Larry A. Smail's Blog

  The day was perfect for a winter day. the temperatures were in the upper twenties and into the low thirties later on. The wind was very subtle. Thermal wind drifts were all that could be sensed at times. I needed some woods time so I elected to jaunt into the area of Limestone Run.

Ice on the water

Limestone Run is a tributary to the Allegheny River here in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. The waters are usually fairly  fast-moving and clear as can be!

Porcupine damage

I dressed in my white “camies” and carried along my 870 shotgun. (Wish I had an AR-15.) I possessed a few predator calls and thought I might try calling in a coyote. As usually, as is the case with me, I soon discovered I rather walk and take photos than pursue the ‘yote…which I happily did.

Limestone Run

To be honest I did set up and call a couple of times but crows and blue jays were the only critters that came in to my calling.

I saw lots of tracks around the hike. I saw deer (I later saw two deer.)  and a ton of  Canada Geese. These are, probably, the flocks of geese that I see quite regularly flying over my home at tree-top level. Other tracks observed were fox; ‘coon, porcupine; rabbit; squirrel and, possibly, a young coyote .                                                                                     

I didn’t see any turkey sign which very much surprised me. I had seen a couple of flocks in recent weeks with some strutting toms, but there were none to be found in this area today. I traveled for amost five hours and covered an estimated 5 miles distance.