It was early November and the Pumphouse Outdoors Crew was in North Western Pennsylvania for our annual week long archery hunt.  The weather hadn’t been the best, the deer weren’t moving as expected, and moral was just a bit low.  We were hunting an 18-acre strip of woods between two fields that is only about 200-yards wide at its widest point.  Me and two of my fellow Team PHO members strategically set up our stands so we could catch anything moving through this funnel.  At a minimum we were at least getting a visual.

The morning started off slow, a few does but no shooter bucks.  It was mid morning, the temperature was dropping, and the rain was slowly starting to fall.  Our stands were positioned about 150 yards from a road that bordered the bottom edge of the 18 acres, so hearing vehicles drive past on occasion wasn’t unusual. Just when we couldn’t imagine our morning getting any worse, we noticed a state road crew truck slowly driving down the road and wouldn’t you know it, it stopped directly below us, right where the deer cross the road!  Old Murphy is at it again!

Well, we all carry two-way radios for communication purposes and Gregg, who was positioned in the middle of our three- man line of hunters, came across the radio and mentioned how good a fresh cup of coffee and a mid-morning snack sounded.  We weren’t going to argue with him, but then…..wait, is that movement?  Tom came across the radio and told us to hold off a few minutes, he heard something in the brush coming from the road.  Could it be possible?  Maybe the road crew jumped a bedded deer?  We decided to stand by and see what happened.

Now as I mentioned, Gregg was in the middle of the three of us so both Tom and I could see him since we were all only about 50 yards apart.  Whatever was coming through the woods was heading straight at Gregg!  Tom and I were in the perfect position to both watch Gregg take a deer if luck allowed such a thing.  Our adrenalin was pumping!  And then we realized what was coming….ONE OF THE ROAD CREW!!!

There he was, walking up through the woods straight at Gregg.  What was this guy doing?  Why wasn’t Gregg saying anything or signaling his location?  A few more steps and this guy was going to be 25 yards from Gregg’s stand!  And then, he stopped.  He slowly looked around like he was up to no good.  Now at this point, Tom and I are on the radio’s asking Gregg what the guy was doing.  Then he did it.  He turned, dropped his pants, leaned his back against a tree and was preparing to deposit his breakfast right in front of Gregg’s stand, 5 feet from a heavy deer trail!  Well, there will be NONE of that!

When Gregg realized what was about to happen, he let out a yell louder than I’ve ever heard in those deer woods.  I swear it seemed like it echoed for five minutes!  “HEY!!  DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!!”  At that moment the road crew guy must have jumped five feet in the air and started running out of the woods before his pants were even up past his knees!  He appeared to be running on air!  That guy got the fright of his life and Tom, Gregg, and I laughed so hard we could barely breathe!  We had to wait about ten minutes to even attempt to climb down from our trees.  It’s a good thing we had our safety harnesses on!

Now we did check, and thankfully the road crew guy didn’t leave a deposit on the forest floor.  But I can’t guarantee that he didn’t soil those trousers!   Truly one of the funniest moments in the Pa Whitetail Woods for the Pumphouse Outdoors Crew!  And one we will not soon forget.