State Game Land 117

In the Public Domain

State Game Land # 117

By Rob Hilliard

You can hunt anything there except bear. That’s the most versatile place I’ve ever been.”

The destination? State Game Lands 117, just outside of Burgettstown, Pa. The speaker? Ed Brophy, a local hunter who has spent more than 20 years stalking game at this SGL and taken at least 10 bucks here. By his own estimation, Brophy knows “every inch of that place.”

Actually, there are two adjacent game lands for Ohio Valley hunters at this location: SGL 117 and SGL 432, which is technically still called Hillman State Park, although it no longer has park facilities. Combined, the two sites -- which I’m going to call ‘SGL 117’ for the sake of simplicity -- total about 7,000 acres even after about 1,200 acres were given up in a recent land swap that added about 4,500 acres to SGL 232, near Taylorstown, Pa. SGL 117 has nearly an even mix of mature forest, brush, open grassland, and marsh/beaver ponds.

Because he spends as much time afield in archery season as anyone I know, Brophy was one of the first people I tapped for a scouting report when I started hunting in this vicinity about five years ago. And SGL 117, which is also known locally as Hillman, Bavington, or Star Lake (the latter is a reference to the fact that it’s adjacent to the former Star Lake Amphitheater, now called the Post-Gazette Pavilion), was the first place he sent me.

At the time, my Weimaraner Hunter was just a pup and I was looking for a local place to introduce him to grouse. When Brophy suggested the thick tangles of the reclaimed strip mines that make up most of SGL 117, I decided to check it out. When I found that the site had not only a decent grouse population, but also a ton of resident turkeys and deer, and is heavily stocked with pheasants, I decided to go more often.

And so it was that Hunter and I found ourselves cruising down Route 18, on our way to look for pheasants in some of the 100-plus acres of warm season grasses that the Pennsylvania Game Commission has planted at SGL 117. Although, I didn’t know it at the time, I was about to learn two important lessons about hunting that day. The first lesson clubbed me over the head within my first 10 minutes on the game lands, when I could not find a single parking space at any of the first three parking areas I tried. With the landscape nearly blotted out by blaze orange and trucks bearing dog crates, it looked like a cross between a dog show, a gun show, and Dec. 20 at the mall.

Lesson #1: When a game land has excellent cover, a ton of stocked birds (“A lot of birds get stocked there,” said Mel Schake of the PGC, “Where you have the habitat, you put the birds.”), and is only 30 miles from downtown Pittsburgh, it’s going to attract a lot of hunters.

Frustrated, I drove around until finally parking in a gated driveway that led to one of the abandoned state park facilities, where only one other car was parked. I had never been to this part of the SGL before, but decided to see what was on the other side of the hill.

I hadn’t gone far when I found three hunters in their mid-20s pushing through a small patch of switch-grass. Since they didn’t have a dog, they invited Hunter and me to join them, but there was no sign of birds so we stopped at the other end of the field to talk over the situation. Upon closer inspection, the trio looked like they couldn’t decide which decision they regretted more: partying all night or getting up to go hunting that morning. Having been there myself once or twice back in the day, I simply grinned silently as they squinted into the brightening sun like vampires caught outside their crypt. With Hunter and I ready to move on, we parted ways, and the three young hunters slouched silently back toward their car, turning their quest from ringnecks to aspirin.

I’ve always prided myself on my willingness to burn boot leather in pursuit of game. And, no doubt, SGL 117 gives you the opportunity to do so. So, following Hunter’s lead, I started moving along the grassy hillsides and fallow fields. We weren’t finding birds, but the sun was high, the weather was cool, and we had nowhere else to be.

After about two hours, though, I began to think about turning back. I was torn between plowing ahead and reminding myself that I was hunting stocked birds, which probably hadn’t dispersed far from their release site yet. We had reached the far end of a plateau and my choice stared me in the face -- start down a steep ridge that I would have to climb back up later, or turn back. I elected to turn back.

I called in Hunter, who had already headed down the ridge, and directed him back across the field. But instead of listening to me, he headed off to investigate a clump of multiflora rose that sat at the rim of the field. Before I could correct him, he pointed at the thorny bush.

Since he was still a young dog and still had a healthy interest in woodchucks, I wasn’t totally convinced, but I moved in and gave the brush a kick. Nothing. Then I moved to the other end of the rose bush and gave it another kick for good measure, with the same result. Shaking my head at Hunter, I called him to me and heeled him as I circled to the other side of the rose bush with the intent of heading back. But when I released him into the field, he immediately veered over and pointed again at the multiflora.

Now I was exasperated, enough so that I struck up a conversation with the dog. “Look,” I said, “I don’t think you know what you’re doing. You seem to be convinced there’s a bird in there, but there’s not.” From where I stood I was speaking directly to his gray stub of a tail. It did not seem impressed by my analysis.

Happy that he was so steady on point, but disappointed that it was clearly a false alarm, I started toward him. “I’m telling you,” I said more loudly this time, “There’s no bir-”

It was at this moment, perfectly timed to maximize my humiliation, that the ringneck flushed from the very spot that I had kicked not two minutes before. I decided to avenge this embarrassment by shooting him, which I promptly did. In a few seconds, Hunter reappeared with a mouthful of bird -- one that he knew had been there all along.

Lesson #2: The further from the access road you go, the better chance of finding game -- and once you get there, trust your bird dog. If you’re anything like me, he’s smarter than you anyhow.

Brophy, who counts several wallhangers among his SGL 117 kills, is a huge proponent of Lesson #2. “You have to get back in there, you have to leave that road behind,” he said recently. “As much pressure as SGL 117 gets, there are plenty of places that those hunters never get to, so that’s where I go. Let them do the work and push the deer to me.” Brophy suggested the former Hillman section, which comprises the northern part of the game land, as a good section to try out, citing easier access by vehicle and slightly better cover as the reasons. “But there are deer everywhere out there,” he quickly added.

The PGC’s Schake agreed. “Washington County (where SGL 117 is located) is one of the top deer producers in the state, year in and year out,” he said. “There definitely are some nice big deer out in that country.”

Schake also confirmed Lesson #1 from my pheasant hunt. “I know that site is heavily used,” he said, “Mostly because it’s easy to get to.” He has a point there; not only is SGL 117 a short distance from the state’s second biggest city, but it’s served by two expressway interchanges (both the Bavington and Burgettstown exits off of US Route 22). There may not be a better public land combination of habitat and accessibility in the entire Ohio Valley.

Another benefit is convenience. Hunters have their choice of the Bavington Inn (another parking lot that’s full during pheasant season), a CoGo’s, and Pattio’s Pizza near the game land, and several more places to grab a bite or pick up supplies just down the road in Burgettstown.

It’s this combination of accessibility and versatility that makes SGL 117 an exceptional destination for all hunting seasons. I’ve hunted grouse, pheasant, ducks, rabbits, turkeys, and deer there, and bagged or had shots at every one. Everything but a bear. “And I wouldn’t be surprised,” added Brophy with a grin, “to see one of those.”