This week was the first week I ever hunted out of state. Over the weekend I made the trek down to Pennsylvania in a suburb outside of Philadelphia to do some small game hunting. On the target list for this weekend was squirrels and doves. Which I have never hunted doves before so it was going to be interesting to see how it would all play out. The trip started on Friday afternoon when I got out of work. Packed the car, grabbed some grub, and hit the road. It was about a five-hour drive which for me is not that bad of a drive. I reached my buddies place around 10:30 pm. Two weeks before this I harvested a mature doe and the same day my buddy harvested his first buck down in PA. Both of these deer were the first deer we ever harvested, so we cracked some beers and got to swapping stories. After a couple of hours and a couple of beers, we finally made a game plan for the following day. We’d be up bright and early so I could get my PA license.
The day could not have started any better. Up bright and early to the sound of eggs and venison steaks cooking and the smell of brewing coffee. The venison was from the buck he had just harvested and it was freaking delicious. After the morning feast, we headed out so I could get my out of state license. We hit up the local dicks so I could also grab some small game loads as well. One thing that shocked me was that we were at the third largest mall in America and the dicks sporting goods inside didn’t sell any squirrel calls, which I thought was ridiculous. I got my license and I got my ammo and we hit the road for the dove fields.
One thing that I came to learn that was pretty interesting was that in Pennsylvania you have to get a migratory birds license to hunt doves. Which I didn’t even know that doves were a migratory bird. I also came to learn that Pennsylvania has an extensive operation to help keep dove populations up. Due to this, the have a plethora of managed dove fields that are managed by the state. I have never seen anything like this in New York for doves. The closest thing I have seen to this is managed pheasant fields. However, most of those fields are just stocked regardless.
When we got to the fields some junior hunters were making their way out of the woods. Today was the opening day for junior pheasant hunters and they came out with a bunch of pheasants and a couple of squirrels. It was awesome seeing some young hunters out there and that really amped me up for our hunt. My buddy got some intel on a good spot to check out so we headed that way. I have never dove hunted before and I didn’t even know you could put out decoys for doves. My buddy got the spinner out and a couple of other decoys and we started waiting. Every time we would see a bird I’d shoulder my gun and the same thing happened every time. Tweety bird. After about an hour of no doves, we called it quits and started looking for squirrels.
Right away we stumbled onto a squirrel but scared him right up a tree by some other hunters that emerged through the thick brush. They seemed to be on a squirrel to so we backed out and headed elsewhere. We wanted a spot on our own so we decided to jump ship and head elsewhere. After a much-needed protein cookie, we hit the woods to find some squirrels. The second we hit the woods and looked up all we could see was tree stands. It looked like the tree stand aisle at field and stream just one, after another. We kept walking, and walking, and walking, and walking. No squirrels. We jumped over to the other side of the road and covered every inch of woods on that side of the road and just kept on keeping on. Optimism was still through the roof for us even though it was getting later in the day. The section of woods we were in, was more thorns than woods. Slowly and meticulously we made our way through the thick shit into some more open ground.
Once we found a good open area we split up to just watch for a couple of minutes. Within two minutes of sitting down, a small buck walked right in front of me. Mind you we weren’t being that quiet and now I’ve seen as many bucks as squirrels for the day. As I watched that small buck strode away he spooked up six doves and by the time I processed those were doves rather than tweety birds it was too late. I guess that’s the way she goes though.
Finally, we heard a squirrel sound off. We surrounded the tree we knew it was in and glassed up every single branch on that tree. He kept sounded off as if he was laughing at us knowing that we wouldn’t find him. That’s exactly what happened. It was a long day we walked well over ten miles and only laid eyes on one squirrel all day. It was crazy to be bested by these little critters. That being said Pennsylvania got their money’s worth out of me. Forty bucks for a license and they got to keep all their squirrels and all their doves. Which I don’t mind, it was awesome to go small game hunting for the whole day. The optimism and positive attitudes that we had that day were unreal. We grinded it out for those squirrel’s, however now I have a bone to pick for PA small game hunting. I definitely will be going back.
-Colin Hickey
Leaky Waders 