Westmoreland hunters find success in woods on opening day of rifle season

Just before 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning, Don Henry heard branches cracking near his hunting blinds in the woods near New Alexandria.

Henry, 46, of Unity had spooked about a half-dozen doe.

“I didn’t have long to shoot,” he said.

But Henry managed to fell one of the largest of the group with a shot to the heart.

Henry was among the hundreds of Southwestern Pennsylvania sportsmen to harvest a deer on the Saturday’s sunny, opening day of deer hunting’s rifle season.

The hunt wasn’t without its hardships, however. Henry said he spent quite a bit of time tracking his deer kill through dense brush, occasionally on his hands and knees.

He eventually called his son to help bring the doe out of the woods.

The two brought the game to Weimer Meats, a deer processor in Loyalhanna, where Henry said he’d have his harvest made into ground venison and steaks for everyday meals.

With the recent increases in ground beef prices, Henry said he was thankful to bag a larger doe.

Still, within minutes of delivering his first deer to Weimer, the Unity resident said he was set to return to the woods in search of a buck.

“I’m going to head right back out,” he said.

Melinda Weimer, co-owner of the processor, said this year’s opening day was slower than usual, but a steady stream of sportsmen had still been filing in all morning.

“It’s a nice morning; it’s not super cold,” Weimer said.

In all, she said she expected to take in 100 to 200 deer on Saturday, roughly the same as last year’s 165.

The company had already processed about 425 deer from the preceding archery season, she said.

This year, Weimer said her company had begun using an app, called My Game Processor, that allows hunters to pre-select the cuts they want from their harvests and track the processing progress.

Ross Browning, 37, said he’d been tracking an 8-point buck for months on his Parks Township property using trail cams.

“About 7 o’clock, I heard some rustling,” he said.

Like Henry, Browning had kicked up a group of doe, which he worried would ruin his search for the buck.

But soon after, he managed a shot on his long-sought 8-point.

At Weimer, Browning, a heavy equipment mechanic by trade, said he planned to mount his harvest, which he said had a “unique rack.”

Nate Leonatti, 18, arrived at Weimer with his father, Joe, 53, and sizable doe in tow.

The young Irwin resident said he’s shot several deer during previous archery seasons, but the doe was his first harvest with a rifle.

Joe said the two intended to donate the meat through Pennsylvania’s Hunters Sharing the Harvest program, which offers venison to charitable organizations.

“If we don’t need it, we always donate it,” Joe said.

The father and son had been hunting near Keystone Lake in Armstrong County when Nate took an 80-yard shot at the doe, he said.

The buck that Rich Schimizzi, 70, took down was a bit closer than 80 yards .

The Unity resident said he had a clear shot on an 8-point on a relative’s Washington Township land early Saturday.

“It was as easy as it gets on opening day,” Schimizzi said.

Though he’s shot larger deer out West, he said the buck was among the largest he’s bagged in Pennsylvania.

Sausage, venison sticks and ground meat will await him at Weimer sometime soon, Schmizzi said.

Denise Ciafre, an employee at Wright’s Deer Processing in Clinton Township, said the processor had received about a dozen deer by noon.

That’s in addition to the more than 500 Wright’s has already processed from archery season, she said.

She said she expects that number to jump as local hunters return from camp and traditionalists go out for the now-defunct Monday opening day.

“We’re expecting a huge rush on Monday,” Ciafre said.