The Pennsylvania Buck Season is in full swing and the opening week of the two-week season finds hunters dealing with unseasonably warm weather.

The buck harvest is predicted to be a bountiful one and maybe right up there in numbers equal to last years record numbers. The PA Game Commission accounts for the high deer numbers being due to a mild winter and plenty of food sources for the statewide deer herd.

The opening day of buck is the most active day of hunting for Pennsylvania hunters with hundreds of thousand hunters afield. At one-time, PA boasted a million hunters strong each year, but that number has fallen in recent years. It is still one of the strongest in the U.S.

Monday morning found me hunting in a favorite hunting location for the first day of buck.

I was carrying one of my long time favorite rifles, a Remington .270 caliber. I bought this rifle over 35 years ago and was one of the first of many to be part of my hunting rifle collection. I decided to take four of the rifles to the range and make sure that they were on the mark if I wanted to use them or change up a rifle for the hunting season.

After sighting in the rifles at the 100 yard targets, the .270 was dead center with my first shot. Right there I made my choice to take my oldest and most accurate rifle.

Each year I have a few visitors from out of town and we play hosts to hunters from Virginia, Michigan and eastern PA. They love hunting in western PA and marvel at the PA Game lands system.

None of their states have anything like what Pennsylvania has, and they have enjoyed the hospitality of western Pennsylvanians and their love of hunting, especially deer hunting.

Many of the non-residents join local sportsmen clubs, use local hotels and eat meals at local restaurants. This is like a small vacation away from work and pressures, and it does the fellows a lot of good. They don’t always do much in harvesting deer, but every year they get a chance and that is all they ask for.

This year one of the fellows bagged a dandy 8-point with a 20-inch spread. He had the deer processed locally and was congratulated by the locals who saw the buck in transport.

So far, this week I have seen plenty of deer, but mainly antlerless and a few small bucks.

Tuesday night I was dropping off my neighbor and on my way home saw a really nice buck slipping into the thick cover along the road. It appears that the bucks are still out there in the woodlands hiding out from us hunters. With a little luck we should be able to get a chance at a trophy buck and make this year one to remember.

There is over a week to go and from what I have seen there is plenty of room in the woods for a lot more hunters.

The PA bear season was off its normal mark as rainy weather dampened many of the hunter’s enthusiasm on the first day of the hunt.

PGC statistics indicate about a 30 percent decrease in the harvest for 2017 with 1,796 bears checked in during the 3-day hunt.

A couple of whopper bruins were taken in local counties though; Venango County resident Chad Wagner bagged a 700-pound bear in Oil Creek Township, Venango County, and Bo Bowser of Kittanning harvested a 601-pound bear in Valley Township, Armstrong County.

That’s a lot of bear to see out in the woods!

This summer I saw a mighty big bear in my yard and I know he wasn’t a 700-pound bear.

Bear meat is processed much like venison and can be frozen, smoked and canned with a pressure cooker. It looks dark in color and somewhat like pork when cooked. We cooked it for a game supper and made it two ways; roasted it with a recipe suggested by Canadian Chefs and made into sausage using Andouille Sausage Blend from Con Yeager Spices, a local company in Butler County. Believe it or not, both turned out exceptionally delicious and there were no leftovers.

If you like to hunt but have no taste for your venison, remember that there are programs at many participating meat processors to donate your deer. Ask the shops if they participate in a program that provides meat to food banks for the hungry or homeless meals. This effort is most likely one of the best ways to share your harvest for those that need it most!

Until we meet again wish me luck and I will try to keep on the trail of my 2017 deer!

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle