I took a walk last Saturday morning, in southern Butler county, to scout for turkey and deer and decided to take a rifle and a predator call.

I have been fortunate to tag several turkeys using a shotgun, but until last spring, I had never been able to harvest one with a bow. It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried. I’d had at least three different birds within bow range, but they all had spotted the movement during my draw and flushed before I could get a shot. This hunt would be different as I had learned from my past mistakes.

Although my wife, Kim, sometimes resents the amount of time I spend afield, she has also always been curious about the apparent excitement that keeps me heading for the woods each year. I offered to take her along on several hunts, and she agreed to be an observer on a few small game outings. Those hunts seemed to lack the excitement she was hoping to experience, so she declared that she’d like to try a deer hunt during the upcoming season. I was anxious to encourage her, so that summer we spent a lot of time preparing for the hunt. By the time the leaves began to fall, she had become very proficient with the .243 that I had also used on my first deer hunt.

By Bob Horst, Pine Grove, PA
My co-worker and friend Bill Wilgus and I booked a hunting trip for July 2007 to Namibia located on the southwest coast of Africa. We were hunting for African Plains game: Kudu, Oryx, Impala, Zebra, and Springbuck. We left Dulles International airport 5:30 PM Monday and arrived at 3:30 PM in Johannesburg, South Africa on Tuesday. From there we took a flight to Windhoek, capitol of Namibia, where our PH (Professional Hunter) met us and drive us to his game farm about 2 hours away.

By David Weckerly, Knox, Pennsylvania
The 2006 archery season started like many others in the past. Even though for me there is really no off season when it comes to bowhunting, the concerted activities began in late July and continued through September with preseason scouting walks in the woods looking for deer sign, setting up trail cameras, and keeping the archery skills honed. All the while the anticipation growing on what the upcoming season would bring. Something about walking an oak flat in late September looking for that not-so-used trail the mature bucks will use in the low light hours makes by blood boil with excitement. I had also raised the bar on myself and set a goal of harvesting my best buck ever in PA with a bow, which brought with it another element of mental preparation.

By Andy Traister, Knox, PA
On the first Monday of the 2006 bear season I sat at work wondering how my buddies were doing up at Port Allegany. Usually, I get to go up and hunt up there, but this year I had to work. I work in an Alternative Education program and we decided to take a field trip to the Marienville check station. Bears were getting brought in and I was sitting there wishing I was in the woods.

By Frank Litavish, Altoona, Pennsylvania
Well this story has to start from a night of fox hunting when my friend Bob’s son scared a bunch of turkeys out of a tree near Altoona where I hunt, and I got the idea to come back in the spring and see what is around. I went back many times right before season and watched this big guy, 3-4 jakes and a smaller gobbler. There where around 3 to 5 hens with him every day I hunted him this year.

I was fortunate to take this grouse during a whitetail hunt in Clarion County last October. While carefully scanning the brush for deer, I spotted the grouse on a low-lying limb. Luckily, there was a large enough opening in the tangle of branches to get a clear shot.