Pa. House Bill To Permit Hunting On Sundays Gets Hearing

Thursday, October 27, 2011

By Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

HARRISBURG -- Perhaps lost among hot-button issues such as taxing gas pulled from the Marcellus Shale and vouchers for public schools is a matter that generates as much if not more controversy for some Pennsylvanians: whether the state should permit hunting on Sundays.

State Rep. Dan Moul, R-Adams, said when in June he voted for a $27 billion state budget, he "heard from maybe half a dozen people about it. But Sunday hunting is making my phone ring off the hook -- hundreds and hundreds of phone calls and emails, and they're split 50-50. It's a very contentious issue in my district."

His district is largely rural but includes Gettysburg. He is a member of the House Game and Fisheries Committee, which held a hearing today on House Bill 1760. The bill would empower the state Game Commission to decide how many Sundays a year hunting was permitted both on state-owned lands and on private property, including farms.

Allowed now is the killing on Sundays only of predators such as coyotes and foxes.

The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, with 50,000 members, is the major opponent of Sunday hunting, saying farmers need one day a week to relax with their families and not worry about bullets zinging across their property or trespassers encroaching.

Groups such as the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, the Quality Deer Management Association and Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation testified in favor of Sunday hunting. They said the bill would still permit an individual landowner or farmer to post his land saying hunting wasn't allowed on Sundays.

Supporters said the number of hunters in Pennsylvania has dropped from 1 million to closer to 900,000 over the past 30 years because many hunters are aging and in poor health and more needs to be done to attract youths to hunting. Supporters also said Sunday hunting would cause more out-of-staters to come here, buy hunting licenses and spend money in rural towns on food and lodging, which will help the economy.

Democrats on the committee generally support Sunday hunting, including Rep. Marc Gergely, D-White Oak, an avid hunter. Some Republicans are divided, however, because farmers are a major political group in many GOP districts.

Rep. Jeff Pyle, R-Armstrong, said a pro-Sunday hunting group recently distributed pamphlets in his district, urging people to contact him and urge support for Sunday hunting. "There were 220 in favor and 180 against," he said, resulting in the fact that "I am on the fence" on the issue.

The House committee may vote in early November to decide whether to send the bill on to the full House.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11300/1185457-100.stm

We Lost A Friend And A Hero Last Night

Last night Lower Burrell Police Officer, Derek Kotecki, was ambushed by a man, wanted in a prior shooting,  after a tip came in as to where he would be, the Dairy Queen on Rt 366.  Upon approaching the killer's SUV in the Dairy Queen's parking lot, Officer Kotecki was shot and killed in the line of duty.



Officer Kotecki was a Lower Burrell K-9 Officer

 The Lower Burrell Police Department is a member of Bull Creek and uses our facilities for training.


Officer Kotecki is survived by his wife and two boys.

Words cannot express our sorrow. Once again we are reminded of just how every Police Officer puts their life on the line day in and day out to help all of us live safer lives.


Our deepest condolences go out to Officer Kotecki's family and the entire Lower Burrell Police Department.

Deer Scents One Local Man's Obsession

Paul Pollick is a bit of a mad scientist.
The New Kensington man doesn't look it at first glance. He wears jeans rather than a long white coat, his hair is neatly combed instead of being Einstein-wild and his laboratory is a root cellar lined not with test tubes and petri dishes, but row upon row of colorful and pungent five-gallon buckets, plastic jugs and old cashew jars.


But make no mistake, he's an experimenter, using things such as ear wax, tear ducts and saliva in an attempt to create the ultimate deer lure. It doesn't matter that he's already got plenty on hand.


"Oh, guys could never use it all," he said with a laugh. "But I can't quit making it. That's Heaven for me, being in what I call my scent shed. I could be in there all day."
"Yes, he is obsessed," agreed his wife Kathy.


He's not alone. His business, Paul Pollick's Whitetail Deer Lures, is one small part of a large and seemingly growing industry, one that is at its busiest at this time of year. Neither the National Sporting Goods Association nor the National Shooting Sports Foundation ever have done surveys to determine the size of the scent market, according to spokesmen for those trade groups. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — which does a national survey of outdoor recreation every five years — estimated hunter spending on scents at about $13.3 million in 2006. And the figure likely is presently higher, said Dianne Vrablic, research coordinator for the Shooting Sports Foundation.


Most of those sales have historically been tied to doe-in-heat-type urine scents, Pollick said. But more recently, there's been a lot of attention nationally given to pre-orbital lures, which mimic the scent a buck leaves at rubs, scrapes and especially licking branches.


Pollick — who makes his with forehead, tear duct, ear, nasal and saliva glands — said pre-orbital scents are a buck's way of advertising his presence to other deer in the early season and prior to the rut. "And the older and more dominant the buck, the more he uses those branches. It's like a dog marking his territory; that deer has to lick that branch," Pollick said.
"It's his way of letting other deer know he's there and figuring out who his competition might be."
There's science to that.


"Deer are incredibly social animals and scent plays a big part in that," said Pennsylvanian Kip Adams, a deer biologist and outreach and education coordinator for the Quality Deer Management Association.


Scientists are just now finding out how big a part, he added. Recent studies done by University of Georgia researchers revealed that deer forehead glands alone contain 47 different compounds. "There are many different pieces of information deer are leaving about themselves during the breeding season just by rubbing and licking. They're leaving a lot more information than we hunters ever realized," Adams said.


Other scents play a role at certain times of year. Pollick makes doe and buck sex lures for the peak of the rut, and an interdigital lure — crafted using the scent glands in between the toes of a deer's hooves — good for creating trails leading to and around stands.


But there's always more to learn about how deer communicate through scent, he said, which is why he's so often in his scent shed, experimenting. "I'm never going to corner the market. I'm never going to get too big," he said. "But this is just so interesting to me, I can't quit."

Paul Pollick looks over the various deer,
trapping and cover scents brewing in his scent shed.
The New Kensington man markets his products in
 more than two dozen archery and outdoor shops locally.

Paul Pollick's lures — you can see his offerings at www.deerlures.com — are made using fresh glands taken from deer killed locally by hunters. That, and the addition of a food-grade glycerin that preserves them, make them unique, he said. But natural deer lures are facing opposition in places. At least one Canadian province has banned their use for fear they might spread chronic wasting disease. The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department has begun recommending that hunters voluntarily switch to synthetic lures for that same reason. The Pennsylvania Game Commission has never taken attempted to regulate lures.
Note from Pete: I have been using Paul's lures for over 15 years.  Consistently amazing results when used correctly. We have been linking his web site to ours since I started both back in 1998. I was very happy to see Paul get this recognition.

2011 Bull Creek Youth Pheasant Hunt

Our PA Game Commission sanctioned Youth Pheasant Hunt held on our club grounds on October 8th. 30 kids age 12 to 16 participated and learned hunting and shooting safety while having loads of fun and great success!
Here's a short video:

A Lesson In Gun Safety!

Stupid people own guns too...



And Here's another great compilation of unsafe shooting...

Pristine Central Pennsylvania Canyon Open To Public

By Associated Press 
Sunday, October 2, 2011

BELLEFONTE -- More than a thousand acres of central Pennsylvania land is now open to hikers, hunters and other nature lovers after being off-limits for decades.

State officials were joined by environmentalists, politicians and others for Friday's dedication ceremony to open access to pristine Spring Creek Canyon to the public.

"Today with the opening of these lands, anglers will be able to fish the entire (canyon) and boaters, hikers, birders and others will be able to experience the scenic beauty of the canyon," said John Arway, executive director of the state Fish & Boat Commission.

Speakers talked -- and often joked -- about how long it took to get the land transfer and agreement for cooperative management for 1,829 acres of land next to Rockview state prison, the Centre Daily Times reported.

Under a measure approved last year, 1,211 acres has gone to the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and another 452 acres to Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences and 25 to Benner Township under a conservation easement, while the Fish & Boat Commission will continue to have control of Spring Creek and will own 141 acres, most of which it has been leasing since 1951.

Arway said he has never fished on the waters that were closed to the public -- and he hoped others hadn't, either.

"I can tell from the laughter that some of you may have snuck in to do that," he said.

Ed Perry, coordinator of the Spring Creek Canyon Alliance, said the land is an oasis in the middle of two rapidly developing areas.

"This is a miracle that we've pulled this off, that we're going to get this piece of property protected forever," he said after the ceremony.


State Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, said the project shows the value of people with different opinions being willing to work together to reach a solution.

"To me, it was a living example of how democracy should work," Benninghoff said.


Read  More Details Here