Heavy rain during the first week of the firearms deer season put a damper of sorts on harvest numbers according to local deer processors. Because of the nasty weather, there was a rumor floating around that the Pennsylvania Game Commission was considering extending the buck season. In a call to Cheryl Trewella, PGC's media relation's manager for the Southeast Region, she said they knew nothing about an extension and was surprised that their office had not received calls regarding the rumor.

Upon calls to local processors, mostly all agreed that the weather had some affect on their intake of deer.

Frables in Slatington said that the archery season produced slightly higher numbers than last year. And the bucks they had come in carried an average of eight points with quite a few nine pointers. As for the rifle season, their numbers are off about 20 percent compared to last year.

Lazarus Market in Whitehall, said their intake was down about 25 percent with the average buck sporting six points, although they had good numbers of eight pointers as well.

Hartman's Butcher Shop in New Tripoli, said they no longer butcher deer but only do meat processing. As such, they had a significant amount of venison brought in for processing into various delights. From these customers, they heard that because of the weather the kill was down.

Peters Brothers in Lenhartsville, said their intake was about the same as last year with six pointers in the majority.

Wessner's Butcher Shop in New Tripoli echoed Peters Brothers in reporting their numbers were about the same as last season.

Upon the close of the rifle deer season, sportsmen who have not filled their antlerless or antlered tags, get another shot when the flintlock and archery seasons kick in on December 26. And for those who archery hunt in WMU's 2B, 5C and 5D, you get another chance to put some venison in the freezer during the Jan 12-24 late winter antlered/antlerless season. In essence, there are two more limited deer hunting opportunities remaining.

For muzzleloader hunters, here's an incident that should ne kept in mind.

An Indiana sportsman lost the tips of his fingers when an inline muzzleloader he was sighting in for a family member blew apart. The reason? The sportsman had run out of black powder, so he cut open a 20-gauge shotgun shell and used 75 grains of the smokeless powder for the muzzleloader. Since smokeless powder is several times more powerful than black powder, the equivalent for him was like loading a 300-grain charge of black powder, as reported by the Outdoor Hub who wrote that the result was essentially an exploding pipe bomb, or grenade, that ripped off the man's fingers.

Certain muzzleloader manufacturers specifically warn not to use smokeless powder down the barrel of their black powder-only muzzleloaders. So there's a lesson to be learned here.

SNOW GEESE

The snows are back. While driving on Cedar Crest Boulevard last Saturday, there were about 500-1,000 snow geese that put down on Trojan Powder Company's (GEO Chemicals) land across from Parkland High School. And there were another 50 flying high overhead and apparently preparing to join them.

Other field sightings have occurred in Northampton County especially in areas between Northampton and Bath and in a cut cornfield off Mechanicsville Road not far from Whitehall H.S.

Since the Canada goose season re-opened Dec. 18, waterfowler's have an opportunity to do some pre and post holiday Canada and snow goose hunting.