If You Ask Me / By Martha Knight

We never heard of archery season. There was bear season, then there was buck season, then, sometimes, doe season or a day or so of antlerless.

Hunters poured into the area from Ohio, from farther south. Some were referred to as flatlanders.

The hotels and motels had been booked far in advance, and so had most spare rooms. Many farm families “kept hunters.” We certainly did.

Ours had seen our ad in Pennsylvania Game News. The ad was quite clear about the kind of hunter we would welcome as guests. They must not drink alcoholic beverages in the house or afield. No loaded guns could be brought into the house. The one time we had a loaded hunter in our home, he remained less than an hour before he was sent down the road, refund in hand. He had been vouched for by an annual guest, who apologized profusely.

By the first night of buck, deer hung on a rack or line rigged in the front yard. We would see similar displays at homes all the way to town, and in some yards in town. The Canoe Place Inn had a deer display out in front. Many a hunter stood proudly by his buck while friends took photos.

The hunting cabins along county roads were full to bursting. Over at Uncle Orlo’s “summer home” there were Robbins family and friends. Up the private road Checky Caussain’s camp and Bucky Brundage’s Bucktail Lodge had the usual seasonal population.

As years went by some of our hunter-guest families got together to buy half-acre plots by the private road, and built cabins. Over the hill along the other branch of the Hamilton more camps sprouted, and former farm homes were repurposed.

Some Mennonites from Lancaster, Centre and Chester counties rented Lawyer McCoy’s camp down the road from us, and came up in hunting season. The put up a sign along the front, proclaiming that this was the Hamilton Hunting Club. They were friendly folks, and interested in the farming operations in this area. We began to rent the spare acreage from them. They used our farm gas pump, and left their key with us for safekeeping.

There had been no Mennonites living in this area, but soon the community welcomed several families, and then there was Birch Grove Mennonite Church.

Local farmers welcomed hunting and deer season, for the most part. It would help control the deer population. Deer were pests, and they ate much more of our crops and gardens than the value of the two “crop damage” deer Dad shot most years.

Deer could go about anywhere they wanted to. Fences were just exercise for them. They seldom came down into the yard, but were pretty bold about coming into the orchard, pastures and nearby cropland.

As fascinating as the deer were to watch, we had problems with them and could have done without all of them quite happily. They tore new seeding out of the ground, or chopped its roots to smithereens with their sharp hooves. In defense, Dad brought a bag of birdsfoot trefoil back from one of the farm tours to Midwestern states, and grew some for seed and then planted it for hay. The sturdy legume withstood deer forays, and now is widely on what farms remain.

Our experiment growing buckwheat was a disappointment, except to the bees and the deer. In spring does brought their fawns out to play merrily on the hillside plot. Then and all summer they ate their fill. Still they romped through the buckwheat, knocking off nearly all the grain. I don’t think we ever harvested enough to take to the feed mill.

The bad winter after Dad and I had planted 500 Norway spruce and 500 larch seedlings on the hillside of recently acquired land, and repeated partial thaws and freezes formed crust, deer cut their feet trying to paw through it to find some graze. They ate off the tops of all the spruce, killing every one. The larch were too toxic even for famished deer, so they were left alone. We took to calling that area Larch Acres.

Dad plowed paths to the woods and took some food to the deer when conditions were bad.  We approved of being hunted and killed by good hunters, who never let a wounded deer escape if they could possibly help it, and are capable of one-shot, clean kills. But we could not bear to let a wild creature starve to death.

In the years I lived in rural Western New York, I found that hunting was nearly as active there. There were lots of whitetails. Police told me the influx of hunters was about 10,000.

We called them “Buffalo hunters,” because so many of them came from there. It seemed as if a great number came for sport other than hunting, hanging out in bars. There were hunting accidents, road accidents, dogs and cattle and horses shot by mistake. Police and game wardens were kept busy.

There and here, things are very different now. We are told deer are fewer. Certainly hunters are. Many property owners have closed their land to hunters. NO HUNTING and NO TRESPASSING signs sprout along the roadways.

What are more numerous by far are Ixodes scapularis, the primary vectors for Lyme disease. The 14,000 or so cases of Lyme reported a year likely are a fraction of the actual cases, because the Lyme spirochete can cause diseases that masquerade as rheumatoid arthritis, flu, chronic migraine and various neurological disorders.

Winter hunters may not be at serious risk of encountering deer ticks, but our region is infested throughout spring, summer and much of fall. Hiking, fishing and other outdoor pastimes now have that downside.

A few years ago the hills would have been alive with the sound of rifle fire. I have heard very few shots all week. I did Google Tom Lehrer and “The Hunting Song” and listen for old time’s sake. Time was, it was no exaggeration.

Peace.