Wow, it’s been a long time since my last field journal entry. The reason for this is simply that there hasn’t been much to write about since my last entry on setting up stands.

Last Saturday, I headed to Clarion County for my last archery hunt of the ’07 season. It was my final hunt because, like several years past, I had plans to leave for Colorado for an elk hunt the first week of November and would miss the final two weeks of the season. It’s always a tough decision to leave the state during the peak of the rut, but I’ve always believed that I should never pass up a chance to hunt the western states if the opportunity arises.

Along with our yellow lab, Drake, we have a 5 year old German Shorthair Pointer named Molly. Molly loves to upland bird hunt and her athletic ability and nose are astounding! With the PA season opener of pheasant approaching we wanted to get Molly out a little more and decided to take her waterfowl hunting with us the week of duck season. As every dog owner knows the best training for a dog is in the field. Plus it helps with stamina and exposure. On this particular day, it became one of a dog owner’s worst-case scenarios.

I’m sure most of you will agree that the cooler weather at the end of last week was a welcome change from the scorching heat of opening week. Lately, the temperatures have started to feel like it’s actually October instead of July. The cold nights have deer activity on the rise, and in my neck of the woods, rubs and scrapes have been popping up everywhere.

The PSP has big news! I will be going to hunt with Medalist, Mossy Oak, Lacrosse Boots and Xtreme Outdoors on this November 6-11 at the ENON Plantation in Alabama. The hunts will all be filmed by Xtreme Outdoors with the possibility of appearing on television or in the Xtreme Whitetails DVD series.

The title of this journal entry is appropriate for a couple of reasons. First, and foremost, the opening week of the 2007 archery season was WICKED HOT! As most of you know, it was almost impossible to do any hunting without working up a major sweat. Over the past week, I spent most of my time afield perched near a woodland pond close to some white oaks that were dropping heavily. I was hoping to catch the deer heading to the pond for a drink before they fed on the abundant acorns.

By Teresa Patterson, Holidaysburg, PA

The early Canada goose season opener on September 1, 2007 being on a Saturday gave many waterfowl hunters the opportunity to head afield and allowed hunting to continue on Monday the 3rd due to the Labor Day holiday. Being and avid waterfowl hunter and having to return to work on Tuesday the 4th was excruciating. I sat at my desk with memories of the past weekend hunts and visions of what was to come. Watching the clock closely and waiting the time of my early departure, which I thought, would never get there.

By Joshua Butz, Macungie, Pennsylvania
I harvested my first squirrel with a bow on Nov. 10, 2007. My cousin Jake and I were hunting at our cabin, “Butz Lodge” in Luzerne County. He was looking for turkey, I was looking for deer.

By Shane Mihalko, Freedom, Pennsylvania
My property isn’t very large. In fact it’s quite minuscule. I usually hunt this property and the surrounding property a good bit during archery season, but I had a different plan for this year. One, that proved to make my season all that more enjoyable. I timbered a lot of trees early last year with the hopes of creating some better cover and creating more opportunities for the deer to have a selection of good browse more readily available. I planted several small food plots all within one-hundred yards of each other.