The deer trail followed the headwaters of the Slippery Rock Creek and I couldn’t help but to think of how many others followed deer along this worn path over the centuries.

A hen wood duck scooted out from an undercut bank and fluttered her wings up around the next bend in the creek. She wasn’t thinking about flying out of the area as the ground was littered with the acorns that the wildlife fed heavily on in the early fall to get ready for the lean winter months.

I picked a few up to examine them as I had seen many rejected by the deer. In many of the acorns I detected a small hole bored into the shell as a worm infested the centers. Wildlife knew by smell or weight that the meat of the acorn was wasted and of no value to them.

As I slowly walked along with my muzzleloader, I could feel some of the adventure of early hunters in this region as they walked centuries-old game trails. Many signs on the trail showed other visitors that chose this trail as well; tracks of deer, raccoons and turkey were in the soft soil areas of the creek bank.

A thunderous flush from the top of a tall oak tree brought me back to focus as a gobbler blasted out of the branches and soared across the creek and to the other side several hundred yards away. It was likely the maker of the turkey tracks who had come down for a cool drink from the Slippery Rock Creek.

They say that the waters here were teeming with fish centuries ago and that man polluted the fish right out of the region. I know that the waters are vastly improved in recent years as the conservation and stream cleaning efforts of the Slippery Rock Creek Watershed Coalition has been working to improve the waters from the devastating effects of acid mine runoff and fish and wildlife are rebounding.

The waters’ color suggests that the results of their efforts are paying off as these waters are all part of the Ohio River Watershed and drainage areas and a major source of water for thousands of people downstream.

A distant boom of a black powder rifle caught my attention as I veered off the creek and headed up towards a stand of oaks that I thought would be a great vantage point to locate any deer that might find a few acorns tempting in the early fall afternoon.

The woods were lively with chipmunk and squirrel activity as they gathered up acorns and beechnuts that heavily littered the forest floor. It was a good year for mast, apples and other wildlife food sources.

It was pretty difficult to pinpoint one area that deer might prefer as the food sources were abundant everywhere and the deer could feed widely in the area. About that time my phone buzzed and my cousin called to tell me that a group of deer walked up to him and were 10 yards away.

Due to the wind direction, they were unsure of his origin and they tried all the favorite deer tricks; head bobbing, foot stomps, looking away and then quickly turning back to see if you moved.

He sat still and the younger deer ignored him but not that old lead doe, she rounded up the others and moved them out.

Some wedges of geese flew overhead and their honking sure reminded me that colder weather was following them down from the north. Canada geese were usually the first flights that I see then the Snow geese start moving through the area in December and later.

A crash of deer busting through some brushy areas near me brought me back to full attention. I readied my T/C .50 caliber in the ready for a possible shot. With one shot you really need to be on target and accurate or it’s going to be a bust.

The early muzzleloader season is set for antlerless deer and no bucks. Of course as I search the brushy area near me, I finally see the deer. Searching for a clear shot, I see the deer turn his head and in the sunlight I see the glint of an antler. Great … my cousin is archery hunting for a buck and I’m hunting for a doe and we both see deer that we can’t harvest. Such is the modern hunting era and not for the meat pole of our early settlers!

The rest of the evening was pretty quiet and I headed back to our meeting point. Everyone had seen deer and we all agreed that the deer appeared to be in great shape with all the food resources available to them.

We would be back to hunt this area again and maybe we would be more successful. But as I told my cousins, there is more than one way to be successful and we surely had been successful in sharing a beautiful day in Penn’s Woods.

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle