Trending
OUTDOORS: Young game warden on her own checks old-time hunter
By David Thompson
Even though only one game warden was assigned to the region that I was about to hunt on the first morning of dove season, Sept. 1, that officer showed up as I was walking away from my parked truck en route to the dove field.
Because the field was on state game land owned and managed by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, the warden's presence didn't catch me by surprise. What surprised me was that the warden was a lady. Actually, that didn't come as a shock since she had replaced the previous warden, who also was a woman. The previous warden had checked me three different times during past dove and pheasant hunting seasons.
The new warden appeared Sept. 1, driving a big SUV dark in color with "GAME WARDEN" printed on the passenger's side that I could see. When she approached within speaking distance, she asked to see my hunting license. I took off my backpack and camouflaged hunting coat and unpinned the license from the back of the coat and handed it to her. It took about 10 seconds for her to see that I had purchased the required migratory game bird license. That was all she wanted to know.
I asked her what had happened to the previous warden and learned she had been reassigned to a different region. The new warden had graduated from warden training school in February and was at her first assignment. She and the previous warden made me suspect that the game commission had found them at a modeling school. At six o'clock in the morning, the winsome replacement warden was wide awake and neatly dressed in uniform.
There were only two other pickups in the parking lot besides mine. The hunters who owned the two vehicles had beaten me to the dove field and had set up out there in the darkness before shooting time, which was 6:10 a.m. It was still fairly dark.
Being a Tuesday, a workday for many hunters and a school day for youngsters, the hunting day started with a small number of hunters in the field.
Having checked me, the warden drove west toward two shooting ranges. One range was for shooting handguns and the other for shooting rifles. Had she turned east, she would have headed toward the archery range. Checking shooters at ranges is part of her job.
Although most shooters at ranges are hunters, some people who own firearms do not hunt. They enjoy shooting for recreation or want to become proficient shooters for personal protection. (Shooting ranges for firearms open until 8 a.m., with archery ranges opening at dawn.)
Entering the dove field, I set up at what I thought was one of the best spots, based on having hunted there for three consecutive years. A hundred yards away, I saw another hunter's dove decoys, two having battery-operated wings that revolved to represent flying doves. The other decoys did not move and were on stakes stuck in the ground.
The fact that the hunter had purchased the decoys indicated he was an avid dove hunter. Most hunters don't own decoys and hunt by simply standing or sitting on stools at a place where doves are likely to fly. Where doves appear in small or large numbers, that simple way of watching while hunting is good enough.
The hunter with the decoys sat on a stool at the edge of high shrubs that somewhat concealed him. In front of him, where the decoys stood, game commission employees who plant, mow, had mowed the field, and maintain the game lands for wildlife and public hunting.
Just beyond the mowed strip of land stood large fields of foxtails. These wild plants, three feet high, have heads containing seeds that drop to the ground and are eaten by a variety of birds, including doves. I was disappointed not to see sunflowers, barley, oats, millet, wheat, or other grain at the state game land being managed in that area for dove hunting.
I waited there, holding my heavy 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun, watching for flying doves as the sun appeared in the east toward the Susquehanna River. I heard what I first thought were roosters crowing in someone's backyard chicken coop and then realized they could be ring-necked pheasants that had survived the previous hunting season and the cold winter. I hoped the crowing roosters were pheasants.
The first flying birds that appeared in the distance were three crows headed toward a place to either drink water or find breakfast in the fields. Why so few crows? On the other hand, a group of only three crows showed up in my backyard last week. Two of the three had been born during spring this year. They appeared to be nearly the size of their mother. They acted young by expecting her to locate food.
At eight o'clock, Sept.1, the hunter with the decoys fired his shotgun. I glanced in that direction and saw a dove drop into the field of foxtails in front of him. A while later, the same hunter shot once more. In the distance, two doves landed in a tree to perch. No doves flew where I stood even though it supposedly was a good location.
I was so eager to see a dove flying that when a dragonfly flew past 25 yards away; it looked at first like a dove. Funny as that sounds, my eyes started to play tricks after watching intently in all directions for two hours. Flying doves out in the country have a distinctive wing beat and appearance that can be recognized. Doves don't really resemble dragonflies.
I also spotted far away the contrail of a passenger jet under the faint outline of the moon in a light blue sky. When a hunter looks at the moon and a dragonfly, it is time to quit hunting and go home because too few doves are flying.
On my way home, I passed the rifle shooting range where the game warden was sitting in her big SUV. I had mentioned to her that the deputy game warden program ended that very day. She was well aware that she was on her own, as were the other wardens.
If she noticed when checking my license that it included "Pheasant Eligible," she won't bother checking me again when pheasant hunting opens Oct. 24. By then she'll look old and tired, the way wardens look as hunting seasons progress one after another once dove and Canada goose seasons open early in September.