Public Domain: Buzzard Swamp

By Rob Hilliard

Over the past three years (can it be that long already?) many of you have been checking this space for the latest information on the best public hunting opportunities in northern West Virginia, eastern Ohio, and western Pennsylvania.

Encouraged by the positive feedback I’ve received during that time, I’m taking a step beyond the bounds of this column and, using a concept similar to what you’re used to seeing here, writing my first book.

Entitled A Season on the Allegheny, the book will look at hunting opportunities within the Allegheny National Forest, and how those opportunities are affected by the history, conservation, and management of the forest.

Because of the timing of the book’s publication -- it’s due for release in time for Christmas 2005 -- OVO readers are going to get a little sneak preview. Beginning with this issue, you can check out “In the Public Domain” to read where I’ve been hunting, what I’ve been seeing, and what new discoveries I’ve made, long before A Season on the Allegheny hits the shelves. I hope you enjoy it.

A RARE AND WILD FIND

I’m not sure if it was the coyotes or the bear that finally convinced me. Either way, it didn’t take too much time spent at Buzzard Swamp before I finally realized what a rare and wild place I had found.

Well, technically I guess I didn’t “find” it -- at least not in the sense of discovering it or unearthing some heretofore unknown jewel of a spot. That’s a little hard to claim when it’s in bold letters on virtually every map of the Allegheny National Forest and there’s a sign on the road out front that says “Buzzard Swamp” and has an arrow pointing to the entrance.

In truth, the several hundred-acre site with the less than inviting name was recommended to me a few times before I actually made a trip to check it out. It was one of those places that keeps getting mentioned and you add it to your mental “Need to Make It Over There” list, but one circumstance or another keeps you from getting there. One thing about going hunting at Buzzard Swamp, though, is that once you go, you’ll keep coming back.

The first person to suggest I pay a visit to the swamp was George Miller, the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Land Management Officer for Forest County, in which Buzzard Swamp is located.

While doing some background research for another column on a Forest County state game land, I asked Miller whether the SGL held a decent turkey population.

It has some turkeys,” he said, “But if you really want to find turkeys up here, you should go to Buzzard Swamp.”

The unsolicited testimonial piqued my interest, so I pressed Miller for a little more information. “It’s actually part of the Allegheny National Forest, not a game land,” he explained, “But we do a lot of management work there in cooperation with the [US] Forest Service [which owns and manages the National Forest]. And there are a ton of turkeys all over the place there.” Mental note: Buzzard Swamp, turkey season.

Not too long after the compliments from Miller, I heard another good report on the swamp. USFS public relations specialist Mary Hosmer mentioned Buzzard Swamp as one of the areas to check out within the ANF for early goose season. Because I knew Hosmer was an avid hunter I eagerly pushed her for more details.

Unfortunately, she said that she knew it mostly by reputation because she does most of her waterfowling further east in the forest.

Intrigued now, I turned back to the PGC for more information. And Mario Piccirilli, Forest County wildlife conservation officer, was more than willing to volunteer it.

“That should be an excellent place for the early goose season, actually for any kind of waterfowling,” said Piccirilli. “It’s one of our best spots up here for pheasant hunting, too,” he added.

Pheasants?

There are some really nice areas where we’ve planted warm season grasses out there and we’re starting to see some evidence that some of the birds we’re stocking there are overwintering.”

I asked how Buzzard Swamp compared to the Bean Field, a well-known pheasant stocking location in the northwestern corner of the ANF.

Oh, we stock way more pheasants down here than they do at the Bean Field,” he replied. Mental note: Buzzard Swamp, pheasant season.

There are also some spots in there where there’s some thick brush that’s pretty good for rabbits,” Piccirilli concluded. Rabbits, too? Mental note: Buzzard Swamp, rabbit season.

So I went. The first opportunity to hit the swamp came in the early goose season. As I turned right off of Route 66 in the center of Marienville and headed east on Township Road 2005, I was surprised to find that the entrance road to Buzzard Swamp (Forest Road 157) was barely a mile outside of town.

I was even more pleasantly surprised when I rolled into the parking area and found that it held a clean and modern pit toilet, which was sorely needed after the two-hour drive.

Once there, I quickly found one reason that Buzzard Swamp isn’t as popular as it might otherwise be: hunting here is all about walking.

The core of the hundreds of acres of ponds, wetlands, grasslands, scrub, and forest is a 40-acre propagation area that is off-limits to humans at all times. As a result, reaching even the closest huntable area means a walk of at least a mile. Whatever species you’re planning to hunt here, you better have your walking boots along.

Of course, if you’re willing to make the overland trek, this can be good news. According to USFS Biologist Pam Thurston, whose area includes Buzzard Swamp, this spot can provide some “excellent” deer hunting and she cites the lack of motorized access as one of the major factors.

“The bucks there can tend to live a while and get pretty big,” says Thurston, “Since not too many people get in there to bother them.”

It’s not only deer that have a chance to thrive here either. Thurston lists grouse, woodcock, bear (“some up to 400 pounds that we know of”), and beaver as some of the game and furbearer species that are commonly found at Buzzard Swamp.

Despite this, she notes, “I don’t think that many people know about it as a hunting destination. Plus, people want immediate gratification and if it means walking all that way, and then maybe not even getting anything, they’re less likely to do it.”

Never one to let a good walk -- or, for that matter, the possibility of not shooting anything -- get in my way, I marched off down the mostly flat trail with the backside of my Weimaraner, Hunter, only occasionally visible out in front. Since it was already late in the afternoon, I was just going to scout the area along impoundment #6 (at 66 acres, the largest of the 15 water impoundments at Buzzard Swamp, as well as the closest to the propagation area) to find a spot to set up in the morning.

We hadn’t even reached the halfway point of our stroll when a flock of four or five hen turkeys and their brood of poults skittered across the trail in front of us.

Hunter momentarily paused to snuffle their trail after they passed, but, having long ago learned that we’re not hunting for those tall black birds, he jogged back in front of me down the trail.

We soon reached pond #6 and I picked out a sort of natural blind along the southern bank. After mentally marking the spot, I continued around the loop trail, which quickly led us to gorgeous fields of warm season grasses that looked like they could have been swiped from an Iowa CRP field and plopped down here in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Thurston explains that these fields haven’t come to this condition easily. They’re a result, she says, of the ongoing cooperative efforts of the PGC and the National Wild Turkey Federation, among others (Ducks Unlimited has also recently been active in making monetary donations at Buzzard Swamp).

Their efforts are now paying off, says Thurston, because they are starting to see some overwintering birds.

“That has only been the case over the last five years,” she notes, pointing out that this exactly coincides with the warm season grass planting program at the site.

Last year, after one of the most severe winters in recent memory, Thurston was not optimistic that the pheasant population would survive. But, come springtime, they found the birds alive and well, nestled down among the switchgrass and big bluestem plantings.

“Everything points to the fact that [the pheasant population at Buzzard Swamp] is there for good,” she concludes.

For an inveterate bird hunter like me, the grass fields were a magnet, attracting me like they pull in the birds themselves. Realizing that I had a few minutes to kill anyway, I veered off the trail into the nearest field of switchgrass and waved Hunter in ahead of me. We hadn’t even moved halfway through when a hen pheasant flushed within easy gun range.

I swung an imaginary double barrel at the bird and envisioned her slipping into my game vest if it had actually been pheasant season (hen pheasants are legal game in Pennsylvania in Wildlife Management Unit 2F, where the Allegheny National Forest is located).

Satisfied that the grass fields were as good as advertised, Hunter and I wandered back onto the trail and looped back toward the parking area. Shortly, though, we came to another spot that drew me off the beaten path.

It was a brushy, damp alder thicket that would only look attractive to a grouse or a woodcock . . . or an idiot hunter chasing them. A quick trip through the brush resulted in a couple of grouse flushes, with a couple more imaginary shotgun blasts following them. But twilight was moving in now, so it was back to the trail.

Just as we moved along the upper side of the propagation area, Hunter stiffened up as he peeked ahead around a bend in the trail. Since he was 20 or 30 yards ahead of me, I couldn’t see what he was looking at, but his upright posture and the bristling hair along his back made me think that another dog was approaching.

As I started to walk up behind him, he bolted ahead down the trail and disappeared around the curve.

I hustled up to where he had been standing and glanced down the trail just in time to see a black form disappear off the trail into the propagation area. It took several moments for it to sink in that this was not the black Labrador Retriever that I was expecting, but a decent sized black bear heading off into the swamp.

I whistled Hunter back to my side and moved a little more quickly up the trail toward the truck.

By the time we reached the parking area, evening was sliding slowly into night. Abandoning my earlier, more ambitious plans to pack the tent back into the woods to shorten the next morning’s walk, I opted to set it up right there in the parking lot. As Hunter bedded down in his corner of the tent and I finally settled in, I found myself drifting off to a serenade of coyote song from somewhere further out in the swamp. I found it both chilling and oddly comforting to be alone in this wild place until my own snoring finally drowned the coyotes out.

`The next morning’s sunrise found us tucked in among the tall reeds along the edge of the impoundment. There was only one other decoy spread on the pond and it was easily far enough away to avoid any conflicting shooting angles. The first hour of sunlight, bright and warm after a clear, chilly night, passed without event, but around 7:30, the unmistakable sounds of geese drifted in on the faint breeze.

The first flight was a small group, maybe eight or 10, that made a beeline for the propagation area without presenting a shot, but several more waves followed and not all of these were as cautious.

While none of the big birds seemed inclined to eschew the comfortable protection of the propagation area for a cuddle with the decoys, some of them did loop out over the pond, providing crossing shots as they coasted toward safety. The sporadic sound of gunshots coming from further north indicated that hunters at some of the smaller ponds were having decent luck as well.

Just before noon, I packed up and headed out for the day. Still, I couldn’t resist getting a look down into the sanctuary where all the geese had been headed, so I found a slight rise from which I could see down into the propagation area.

Although I couldn’t view the entire area from that spot, there were still dozens, probably hundreds, of geese milling around within sight. All of them would live to fly another day, in and out of Buzzard Swamp.

It’s truly a rare occasion when one public land location -- in the national forest, no less -- can reliably produce more than one type of game. But when you find a single spot with quality big game opportunities, abundant turkeys, exceptional upland bird hunting, and perhaps the best waterfowling within a 50-mile radius, that’s a keeper, a place to come back to season after season.

Mental note: Buzzard Swamp, anytime.