, as if I were in church on a Sunday morning, I awoke with a start. It was light out. I was lying on my poncho under the big hemlock with my rifle by my side. The sky was hazy but there was no snow. A quick glance at my watch told me that it was 12:45 - PM not AM! It had all been a dream. A terrible nightmare! I could see my morning tracks in the snow clearly, pointing the way back to camp. I prayed again, “God you have one warped sense of humor. But thanks for the object lesson!”

I couldn’t move fast enough retracing my steps through the snow back to where I had watched the bear and then back to the top of Pell Run. My first thought was to just head straight downhill to the creek but I figured I wasn’t going to leave these tracks for anything. I knew where they led and I wasn’t going to take even a remote chance of getting lost on the way home. The distance that had taken me almost two hours to cover in the morning I made in half that time going home. When the camp came into sight I almost cried. It had never looked so good.

I wasn’t surprised to see Johnny sitting on the couch eating cookies and reading a book when I opened the door. He sure was surprised to see me though. “I didn’t expect to see you until dark or after. You’re always the last one in. You must have had an uneventful day. Did you see anything at all?” “Wait till I tell you,” I said, stripping off my hunting coat and handing him my rifle. I asked him to unload it while I proceeded to describe my bear in great detail. I also bragged about being so far back in off the beaten path. What I didn’t mention was my dream. It had felt so real. I was glad to be awake. Glad to be back at camp. And I didn’t want to talk about getting lost in the woods. As Johnny worked the lever to unload the carbine he asked why I had only loaded two shells.

SMALLMOUTH BASS FISHING ON THE TIONESTA CREEK

The Tionesta Creek was best known as a trout fishery. It was a beehive of activity from season opening in mid-April through about early July when the water warmed enough for the trout to get lazy and stop biting. Then only the purist dry fly anglers were out in the evenings. We spent much more time at camp in the summer and we were much better bass fishermen than we were for trout. While we had more success in the mornings and evenings we spent the best part of most days trying different techniques to catch the “bronzebacks”.

Under the bench on the back porch was a foot locker full of old tennis shoes. We never threw a pair away – we just took them to camp. Each day we would don a swim suit, a tee shirt and a pair of old tennis shoes and head for the creek. I can remember there was great anticipation each morning as to whether the fish would be biting or not. Of course now I know about all manner of things that impact on fish habits such as moon phase, barometric pressure, water clarity, creek flow, and water temperature, etc. In those days it was just a crap shoot to us – they were either hungry or they weren’t.

The Tionesta was a series of pools and riffles. The smallmouths could be found primarily in the pools and we got to know where they would be at any given time. The problem was what to offer them.

Artificial lures were my preference for the obvious reason that you didn’t have to find bait and then continually freshen it on your hook. My favorite for daylight use was a small orange flatfish (yes, Fred Myers would have been proud) with three sets of treble hooks. This was an unusual set up and I spent way too much time untangling the hooks from one another. However, if a fish hit the lure, you had him. I also used various crankbaits and spinnerbaits in the daytime but when dusk approached I immediately switched to one of two old standbys – the jitterbug or the hula popper. As far as I’m concerned there is no more exciting moment on the water than when a smallmouth hits a surface lure. After dark you can’t see the water explode but you can hear it and in the quiet of the forest it is a sound like no other.

I remember one particular evening when Johnny and I set out to fish from “the big rock.” This was an area of the creek bank just below the camp that featured a series of large boulders with overhanging hemlock trees. A flat rock jutted into the creek and made casting from it easy. An adjacent boulder rose about ten feet above the creek and if you were careful you could flip your offering from atop it. As we approached the rocks and ducked underneath the hemlock limbs a great blue heron took off from the creek bank a few feet in front of us. I doubt a 747 could have scared us any more. After our heartbeats returned to normal we both tied on jitterbugs and began to cast from the flat rock to the far side of the creek. It was clouding up and getting so dark that sometimes the only way to know where your lure landed was whether it clicked into the rocks or plunked into the water. It seemed that the closer you could get the lure to the opposite bank, the better your chances of a strike – as though the bass actually did think our jitterbugs were frogs and they were waiting for them to jump from the bank. It was a thrill to hear the lure hit the water, then the rhythmic gurgle of bug as it waddled back and forth, then a big splash combined with a tug on your rod as the bass struck. After we had each landed a couple of nice bass it began to rain – gently at first and then a steady downpour. Johnny suggested we head up the hill to camp but I questioned why we would leave when the fish were biting. He agreed and recommended we move back a little under the protection of the hemlock. We were still getting wet but the rain was not so bothersome under the tree. We were catching fish on almost every cast now. Somehow being soaked to the skin didn’t bother us quite so much when we were catching fish. Before long we heard Mom call us from the camp. She and Dad were playing cards on the screened porch and enjoying the sound of the rain on the roof until they realized we were still down at the creek. They couldn’t believe that we didn’t have the “sense to come in out of the rain.” Reluctantly we agreed to come home. While we hated to leave biting fish the fireplace sure felt good when we reached the camp. Then we thought it was quite a coincidence that the bass were so voracious during the rain. Now I realize that the fish were responding to the sudden drop in barometric pressure. Whatever the case it was the most fun I’ve ever had in the rain.

When it came to live bait a bass would take a nightcrawler but so would just about everything else (chubs, suckers, rock bass, sunfish, mudpuppies, and hellbenders). There is no more ugly creator that swims the waters of the earth than the hellbender. They are large salamanders, normally more than a foot in length. They exchange air through wrinkly folds in their skin and they have a flat head that looks like someone hit them with a shovel (it should be noted here that one could hit them over the head with a shovel and nothing would happen). They are almost impossible to hold onto if attempting to extract a hook so whenever I caught one I merely cut the line and returned them to the deep. While a variety of species would also take a crayfish there was a much better chance that you would catch a bass with one.

One Saturday afternoon we were using crayfish for smallmouth and Johnny found a soft-shell. (Crayfish shed their skin every so often as they grow in size and for awhile afterward their shell or “exoskeleton” is quite soft.) These are somewhat easy to spot with the eye but as soon as you grab one you can tell immediately what you’ve got. What you have is a real delicacy to a smallmouth bass. The creek was clear and you could spot the bass in their typical lairs. When Johnny made his first presentation to a nice-sized bass with the soft-shelled crayfish the bite was almost instantaneous. From then the search was on. It seemed from our very un-scientific survey that less than five percent of all the crayfish we encountered were soft. That meant turning over a lot of rocks in the shallows of the creek to find one. As soon as we did we were off to find a bass. On that day it seemed they were not interested in anything else. If you found a soft-shell, you caught a bass. It was too bad that we spent such a large part of the day bent over looking for crayfish as opposed to fishing. They sell soft-shells at the bait shop but we had never bought anything at the bait shop before and weren’t about to start when they could be found for free (by turning over a hundred rocks). Such was the Fleeger accounting philosophy. I suppose during the entire afternoon we caught about a dozen soft-shells and about as many bass.

Boy, were we stiff and sore the next morning. We wanted to get up and go right back to the creek but Sunday mornings at camp meant putting on good clothes and heading for the small (really small) Methodist church in Barnes (a really small town a few miles up the road). Attendance was probably about 40 or so and most of the folks recognized our family as visitors from the “big” Methodist church in the “big” town of Slippery Rock.

The best thing about going to camp for the weekend was getting there and the worst was going home on Sunday afternoon. It signaled the end of leisure for another week and the beginning of another week at school. Not that I didn’t like school, I just loved those times in the woods and streams of the Allegheny Plateau.

THE CAFETERIA BOYCOTT AND THE FLIG

I think kids these days are pretty spoiled by the options they have in their school cafeterias. It seems as though they can always find something on the menu or from a vending machine that interests them. Such was not the case when I went to school. You had your choice of the offering of the day or packing your lunch. I normally packed my lunch for a couple reasons – first, I knew what I was getting and second, I didn’t have to stand in line. This guaranteed one a prime spot at the lunch table. The lunch table was an important social circle. It was the most gender-segregated time of the day when boys left their girlfriends to sup with the guys. It was almost fraternity-like in that there were hazing incidents, pecking orders for seating, etc. Everyone looked forward to lunchtime in the cafeteria.

That is until someone found a Band-Aid in their food (I think it might have been a hamburger). I suppose one of the cooks had cut themselves and applied the bandage to stop the bleeding. After making some burgers all of a sudden the bandage was gone. What a treat the student in question had when they bit into the food and found the prize. Now most everyone grumbled about the quality of the food but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

These were the early days of the Hippies and the Vietnam War. The protest movement was just getting started and there were a few in our class who were enthralled by it. Somebody made the off-handed comment after the Band-Aid incident that some sort of protest was in order. Something like, “We ought to boycott the place.” The idea began to snowball and before you knew it, more and more kids were packing their lunch. I think it started with the seniors and began to work its way down into the underclassmen. Soon the cooks were preparing way more food (with or without Band-Aids) than was needed.

There were no secrets in the high school and everyone from the lowliest freshman to the supervising principal was aware of what was going on. They just couldn’t figure out how to stop the boycott. After all it wasn’t like the leaders were SDS members or anything. It was a pretty loosely knit group that fanned the boycott flames. The school administration didn’t want to make an announcement over the intercom or at an assembly about the protest. I think they figured this might lend credence to the rumor that the students actually wielded some power. More subtle methods were employed. Teachers took some of their better students aside in an attempt at reason. I recall the National Honor Society advisor, Mrs. Grossman, asking me if the NHS leadership might play a role in ending the boycott. I had to sheepishly admit that most of the officers were involved in planning it. She was non-plussed by the revelation. I think her response was, “Well!”

I don’t think the boycott was ever officially called off. It was, as they say, just “overcome by events.” More important things came up (like basketball season or the Christmas dance, etc.) and mothers got tired of packing lunches. Most of the protestors went back to standing in line but they were more observant when they bit into their sandwiches. As always happens in such cases though the school administration had the last laugh in the end. They disapproved the traditional class outing to Kennywood Park late in the school year. While no official reason was given everyone knew that the protest’s pigeons had come home to roost. “Ski” had gotten his revenge!

THE PROM AND THE FLIG

I guess the prom has always been a big deal in high school. I know it was in 1968. This was our senior year and it was an even bigger deal for Lynn and I because we hadn’t been allowed to go to the prom as juniors the year before. You have to know a little about Lynn’s family to understand this. Her father was a minister and felt strongly that dancing was sinful. To allow his daughter to attend a dance not only went against his convictions, it also sent a bad message to his congregation. Lynn tried to convince him that the prom was more of a social event where dancing happened to occur by coincidence. It didn’t work. Another couple from their church had tried that line on their parents and gained permission to go if they didn’t actually dance. Through some bad timing (or perhaps bad karma) they happened to get their picture published in the newspaper the next day on the dance floor. Lynn’s mother held the paper up indignantly and exclaimed, “Be sure your sins will find you out!” So the following year when Lynn used that rationale on her parents we were stunned when they agreed. We could attend as long as we didn’t dance. This would be the first dance we had ever attended as a couple. I had been to lots of them in my wayward, heathen youth but Lynn had never even gotten close. The dancing part was no big deal since I was not the greatest dancer. Besides I figured I could coax Lynn onto the dance floor as long as there were no photographers in sight. We really just wanted to be a part of the overall experience as seniors.

There was quite the pre-prom ritual to go through in those days. First you had to have the nicest car that you could find. It was pretty common to prevail on an older friend or family member who owned a prom-worthy car. (I suppose these days most kids take limousines to the prom but no so back then.) While my dad’s Ninety-Eight Oldsmobile demonstrator was a car most people would be proud to be seen in, we thought it more of an older person’s car. I was looking for something a little more sporty. My brother had just purchased his first new car – a bright red 1968 Chevrolet Caprice Classic coupe with a black vinyl top. The “classic” meant it had the more formal “notch-back” roofline as opposed to the traditional fast-back. It was the perfect transport for a formal occasion. Based on my track record I am not sure why he allowed me to use this car but he did. The morning of prom day was spent detailing the ride. That’s what most other guys were doing as well. Afterward it was time to pick up the rental tuxedo (actually a white dinner jacket) at The Hub in Butler as well as the flowers at Kochers’ flower shop in Grove City. Guys didn’t spend the time primping that the girls did. The toughest choice was between English Leather or Jade East cologne.

When I picked Lynn up at her house there was the obligatory photo shoot, as well as the obligatory caution regarding dancing. Her parents pretty much painted the picture that if one were to take a dance step as a couple the gymnasium floor would split down the middle and you would free-fall into hell. I recall that Lynn was non-plussed by her hairdo. You could not go to the prom with an “ordinary” do – it had to be something out of the ordinary. It was. I thought she looked great but she was a little uncomfortable with the hair. I tried to convince her that we were actually going to a dance and not to be too concerned about something simple like a hairdo. I was the perfect gentleman – helping her with the flowers, opening the car door, helping her in, etc.

When we arrived it was neat to see all our friends in their formal attire. Most guys looked alike in their white dinner jackets and black pants. I seem to remember that a couple boys had gone the full tuxedo route but I can’t recall who they were. We got a seat at a table with our closest friends and waited for the festivities to begin. We had been among several couples nominated for prom king and queen but we never really considered the possibility we would win the competition. There were a number of much more popular couples on the ballot after all. When it came time for the announcement we were shocked that they called our names. We were equally shocked (actually more like horrified) to see that they had notified our parents and they were in attendance. After the “coronation” ceremonies and photographs they made the announcement that the king and queen would now lead the “spotlight dance”. We were to go out to the middle of the floor, all alone, and begin the next dance. I don’t think I have ever seen Lynn so scared in her life. When I took her hand and led her to the middle of the gymnasium floor she kept protesting that she couldn’t possibly do this. After all her parents were right over there in the corner watching. My retort was that we had no choice – we were the king and queen and this was really our only responsibility as such. As we stood in the middle of the floor I tried to get Lynn into some semblance of a dance pose. I said, “Let’s just move around a little right here so they think we’re dancing - just till the others take the floor and they turn the spotlight off.” She wouldn’t budge. She stood there stiff as a board (I’m sure wondering when the floor would swallow us both up). Eventually others did take the floor and they did turn off the spotlight. When they did we returned to our seats. I tried to deflect attention by mentioning that I was prone to leg cramps and I never knew when one might sneak up on me. We waved to our parents as they headed home and breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The rest of the evening is pretty much a blur. We did take a few dance steps (after we were sure the newspaper photog had departed). I’m pretty sure there was a movie as well. I do recall that the doors were locked and if you left for any reason you could not get back in. Those of us with Cinderella drivers licenses had to wait until morning before we could take our dates home. The twins had a bunch of us over to their house for breakfast and then we had a picnic at the Sportsman’s Club. Even though I can’t recall all of the details it still goes down as “an evening to remember.” Oh, and she’s still my queen 42 years later.

MY FIRST DEER HUNT

(photo courtesy of www.tomjonesbuckeyephotos.com)
Most kids love Christmas and I was no exception. I still love Christmas but these days more for the fact that it’s my Savior’s birthday and it still seems to bring a peace to most folks’ attitudes - at least for a few days a year. When I was a child Christmas meant so many things. Vacation from school, presents, visiting family members from far and wide, big meals with dishes we didn’t get very often, decorations both inside and outside the house, and just that special feeling in the air that things were sort of different. About the only way I can explain it is that a lot of other crap just got set aside for a couple weeks each year to make room for Christmas. Dad used to pile us into the car and drive around town to look at the Christmas lights. One of my mother’s most famous quotes (and there were many) came from this activity. One night we drove down Maple Street and most all of the houses were well decorated. Then we turned onto Center Street and there were hardly any lights to be seen. Nonchalantly, Mom said, “Well I guess Maple does and Center doesn’t.”

In rural counties of western Pennsylvania deer season is a lot like Christmas. Kids get the first day of the season off from school. It wasn’t always that way but after years of having about 50% reduced attendance on that day (just about all the boys were gone) school administrators started building the first day of deer season into the calendar as a holiday. In later years they did the same with the first day of doe season. Like Christmas I always began looking forward to deer season well in advance.

Unlike the hunting we did for birds, squirrels, and rabbits, deer hunting was a short season that required a lot more preparation, equipment, and normally a trip to hunting camp. All this made it more exciting. Preparations went something like this – pull the rifle from the gun cabinet and clean it. Next spend a few hours looking through the scope at the backyard (imagining a deer walking into the crosshairs). Practice pulling the gun to your shoulder quickly for a running shot. (I don’t know who I thought I was kidding, I would have enough trouble hitting a deer that was standing still while I leaned the gun against a tree, let alone a quick running shot.) Then it was time to find a vinyl carrying case from the basement into which to slide the fully prepared weapon. Sometimes we went out to the Sportsmen’s Club rifle range to “shoot our rifles in” but often we waited until we got to camp to do so. Now it was time to prepare the hunting apparel. As I have mentioned previously, I never owned any piece of new hunting clothes until I was an adult. Everything I had was at one time my brother’s, my father’s, or some friend or distant relative who may have outgrown something. My first “hunting boots” were five-buckle galoshes that I wore over a pair of old dress shoes. Later I would graduate to olive drab rubber “gum boots”. I must have been in my early 20s before I ever had a pair of real leather hunting boots. Of course the rubber boots did not breath and so any perspiration for the day remained inside and felt like it turned to ice after an hour or so on the deer stand. Note that I used the word “exciting” to refer to my deer hunting experience. The word “comfortable” does not describe any aspect of it. After laying out shoes and boots it was time to figure out how many pairs of socks might be needed. If I wore an old pair of my dad’s dress shoes (ones he wore in the workshop or to mow the grass in) I could wear up to three pair. (We always felt that more clothing layers would be better.) Long underwear was next. Now this was not the high tech, miracle, breathing fabric, black stretch stuff on the market today. This was the ‘50s style white waffle fabric that maybe kept your body temperature about 2 degrees higher than it would be without it. The long underwear shirt and pants I would lay out had been used by my brother the last few seasons and my dad before that. The elastic was pretty well stretched out and there was an odd hole here and there but these garments were a mandatory part of deer hunting in late November and early December. A pair of jeans to go over the long underwear had to be somewhat loose. All denim was loose at that time. This was before the era of tight pants. If a boy wore tight jeans in those days he wasn’t hunting for deer but perhaps a “dear.”

As I would lay out my clothes I would long for the garb that I saw “professional” hunters wear. By professional in those days I mean seasoned veterans who had been at the sport long enough to acquire quality clothing. When you saw a man in the woods with matching black and red checked Woolrich pants and coat on you somehow knew that he would be dragging a 12-point buck behind him. These guys weren’t necessarily rich – these were not new clothes. A Woolrich suit could easily last a lifetime and by the looks of some of these haggard veterans of the woods, they were getting close to being handed down. Nobody in our family had ever had such clothes to hand down. Eventually my dad bought a light-weight Woodrich coat with the large red and black squares but that didn’t put him into the “professional” category. My brother and I both wore old tan canvass field coats that I’m not sure who had originally owned. They may have been 20 to 30 years old at that time. They were not built for warmth but thankfully they were large enough to allow for several sweaters underneath. Mom, being the worrier that she was, had sewn large patches of red material on the backs of our coats (as I’ve mentioned previously, these were the days before mandatory orange attire). Our coats had elastic shotgun shell sleeves inside the pockets but they were of little use for 30-30 cartridges. I was fortunate that my ammunition had come with a plastic belt holder for ten shells. I placed one of these in my pocket. The thought of shooting more than 10 times at a deer was ludicrous. People who claimed they had must have been lying.

Clothing “accessories” to be prepared were gloves, scarves, hats, and such. Dad had always been a big fan of the brown cotton glove. You know, the kind that you can get ten pair for $12 these days. I suppose back then they cost less than a quarter a pair. These gloves could be worn for just about any purpose and Dad seemed to always have a pair on. Because he purchased them in bulk you could normally find a pair most anywhere in the basement. The only thing these gloves were not made for was cold weather – exactly what we wore them in. I tried using one pair overtop the first but that made your hand no more useful than Captain Hook’s. The bottom line for the entire hunting experience was that you just had to get used to being cold. My hat, for example, was an old red canvass one than had thin cloth ear muffs folded up inside. We called them “ear lugs.” I’m not sure about the origin of that term but nonetheless they were useless for warmth. However, they were excellent for reducing your hearing by about a third. Just what you need when you’re listening for a deer sneaking through the brush behind you. Any scarf or neckerchief would do as you would just tie it around your neck and breath through it to warm the air entering your lungs from the ambient 10 below to about 10 above.

There were other accessories to be laid out. These were a length of rope with which to drag a deer. Optimists carried a long piece of heavy rope. I, on the other hand usually carried a ten-foot piece of clothesline cord. I figured the chances of using it were slim and wanted to minimize the weight. (Nobody carried a backpack in those days so everything had to fit in your pockets.) You needed a small pencil with which to fill out your tag if you shot a deer, a twist tie or paperclip with which to attach the tag to the deer, a compass (just in case you got turned around in the woods) and of course a knife. The hunting knife was secondary only to the rifle in importance to the young nimrod. If you killed a deer the key next step was to gut it out. This is the bloody, gooey, smelly procedure that kept a lot of kids from taking up the sport, especially girls. My knife (in addition to my rifle) was not a hand-me-down. One year for Christmas both Johnny and I had gotten hunting knives as a present. They were small (6 inch total length) Case fixed-blade knives with a leather sheath. My knife was very sharp when new and since I never used it on anything, it stayed that way. Most hunters had to sharpen their knives before the season as they had been dulled by last year’s use. Since I had never gutted a deer with my knife, it remained sharp.

Once all preparations were made and all the clothes and accessories laid out it was time to pack them up into paper grocery bags (not suitcases or duffle bags) for transport to hunting camp. I normally had this accomplished at least a month in advance. That meant going back through the whole procedure several more times before the big day arrived.

In Pennsylvania deer season was always set to begin on the Monday after Thanksgiving. This, then, added a whole new excitement to that holiday as well. I can’t ever remember going to anyone else’s house for the Thanksgiving meal. It was always held at our house and normally included aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I always enjoyed the celebration but hunting was usually in the back of my mind the whole time. We had sort of a routine that we got into. Since my dad was off that day, he, Johnny and I would go out pheasant and rabbit hunting in the morning. After coming home around noon and getting cleaned up we had the big meal. Afterward the women cleaned up and the men gathered around the TV to watch the football game. It was always the Detroit Lions against somebody (Dallas, Green Bay, Minnesota, etc.).

The next day at least Johnny and I (and sometimes my dad) would be back out in the field for pheasant and rabbit. That night it was time to do all the last minute packing in order to be ready to head for camp on Saturday. When I got a little older Pennsylvania set its bear season the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Thereafter for several years we headed for camp on Friday night and hunted bear on Saturday. (That’s another story.)

The drive to camp always took too long but this trip seemed to take forever. We used to marvel that most of the cars on the road were filled with hunters. You could see their Woolrich suits and other provisions piled in the back of the car or truck. Many towed trailers filled with supplies for large parties. It should be noted that in Forest County (where our camp was) there were more camps than full time residences. Many of the camps only got used in deer season so some owners were going prepared to do any annual maintenance necessary. We used to get a kick out of the variety of vehicles we saw on the road – old travel trailers, converted school buses, pickup truck campers. You name it and guys would camp in it for a few days of deer hunting. We always took note of the “foreign” license plates we saw. Hunters came from Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and other surrounding states that had little terrain for whitetailed deer. We resented the fact that these foreigners were here competing for “our” deer.

Speaking of foreigners, the camp next to us (Camp Dot) was owned by the Koblinsky brothers from Michigan. During deer season it was always occupied by 20 to 30 “Polocks” (political correctness has no place at deer camp). They were a wild bunch who carried far more beer into camp than food or other provisions. The afternoon before the season started was filled with the boom of their rifles as they shot randomly into the creek below, across the creek, over the road, or just about in any direction. I recall we used to fume about having to put up with their drunken antics. Routinely one of our group would shout, “I’m going to go over and confront that #@&#@ bunch of drunken Polocks”, only to realize that would be a no-win situation. After all, we weren’t even sure they spoke English and they were always heavily armed with both booze and guns – a bad combination when attempting reason.

We normally had our own “foreigner” in camp. He was a Pennsylvania resident but not a family member. The minister at Dad’s church was an avid hunter and always seemed to weasel an invitation for the first day of deer season. Early on he came alone but in later years he brought along his son. What bugged me most about the guy was his success. I suppose I should have figured that God was blessing his measly efforts at hunting with an early buck but I still resented it. The guy had to run the youth program on Sunday evenings so he never got to camp before about 10 PM. We were mostly in bed by that time so he just snuck in and sacked out on the couch. The next morning he would roll out in time for breakfast and head for the woods with us. Many times we would recommend a place for him to sit that we had considered the day prior but passed on for a better location. Upon return to camp that afternoon we would generally find a note that said something like, “Shot a 4 point about 9:30 and headed home after lunch.” The nerve! I recommended one time that we have him bunk with the Polocks. It would get him out of our hair and perhaps he could convert one or two of the loathsome bunch. Of course my father was always gracious to the preacher and our complaints fell on deaf ears.

When we finally reached camp and opened the front door we were greeted by that unmistakable smell of a cabin in the dense woods that has been closed up for months at a time. Musty and damp to be sure and with a hint of lingering wood smoke but there was always something so comfortable about that smell. Like our final destination had been reached. Dad had named the cabin “Greenbriar” after a trip to the resort of the same name in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. We all thought the name much classier than “Camp Dot” next door. The building was small, consisting of three rooms (two only separated by a curtain). The front door opened into a living room, dining room, kitchen combination that must have been about 18X20. The most prominent feature of the living area was a wood-burning fireplace. On its mantel were a menagerie of odd and unrelated items – a kerosene lamp (for the oft-times that the power went out), a small trophy from GM that my dad had won in a salesman’s contest, an ash tray for when the rare guest was a smoker, a pressure gauge from a gas well that dad had turned into a paperweight, an old bait-casting reel with a bent crank, a compass, a snake bite kit, and a Joni lighter. Above the mantle was an old framed painting of a sleeping fisherman and a bear making off with his stringer of trout. I remember sitting on the worn down couch alternating my gaze between the blazing fire and that old picture. I could almost paint it from memory. Beside the couch was a magazine rack with dozens of old magazines. We never subscribed to any hunting or fishing magazines (Reader’s Digest was the only one I recall) but many issues had been left there by the previous owner. We loved to explore the pages of the Pennsylvania Game News, Sports Afield, and Outdoor Life. It seemed that the articles opened up a whole new world of the sporting life and we would spend hours reading and dreaming about casting for the big trout or waiting for the buck with the huge rack.

The remainder of the cabin consisted of a small kitchen and two bedrooms. Note that I did not describe a bathroom. There wasn’t one. In the corner behind the entry door was a small sink without a faucet. There was a stainless bucket by the sink that was kept full of water for washing hands or face. A path outside led to an outhouse. We carried water in five-gallon cans from the spring several miles down the road or from the neighbors’ camp across the road which had the luxury of running water. These were nice folks from Butler, PA (not far from our home in Slippery Rock). Ed Downing and Bob Cradle were co-owners of the Mountain View Lodge. They normally stopped by to say hello the evening before deer season. Ed always had a pipe in his mouth and a story on his lips. He was one of those hunters who wore a Woolrich suit and had been there and done that, or so he would tell you. When I was younger his stories enthralled me. The older I got the older the stories got.

If we arrived on Saturday we might take a hike with a shotgun in case we jumped a grouse but mostly our time on the weekend before the season was spent scouting for the best hunting place and preparing that place for Monday morning. I know many hunters who religiously go back to the same tree or rock every year. Not me. I have always figured that someplace new might just be a little better than the year before. I’ve never been real scientific about choosing a spot but I do consider field of view, elevation, proximity to cover, and the direction other hunters will be coming from to drive the deer toward me. Predicted weather (that we received via the staticy Warren AM radio station the night before) played an important role in site selection. If rain were predicted a rock overhang would provide waterproof shelter. If snow was a factor a large hemlock tree would catch most of it before it hit the ground. If sub-zero temperatures were forecast a good wind-break and a supply of dry firewood were a good bet. Once the best site was selected the process of preparation began. First point of order was a stump or log that could serve as a seat. Next, one needed to clear away litter from the forest floor where you’d be standing so as not to crunch anything that would spook a deer. Finally came the process of breaking off dead tree limbs that might get in the way of a shot. These were normally piled nearby to serve as firewood.

I was about fourteen when my first chance came to experience all this for real. All of the years before I was just “along for the ride.” This year I would be carrying a rifle and, hopefully, dragging home a buck. So much about the experience impressed me. Dad had stopped by Curly Martin’s butcher shop before coming to camp and bought some T-bone steaks. We never had steak at home. This Sunday supper was the first time I had ever seen one, let along eaten one. It was decidedly different tasting than a hamburger. Dad also made his specialty – home fried potatoes. For dessert he had bought some Dumitrus fruit pies. These were small individual pies that, in Texas, would be known as “fried pies.” They were a delicacy normally reserved only for your lunch on the last day of school. If Mom had been along the menu would have been much different. I loved my mother but this was one time I was glad Dad had planned the meal. After we helped do the dishes, played a few hands of cards, and stocked up the fireplace, the electricity went off right on schedule. The power grid in the middle of the national forest was not nearly sufficient to handle the peak load when all of the out-of-state interlopers all turned on their lights, stoves, and heaters at once. We normally tried to be all ready for bed when the lights went off. Sleep didn’t come easily this night as so much ran through my mind – could I survive the cold? Would I even see a buck? If I did could I bring myself to overcome “buck fever” and shoot at it? Could I hit a deer with my rifle? If all these came true how could I gut it out and drag it back to camp? Might I get lost in the woods and force the local volunteer fire department to mobilize a search party? Most kids were asleep dreaming about shooting a 12-point and here I was worrying about all manner of things. I guess I had too much of my mother in me (and still do today).

I must have slept some as I was sound asleep when Dad woke Johnny and me at 5:00 AM. Dad was already dressed and starting breakfast. We jumped out of our beds (I was in the top bunk and Johnny the bottom) and immediately began dressing in our rehearsed layers of socks, long underwear, jeans, sweaters, etc. Dad’s shopping spree at Curly’s had included breakfast sausage (another delicacy Mom never bought) and the smell of it wafted into our bedroom. Breakfast tasted great but my mind was still racing about the new experience that lay ahead. Dad checked the thermometer outside the window and announced, “Ten degrees, better put on another sweater.” Little did I know then that ten would be the high for the day. Cold temperatures had never been a problem for me when I was ice skating, sled riding, making snowmen or having snowball fights with my buddies. However, I was about to see just how cold ten degrees was when you were bored stiff and trying to hold still waiting for a deer to walk by.

Those who were first to suit up stood out on the porch and waited for the slowpokes. It was too warm inside to stay very long with all those layers on. When everyone was assembled outside Dad locked the door with a finality that meant there was no turning back now. Of course I knew where the spare key was inside the outhouse but I was determined not to be the first one back to camp, unless I was dragging a buck. It was amazingly dark outside despite the few porch lights that glowed at the surrounding cabins. The further we walked up the hill and into the woods, the darker it got. The snow also got deeper as we walked out from under the large hemlock tree in the front yard. It had snowed several inches the night before but we hadn’t seen it out the window because of the tree. I hoped my galoshes would be high enough. Our flashlights picked up a light snow that continued to drift to the ground as we went.

We normally took the path of least resistance to our stands early in the morning – an abandoned oil well road that angled up the side of the mountain. Johnny dropped off on his stand first. He had chosen a spot about mid-mountain. I separated from my father near the top of the mountain. The day before I had purposely laid a log across the path so I would know where to head up hill. In my naïve youth I had actually made an arrow out of the log and two branches but the branches were covered with snow. Dad would take the roadway a thousand yards or so on ahead and be close enough if I needed him. I struggled to climb what seemed to be straight up through the snow-covered leaves. I was pleasantly surprised how warm the air felt as I clawed my way up the hill. I was actually toasty. Not much to this deer hunting in the cold business! That is, not until I made it to my prepared stand and sat down for a couple minutes. All that sweat I had worked up was now ice. This was going to be a miserable experience unless I could find a place out of the wind and snow.

My stand was right on the edge of the hillside where I had a great, fairly open view of the terrain below. To my back was a mountain laurel thicket. I couldn’t seen into it but I had figured if deer got pushed off the top I’d hear them coming through it in time to turn for a shot. The good news was that the thicket acted as a windbreak. I sat down under a large hemlock that had already kept most of the snow from reaching the forest floor. I hoped it would continue to do so throughout the day. I pulled my scarf up over my face and tried to shrink myself down inside my various clothing layers for warmth. It was about 6:30 and I had about a half hour to contemplate my surroundings before the season started. I would do my very best to stay here all day. I had heard that the most successful hunters did that. If they were in a good spot along traveled deer trails it was sure that, at some point, a buck would happen by. I had also heard all the stories of hunters who had just moved to a new location when a whole herd of deer ran past their previous stand.

I was amazed at the way sound carried up the mountain from the valley below. In the early morning quiet of my perch I could hear the Tionesta Creek babbling through its various riffles. I could hear the traffic picking up on the road where few, if any, cars were headed to work but late rising hunters were driving to their stands. And even though it was well before there was enough light to shoot I heard the muffled sound of a distant high powered rifle. I wondered if someone had stumbled on a deer in the dark, tripped and shot themselves, or were just smarting off. Likely the latter.

All was quiet around my stand save for the random cracking of the trees as they were stressed by the cold and wind. As dawn approached though, the woods began to come alive. Chickadees flitted and scampered around in the snow looking for seeds. A large black squirrel (a color phase of the gray squirrel) haltingly emerged from a nest high in an oak tree and darted down the trunk to begin its pre-winter search for nuts. About 30 yards away my eye picked up some movement along the ground. It is so much easier to spot an animal moving when there is the contrast that a blanket of snow offers. I have always preferred to hunt almost anything when there is snow. I pulled up my rifle to view through the scope a porcupine coming directly toward me. It waddled along slowly and purposely in the pre-dawn light. As it drew closer it resembled a steelworker who had just punched out and was returning home from the midnight shift. I could imagine a lunch pail under his arm. It turned out that “home” to this porky was under a boulder about ten feet behind me. He shuffled past me by about five feet and disappeared into his den under the rock. It was interesting to see him up close and I was impressed that I was able to be still so as not to spook him at that range.

All of a sudden the hemlock branches above seemed to explode, showering me with a blanket of snow they had held. It seems a wild turkey was roosting about 20 feet above my head. I am not sure if the porcupine startled it or it was just time to get up and fly away. It scared me to death and I had no idea what had happened until I saw the dark form of the turkey in the distance as it fixed its wings and glided into the valley below. My heart was pounding now but at least I no longer felt the cold. It was turning out to be a great morning in the snowy woods of the Allegheny Plateau! Now all I needed was a buck to wake up. I wouldn’t have to wait long.

As 7:00 rolled around I began to hear more and more shooting in the distance but nothing close by. At 7:30 I heard a shot from the valley to my left. I thought there was a good chance it might be my brother. It ran through my mind briefly that I should walk down the hill to see if it was indeed him. After all if he had shot a deer he’d need help to gut it out. I could use the experience as all I knew about the procedure was what I had read in a Field and Stream magazine the night before. Not only that but a walk down the hill would get me warmed up which I certainly needed about then. I fought the urge to move remembering what I had heard about the real hunters who stayed still all day. I determined that I would stay put for at least another half hour.

It was almost 8:00 when I heard a close shot on top of the mountain behind me. Then shortly thereafter a noise in the laurel thicket to my back. It sounded like more than just a porcupine. Dad had taught me not to move my body when a deer was close at hand but just to move my eyes in my head. That was going to be tough as whatever was making the noise was directly behind me. I determined I would try to remain motionless until it moved far enough to my left that I could catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. It was certainly sounding a lot like a deer at this point. I couldn’t wait any longer and turned my head ever so slowly to see if I could see it. As I did the noise stopped. My heart was racing. Had I spooked my first chance of the day? I strained my eyes as far left as they would go and caught the brown form of a fairly large deer against the green of the leaves and the white of the snow. It was about 25 yards away and still in the thicket. Was it a buck? I noticed that it was cautiously sampling the breeze which, to my advantage, was coming toward me. It turned its gaze away just enough for me to move my rifle to my shoulder and squint into the scope. “Damn,” I thought, as my scope looked like a snow bank. I realized that I hadn’t checked the scope after the turkey dumped a ton of snow down on it. I couldn’t see a thing.

I gradually lowered my gaze to the iron sights beneath the scope. Now if the deer would just lower its head a little I would be able to see if there were antlers atop. It seemed like a long time but in just a few seconds he did just that and I saw what I felt sure were two points. It looked like a half rack – the two points on the other side might have been broken off. I had to be sure what I was seeing were really antlers. There would be nothing more embarrassing than shooting a doe in buck season – your first buck season. I imagined that the deer could surely hear my heart pounding in my chest. That was about all I could hear in my ears. I thought I would ease the hammer back on the Marlin 30-30 just in case I needed to shoot. When the hammer made an audible click the buck looked directly at me and those two right side antlers were as plain as day. That look my way was part of a single fluid motion that included a leap over a laurel bush and back into the thicket. All I saw disappearing into the laurel was its tail. Sadly though I also could see that it was limping badly. It appeared that the shot I had heard had wounded it, probably a front leg. I was crushed! Not only had I missed my shot but a chance to put the animal out of its misery. I imagined that it would probably now die a slow, agonizing death.

Disgusted, I got up and walked over to where the deer had stood. It felt good to move and I shuffled my feet to get some circulation back in them. My fears were realized when I saw small drops of blood in the snow beside the tracks. My first inclination was to track the deer to see if I could come up on it again. As I gazed into the tangle of laurel stems I realized that might be impossible. There were a number of tracks that all seemed to run together. I could easily get turned around and lost in the laurel as well. Dejected, I returned to my seat to replay in my mind all the mistakes I had made during the first few hours of my deer hunting career. About an hour later I decided I was not going to be one of those professionals who could stay in the same place all day. At 9:00 I began to retrace my steps down the hill to find my father. I was anxious to tell him about the morning’s activities but a little embarrassed to detail the mistakes I’d made. However, I knew he’d understand. He always did. That’s why I loved him so. I knew he’d give me that classic line of his, “It’s ok to make mistakes as long as you learn from them.” Throughout my life that advice would apply to girls, school, sports, car wrecks, work, family relationships, raising kids – life in general. He was a wise man!

I was glad to see Dad and he was glad to see me. I knew he had wanted to give me a chance to hunt on my own but it seemed he really was glad to spend the rest of the day hunting together. That’s what we did. We would sit awhile and then walk awhile. I related my story in great detail as we sat and talked. Dad also felt bad about the wounded buck with the broken antler. We saw some deer but no more bucks. By dark we worked our way back to the oil road that led back to camp. On the way we passed Camp Dot and saw the Polocks hanging several bucks on the pole they had placed between two trees. It always burned me up to see their success. Dad was always congenial with them and stopped to admire their deer. He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a buck with just two points on the right side and the left broken off. “Does that one look familiar?” he said. It certainly did. I mustered enough courage to ask the Polock stringing it up if it had been wounded before he finished it. “How’d you know,” he said, as he pointed to a left front leg broken by a previous bullet. “Shot it over on the back side of the mountain about 9:30 this morning.” I felt as though the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. The deer hadn’t suffered for long. I supposed that even Michigan Polocks can serve some useful purpose.

When we got back to camp Johnny was already there. He hadn’t had any success either but he had been inside reading a book all afternoon and kept the fire going. The camp felt so warm inside. Dad looked out at the thermometer again and said matter-of-factly, “I thought it felt cold out there. It’s one below.” There was no time for a fancy supper that night. We had to get packed up and get on our way home. Dad had to work the next day and we had to go back to school. We ate some chili and corn bread and went through the normal pack-up and camp shut-down routine. We were in the car by 8 PM and the traffic seemed just about as busy as it was on Saturday. The heater in the big ’64 Impala felt great and I was curled up asleep in the backseat before we were five miles down the road. The next day at school I would compare detailed notes with my buddies about their hunting trips. It had been quite a day - one to learn from and one to remember!

FLY FISHING AT LAKE ARTHUR

In the late 1950s and early 1960s the State of Pennsylvania undertook plans to build a new state park in Butler County on land that had been devastated by strip-mining for shallow soft coal. In those days there were no environmental regulations that mandated restoration of, or mitigation for strip-mined lands. When regulations did come, the fines were far less than restoration costs. Under a program called “Operation Scarlift” the state purchased over 4,000 acres of land in central Butler County and began to build a dam that would back up Muddy Creek into what would be called Lake Arthur. The lake would be surrounded by Moraine State Park. The name came from the fact that this area was known as the terminal moraine from the glaciers of the last ice age.

My family didn’t give much thought to this process until the dam was built and the lake actually began to form. It was; however, a big deal to those whose land was being acquired through the eminent domain process. It was a pretty controversial project to say the least and I can recall the rumors that Irene Moniot (a fifth grade heartthrob) would have to move away if the family farm was taken. PA route 422 had to be relocated and I remember after its completion the family took a drive down old 422 as far as possible until it entered the fledgling lake. Nowadays there would be roadblocks miles in advance but back then you could just drive up to the edge of the lake to see the water coming up higher and higher by the day. I remember vividly seeing small bluegills swimming in the shallow water over the pavement. You could still see the yellow lines down the middle of the three-lane highway. (Route 422 had been known to have a “suicide lane” in the middle. Traffic going in both directions could use this single lane to pass, which resulted in many head-on collisions.)

As Christmas approached in 1965 I dreamed what it would be like to become a fly fisherman. I had seen Gadabout Gaddis and Curt Gowdy wielding their fly rods in exotic locales on TV and it seemed almost the sport of kings to me. Something that only the elite took part in. Fly fishing equipment has always been expensive, especially compared to the cheap spin casting tackle I used. The rod was the highest priced item but then there was the reel, the fly line, leader material, and the wide variety of flies needed. Since fly fishermen mostly waded for their quarry a pair of waders were a necessity. That meant you had to keep all your gear in a fishing vest (I was used to carrying a metal tackle box around). The pros wouldn’t be caught dead without a small net hanging over their back and a wicker creel on their side. Becoming a fly fisherman would certainly be an economic burden for someone who mowed lawns for a living. These days I am sure there are families that might shell out the dough necessary to outfit their child for the sport but that was not the case in the 1960s, and definitely not so in the Fleeger family. Like Ralphy on the classic movie, “The Christmas Story”, I had my heart set on a fly rod (instead of a Red Ryder BB gun) for Christmas. I thought I could pick up the remaining items over a period of time if the major investment was out of the way.

Neither of my folks knew anything about fishing, let along fly fishing. They didn’t have a clue what I wanted so Mom took me to the K-Mart in Butler to look at rods one day after school. (This was because any specialty sporting goods store that might have a fly rod would be way out of our price range.) Now the K-Mart did not have a great selection of fly rods but they did have one that fit our budget – I think it was around $10. If you figure that a nice car cost about $2,000 in those days that might equate to $100 today. This rod was a white Shakespeare fiberglass model with black and red trim. I had heard about the Shakespeare brand in fishing gear but never dreamed I would own any. Mom looked it over and said, “I don’t know, that’s a lot of money for a fishing rod.” I agreed but countered with the fact that it was a Shakespeare and would probably last a lifetime. After all it was made of fiberglass, which was sort of a miracle material in those days (they made Corvettes from it for Pete’s sake). My frugal folks loved that sort of reasoning. Mom seemed pleased that I had picked up on the longevity ethic. “We’ll have to think about it,” she said. My parents’ standard answer when neither yes nor no were appropriate was to think about it. “We’ll see,” was my dad’s favorite. So we left the store without making a purchase – not that I had expected Mom to say, “Of this one looks fine, let’s take it.” That wasn’t the way she did business. I was just pleased that the seed had been planted and she knew what I wanted.

At fifteen I was not the kind of kid to snoop around the house before Christmas looking for presents. I sort of enjoyed being surprised and hated being disappointed. I could wait for Christmas morning for either. When the big day arrived that year there was no obvious fishing rod wrapped up under the tree but I didn’t expect that Mom would go to that trouble. Once again as in the classic movie, I figured my dad might say something like, “Tommy why don’t you check behind the couch to see if there’s anything else for you.” He didn’t. He just slipped out, went downstairs, and came back with my fly rod in his hand. “I hope this is the one,” he said. I was tickled to death and my folks knew they had done well. I put the two-piece rod together to form its eight-foot length and began to whip it up and down with a quick wrist motion. No spin-casting rod had ever felt this limber. I knew that even the lightest bluegill would be a ball to land with this rod.

In Pennsylvania there are only ice fishing opportunities in December so I had several months to undertake my accumulation of fly fishing accessories. On an early January trip back to K-Mart for some exchanges I purchased a cheap fly reel, some fly line, and a leader. I was surprised that I was able to buy a Phlueger reel for less than $4. After all this was the preferred brand in our household and I now had two Phlueger reels. There wasn’t much to this reel - certainly not the automatic kind that Dan Birnley had gotten for Christmas, but it met my needs. It seemed as though the pros on TV used a manual reel anyway. Now I had all I needed to begin practicing fly casting in the backyard. I didn’t know any fly fishermen who could teach me and I didn’t have any sort of manual to go by. I just tried to emulate the pros I watched every Saturday on TV. I made lots of mistakes - for instance I wondered why I kept snapping the fly right off the leader with my “buggy whip” type of action. I never did become a really accomplished fly fisherman; however, in my mind I was Kurt Gowdy (cowboy hat and all) on the prowl for steelhead.

When the mid-April opening of trout season rolled around I was far from ready to compete with the “pros” on Pennsylvania’s streams. I didn’t have the money to buy the necessary flies, waders, vest, or net yet and there was no way I could trust my home-grown casting technique around other fishermen. I chose instead to stick with my spin-casting equipment on the Tionesta Creek that year. This gave me an opportunity to observe the various casting techniques of others. I vowed to be ready for the following year.

By the time summer rolled around the stars began to align for my fledgling fly fishing career. First I got my drivers license which enabled me to fish more water than just ponds within bicycle range. Next I attended the Butler County Conservation School, in which I learned some real world fly fishing lessons from guys who knew what they were doing. And finally, the Lake Arthur project was completed and seemed to be chock full of good-sized bluegills. This would be the perfect place to test my skills with an inexpensive popper ($1.89 per dozen at K-Mart). Wading would not be required as there was little vegetation around the shoreline to worry about on my back-cast. Plus the fishing pressure was nil as the real fishermen were waiting for the bass to grow. That meant I could be alone to experiment without embarrassment. I couldn’t wait to get out there.

It was mid-August before I could convince Mom to let me drive out to the lake by myself. I promised that I would take the back roads to avoid traffic. I worked my way out West Liberty Road, turned right toward Porterville and followed the signs to the marina. I had heard about a small embayment just south of the marina that provided easy access for shore fishing. I found a wide spot in the road where I wouldn’t risk rubbing the car against any brush (Dad would have had a fit should that happen). I took a fairly well worn path to the lakeshore and noticed all the telltale signs of “slob fishermen”. I don’t know why some fishermen have to be so slovenly but it seems that few take any of their garbage home with them. The lakeshore was littered with cottage cheese containers (perfect for worm storage), plastic hook packages, and beer bottles. The good news was that none of the slobs were still there. I had the place to myself.

I tied on a small yellow-headed popper with red and yellow tail feathers. It looked nice to me but I had no idea how it might look to the fish. From my days of improvised popper use with a spin casting outfit I knew how to present the bait to prime bluegill cover. I was amazed how much easier it was with my new fly rod. I could reach out to three or four times the distance. I was surprised how much vegetative cover there was in the relatively new body of water – cattails around the edges and even a few lily pads. I knew the fish would be hanging close to this vegetation and I was right. My first few casts produced bluegills about five inches in length. Not big but I was pleased how they felt on the limber fly rod. These bluegills were real fighters on this light tackle. I struggled at first with the concept of reeling with my left hand. I was used to reeling with my right hand while I held my spin-casting rod with my left. This was great practice and I was being productive. If I didn’t get a strike when the popper hit the water I usually got one after the first or second twitch. I was having a ball.

I noticed a few small bass mixed in with the bluegills but none seemed too interested in my popper. I knew there wouldn’t be many large bass in the lake yet. I was sure that the Fish Commission had only stocked smaller fish. The only large bass in the lake would be existing fish from the lake’s source – Muddy Creek. It was such a small stream I doubted that it would have held many large fish – perhaps some big carp. I hadn’t brought my spin-casting gear along for this very reason. I wanted to concentrate on my fly casting technique. I was pleased that there was no land-side vegetation to catch my popper on the back cast. I looked over my shoulder on each cast to follow the bug as it arched through the air at the end of the leader. It certainly wasn’t how Curt Gowdy did it but, to me, it was poetry in motion. I was getting almost as much satisfaction out of a well-placed cast as I was catching fish. The good news was that a good cast normally resulted in a good fish.

The more I practiced the farther my popper went. My goal was a group of dead saplings that the dozer had missed when clearing the lake bottom. They were probably 40 to 50 feet from my position. Once my popper actually lit in the trees and I immediately pulled it back so it wouldn’t snag. The perfect cast would be just a little shorter. Now it can be said that any fisherman feels like the big fish are always just out of reach. That’s why they drown trying to wade out just a little farther. I was in no danger of getting wet but I strained on the shore as much as possible to reach my goal. Finally, the perfect cast – the popper at the end of the leader at the end of the fly line made the perfect arch and I reached the rod out parallel to the water just right to see it plop onto the surface not a foot from the end of the brush. I was proud of myself and expected a strike to come immediately. I waited a few seconds and then lifted the rod about a foot to cause the popper to twitch. I saw the boil on the surface and the bug disappear while the rod bent noticeably more than before. This was a larger fish. Perhaps one of the small bass. I raised my rod hand to shoulder height to assure the fish didn’t go back into the trees. It broke the surface and I could see that it was a bluegill of almost nine inches – easily the biggest fish so far. What a fight it was putting up on my new rod. I was enjoying this battle that, on heavy tackle would have meant just reeling the fish to shore.

After just a few minutes of playing the big bluegill I had it about half way in. I was in no hurry but the fish was starting to tire of this fight. There was still tension on the line as the fish struggled for the lake bottom when all of a sudden my rod doubled over and almost pulled out of my grip. I couldn’t figure out what in the world had happened but it seemed my bluegill had instantly gained five pounds. He headed for deeper water, stripping fly line off my reel at an amazing rate. I was baffled by this turn of events but soon came to the realization that the only possible explanation was that a larger fish (a much larger one) had eaten my bluegill and was now at the end of my line. It felt like a big carp but I couldn’t imagine any carp’s mouth being large enough to ingest an 8 or 9 inch bluegill. For that matter I had never seen any fish that might eat a bluegill of that size. Whatever it was it was heading for that bunch of saplings and I was determined not to let it make them. I strained on the rod and tried to reel in a little line. I managed to turn the fish but now it was headed toward the deepest part of the lake. Once again the reel sang as line stripped from it. I was in unexplored territory. Never had I hooked a fish with the power to make such a run. I didn’t know what to do but I figured I better try to halt it before it came to the end of my line. As I pulled up on the rod it bent double. I thought it might break and began to actually hope that the line broke before the rod did. The miracle of fiberglass – the rod performed as intended and I was able to once again gain some control. I pulled back on the rod and then reeled in the slack, then repeated the procedure as I had seen Gadabout Gaddis do while landing a bonefish in the Florida Keys. I was actually making progress and the fish was coming to me. My panic was gradually being replaced by pleasure. I was starting to enjoy this fight. The fish began to come off the bottom and suddenly, as I pulled back hard on the rod he broke the surface. I couldn’t believe my eyes – it was a largemouth bass! I swear it was at least the size of the one Clem Smoot had caught at Cooper’s Lake years before. Now I became determined to land this fish. My name was going down in the local annals right next to Clem’s for big bass prowess.

The leap seemed to provide the bass with renewed energy. It was as though he saw his competitor face to face and became just as determined that my name would not be next to Clem’s (not to mention that he would not wind up as supper – like Clem’s fish did). He made another run for deep water but I now had at least a few minutes more experience and turned him quickly. My arms were actually starting to tire. Something I had never felt while fishing. It seemed as though this fight was lasting a long time although I’m sure it was much more brief than I imagined. One more time I could feel the bass head for the surface. It was a spectacular leap a few feet into the air. At the height of his jump he shook his head and in a split second I saw two fish – the bluegill still attached to my line and the big bass that had just spit it out. My rod went limp as the big bass hit the water with a loud kerplunk. The bluegill lay crippled on the surface, swimming in slow circles. I quickly reeled it in for a close examination. It was pretty well chewed up and the tail was almost completely gone. I thought about taking it home with me to back up a story that I figured nobody would believe but I threw it over my shoulder into the weeds for raccoon food.

I pulled out my pipe and put my rod down beside me, laying back in the grass to savor the moment. I had actually hooked a large fish on a fly rod (albeit by accident). It was almost as though I had become a real fisherman that day. I had driven to the lake by myself. Johnny hadn’t been by my side to coach me. I just sort of wished that someone had been there to witness my fight with the bass.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hooking bluegills and playing them around the lake where I thought the big bass might hang out – just in case he was still hungry. Of course to no avail. That bass didn’t get that big by being stupid enough to eat an already hooked bluegill twice. I kept replaying the fight in my mind, wondering if I could have done anything different to land the fish. I supposed that since my popper never actually hooked the bass (only the bluegill) all he had to do was spit out the smaller fish.

When I got home Mom had all sorts of questions about how I did driving the car out to the lake. All I wanted to talk about was my unique experience with the big bass. She didn’t have a clue what I was talking about but tried to sound impressed because I was so excited. Dad and Johnny came home from work at the dealership about 5:30 and I couldn’t wait to tell them the story. Dad just nodded as he read the Butler Eagle. I should have known that it made sense to Johnny. The voracious reader that he was, he had read about such things happening but mainly in saltwater environments. He actually believed my story. I wasn’t so lucky when I got together with my fishing buddies after supper. They howled with laughter and said that was the biggest fish story they’d ever heard.

It took until I was 57 years old and fishing our community pond in Texas before I finally landed a bass as big as the one I hooked that day at sixteen. It was taken on a medium weight spinning rod and certainly didn’t feel as big as the one on the fly rod. That day at Lake Arthur was the first of many enjoyable ones with a fly rod in my hand. How I miss those carefree times when the only worry was being home before supper.