Butler County had 86,000 doe licenses available in WMU 2D and 46,000 doe licenses in WMU 1A for the 2023 hunting seasons alone. That’s quite a large amount of deer hunting taking place in our area of the commonwealth.

I looked at the PGC website for antlerless deer and saw that over 27,000 licenses were still available to hunters. Our family enjoys venison and even with a reasonable amount of venison dinners, we find that one deer meets our needs. What I would like to know is what many hunters might do with their extra deer harvest?

This question ties into some recent news articles about food insecurities and the number of families that are relying on food banks and kitchens provided by churches and other groups for hungry people in our county.

Eleven percent of families in our county do not know where their next meal will come from each week and in this country that is nothing but shameful. We are a country of bountiful resources and generous people and among those I count our hunting fraternity. I met a man named Tom Rossman who coordinates the Hunters Sharing the Harvest Program, which is a 501c non-profit program that accepts deer donated by hunters and sees that it gets to food banks and free meal sites across Butler County.

According to HSH, one deer will provide 200 servings of protein for meals and $25 donated will assist with 100 meals. Local hunters, local deer, local meat processors and local hungry people equal a win for all of us. Take the time to explore the HSH program and for all of you hunters who haven’t had a reason to harvest a deer, I am personally giving you a goal to do so for the food-insecure of our area. To contact the Hunters Sharing the Harvest, visit www.sharedeer.org or call 866-474-2141 for more information or to make a donation.

Good news/bad news

Good news/bad news is one way to best describe the 2023 PA Elk license drawing. The bad news is that the elk license drawing is over and if you haven’t heard from the PA Game Commission by now, you are likely not a winner.

The good news is that I didn’t draw a PA tag and all of my buddies can rest easy that I don’t have a golden horseshoe! Looks like I will have to count on a Colorado elk hunt if I want to have any elk venison this year. I shared elk with a lot of friends and they claim that the PA elk is much better table fare than the western elk. Who knows for sure? It’s all in the care and preparation, they say.

Walleye fishing

Walleye fishing at Lake Erie has been hot and my buddy, Ken Bryan and his son Mark, filled their cooler with some beauties this past week. Frank Marshall has been fishing Kahle Lake, near Knox in Clarion County, and reports that the fishing has been exceptional.

The PA Fish & Boat Commission has taken all restrictions off for numbers and sizes at the lake as they are drawing down the lake for repairs. This would be a good time to catch fish for pond stocking or table fare. There is no easy access for anything but canoes and kayaks on the lake.

Check the firearms

It’s time to hit the range and check out your firearms for accuracy and performance. I had the opportunity to work with my nephew’s Remington 700 in a .270 caliber. This is an old-school caliber and a solid deer rifle. He had inherited the rifle from his grandfather and decided that it needed going over for some updates.

First of all, it needed the safety updated from the fire position when loading and unloading. A trip to my local gunsmith buddy, Frank Marshall, squared that up for the better. Then a change to the optics put a Leupold 3x9 VariX2 and mounts on the rifle. It was then bore-sighted and the sling was changed as the old leather was worn and weak.

I then made the short trip to the range to punch a few holes in a target to see if I could make it proud as a deer-hunting machine again. The .270 Winchester has either a 130 gr., a 140 gr. or a 150-grain bullet as the deer hunter’s choice. My nephew wanted the 150-grain cartridge, so that’s what we sighted in the rifle at 100 yards. Using Winchester ammo and with the scope dialed up to 9-power, we soon had the rifle zeroed in on the 10x ring. A small adjustment upward and he was ready to do his grandfather proud. A good cleaning and some oiling will have the rifle ready for his birthday next month.

Until we meet again, do something positive for others and help feed the hungry!

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle