HAMLIN -- It's the biggest day of the Pennsylvania hunting calendar. Rifle deer season began Monday morning.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission estimates three quarters of a million hunters are in the woods.
Austin Hummel, 16, of Scranton is responsible for a six-point buck in the back of his father's pickup truck.
“Shooters luck, beginners luck. How about that?”
Hummel shot the deer in Hamlin early into the first day of rifle deer season. It was his first time deer hunting.
“It was out in the open, passed by a few trees. I couldn't get a clear shot at first. It came out into an opening, came back and shot it,” he said.
Austin said it was cold and wet in the woods. Luckily, he didn't have to wait long.
Austin's father Brad didn't get a deer. He got something more important.
“It was a great experience. It was a great experience, a once in a lifetime experience,” Brad Hummel said.
We met the Hummels as they dropped off the deer to be processed, at Kundla's in Hamlin. The people at Kundla's say a lot of their early business depends on the weather. The warmer it is, the quicker they come here. They want to hit the processing plant before the meat spoils. Cold weather is another story.
“If it's real cold out, they take them home and hang them or take them to a bar and show their friends they got a deer,” explained Ed Kundla.
Cold or warm, rifle deer season ends in two weeks.