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By VAN ROSE [email protected]
Tuesday, November 29, 2005     Page: 1A

David Powell sat in the woods for more than eight hours when his uncle
decided to call home to say they hadn’t seen a deer all day.
   
While Dan Powell was talking on his cell phone, 17-year-old David not only
saw a deer, but shot the 130-pound doe.
    Powell and his uncle were among thousands of hunters who took to the woods
Monday for the first day of Pennsylvania’s deer season.
   
As for many other avid hunters, it was the most anticipated day of the year
for Powell, a junior at Crestwood High School.
   
“I’ve loved deer hunting since I was 10,” said Powell, who shot his first
buck two years ago. “The adrenaline rush is hard to describe. It’s comparable
to riding my quad (ATV).”
   
Powell said he skipped school Monday to pursue his favorite pastime, but
the day got off to an inauspicious beginning. He and his uncle camped out on
top of Penobscot Mountain at 4 a.m., hoping to bag a deer at the first sight
of daylight.
   
However, eight hours passed without a deer in sight.
   
So, at 12:45 p.m., the two hunters moved to the bottom of Penobscot
Mountain and their luck quickly changed.
   
“We were sitting on top of a ravine ledge in a bunch of rocks,” said David
Powell of Dorrance. “All of a sudden, I spotted this doe. I shot it from about
75 yards away with a 30-ought-6 rifle. It fell right down. It had its kid with
it. I didn’t get a shot at it, but someone else felled it.”
   
After taking a short lunch break, he and his uncle returned to the woods in
search of a buck.
   
“I’ve still got a tag for a buck,” David said, “so I’ll be back out here
(today) if I don’t get one this afternoon.”
   
Pete Kachuk, 75, of Sugar Notch, also bagged a doe on opening day. Kachuk,
a retired construction worker, felled the 130-pound doe at close range in a
wooded area just off Honey Hole Road in Dennison Township about 8 a.m.
   
“I posted up at 6 a.m. and it was only two hours when a herd of five does
passed by,” Kachuk said. “I shot the leader with my 30-30 rifle.”
   
The rifle is near and dear to his heart. Kachuk, who has been an avid deer
hunter since age 16, has shot 28 deer with the gun. However, he wasn’t pleased
that he had to settle for shooting a doe Monday.
   
“It’s been 15 years since I got a buck,” he said.
   
Many hunters had to settle for the thrill of being in the woods.
   
Bill Ott, a Wilkes-Barre firefighter, started out at 6 a.m. with two
longtime hunting buddies but had no luck as of 2 p.m. Ott blamed his
misfortune in part on the unseasonably warm weather.
   
“Snow is more favorable, because you can see the (deer) tracks,” Ott said.
   
Phil Censulla, 62, of Harding, also came away empty-handed during the first
half of the day. He said the diminishing size of the local deer herd is making
it increasingly difficult to bag a buck.
   
“A big part of the problem is the shooting of so many doe in the past
couple of years,” Censulla said.
   
Paul Schott of West Hazleton has been a deer hunter for 20 years. It has
been three years since he shot a deer, but that didn’t take away from his
enthusiasm for the sport.
   
“Every year, I take a vacation the first week of deer-hunting season,”
Schott said. “I just enjoy getting out in the woods.”
   
Schott said he had a chance to bag a doe Monday, but passed it up. “She was
small, so I didn’t take a shot at her.”
   

Hunting accident
   
According to the state Game Commission office in Dallas, there was one
reported hunting accident in Northeastern Pennsylvania. An unidentified
juvenile from Monroe County was wounded and underwent surgery at the Lehigh
Valley Medical Center.
   
The juvenile’s condition was not believed to be life-threatening, a game
commission officer reported. No further details were available.
   
There were no major problems in Luzerne County, said David Allen, a game
warden. However, there were some minor violations, mostly involving baiting.
   
“We’ve already made three stops and each time we wrote up hunters for
baiting,” he said, referring to the placement of food to entrap the deer.
   
What do you think about deer season? Go to www.timesleader.com and
express your opinion.