CRUD!

[Brick]

Thin crust of ice on my little lake this morning and heavy frost on the grass. So for grins and giggles I got out the 1897 12 ga, put on my boots and orange vest and hat (with other appropriate clothes) and started to hike around my 35 acre woodlot. All I got out of it was sweaty and exercise. Saw two woodpeckers, two crows and one deer tail. Didn't even hear a red squirrel chattering, no grouse. I think the game commission has stopped releasing pheasant in game lands 140.

My forest seems pretty open, there are some beech thickets, but there's not a lot of underbrush and I have more raspberries and blackberries along my driveway than in the woods. The place was logged before I bought it 13 years ago, but second growth doesn't seem to catching up.

[heatheroo]

So.....you have 35 acres to hunt in peace.....and you are complaining? 🤔

[Brick]

Not really a complaint, well yes it is given the paucity of game in the area.

[Brick]

Well hunting might be a bust. But it sure is fun to watch the goings on around our little beaver pond/lake! Part of the reason we know winter is approaching is because Bald Eagles are stopping over for a snack I've seen 6 this week. This morning my wife was upset because she'd let our cocker spaniel out and there was a big eagle sitting in the maple at our yard's water edge. While she was yacking at me about that I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye on the lake and there was a quartet of otters gamboling about. They'd pop up through the thin ice on the surface, then try to cross the ice to another hole and dive back in. One came up with a fish in its mouth and tried to escape the others at top speed across the ice. Made for nice entertainment for a half-hour. Then I had to go clear the snow off our looong driveway.

[heatheroo]

Well hunting might be a bust. But it sure is fun to watch the goings on around our little beaver pond/lake! Part of the reason we know winter is approaching is because Bald Eagles are stopping over for a snack I've seen 6 this week. This morning my wife was upset because she'd let our cocker spaniel out and there was a big eagle sitting in the maple at our yard's water edge. While she was yacking at me about that I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye on the lake and there was a quartet of otters gamboling about. They'd pop up through the thin ice on the surface, then try to cross the ice to another hole and dive back in. One came up with a fish in its mouth and tried to escape the others at top speed across the ice. Made for nice entertainment for a half-hour. Then I had to go clear the snow off our looong driveway.

Nice! I have been wanting to see a PA otter but have not had the pleasure yet.

[Brick]

I'm pretty convinced these otters are regular residents in this lake. A trapper I hired a while ago to rid me of some nuisance beavers (outside of regular trapping season) told me he found an otter toilet, he explained that otters come ashore to defecate and use the same spot habitually. The only way I could see them traveling would be along the stream itself and we're pretty much the headwaters of a creek. The problem is they only appear once in a while. If I take the canoe out looking for them, they're never seen.

[gghbi]

can you set up a game camera to catch the otters in action?

BTW the post title is a bit off, other than the lack of game, what you are describing is anything but...

[Brick]

The critters are too far out on the lake to snap with a game camera. Maybe a good SLR with a nice 300mm or larger telephoto lens would do. BTW I'm pretty sure Bald Eagles and Otters are NOT included in PA's legal game list, though there is a season for trapping otters.

But to return to the subject of huntable GAME. Maybe PA should stop wasting time with exotic species that need lots of grain crops to survive, like pheasant. Pheasant did marvelously well in the rice paddies in Korea. Not so good in the mixed hardwood forests of NEPA! But what game birds exotic or otherwise would do well here? Bobwhite Quail? I guess they prefer a more open habitat and some grassland. How about Chukar Partridge? I know they've been successfully introduced in some Western States. I'd hate to see our native grouse replaced by them, but something seems to be depressing the grouse population.

[sota]

wish I had 35 acres all of my own.

[heatheroo]

wish I had 35 acres all of my own.

F’in A!