Norris ‘at home’ in Somerset County
Unlike George Webber in Thomas Wolfe’s American classic “You Can’t Go Home Again,” former Fayette County Wildlife Conservation Officer Stan Norris is very much at home in Somerset County. Norris is a Somerset County native, and seized the opportunity to “go home again” when the WCO position came open in his old stomping grounds.
He enjoys being closer to his mother and his eldest son, but otherwise he says, “Not a whole lot has changed except the names and the generations.
“I’m living in Fairhope, Norris said. “It’s nice to come back. You drive around the place, and not much has changed. I was a deputy here before I went to training school, so I run into a lot of things I remember.
“It brings back a lot of old memories. I run into a lot of people I haven’t seen in 20 years. It is kind of a neat experience.”
When asked what the new district was like, he started off by saying, “There’s a lot of deer up here. We are always hearing reports of nice bucks.
“However, the food supply is not good at all. Acorns and apples took a big hit this year. There are not many apples around at all. I would have to say all the mast is below average with the apple crop being especially poor.”
While turkeys seem in fairly good supply, Norris said, “I don’t think we had a good reproduction year. The turkey population seems to have leveled off. Reproduction has kept the population stable, but it hasn’t grown as significantly as it did in years past. They still kill a lot of gobblers up here in the spring.”
Norris voice showed more enthusiasm as he noted, “The bear hunting is better than ever. We trapped and transferred almost 50 bears since I’ve been here. At one point, back in June, we caught seven in six days.
“We caught three or four that weighed over 400 pounds and a lot of 140-pound yearlings and first-year sows. We caught one sow that weighed 270 pounds. That is a fairly heavy sow.”
It discussing the small game outlook, Norris said, “There area some pheasants around. There are some Pheasant Forever projects in my district, but I’m not as optimistic about them as some people are.
“I do see many squirrels. Furbearers seem in good supply. There appears to be lots of raccoons and foxes, and the coyote population seems to be shooting up.
“I’ve seen a lot of bobcats since I’ve been here, and I even saw a fisher near the Flight 93 crash site. It ran out of a hemlock thicket and across the road in front of me. It was carrying a squirrel in its mouth.”
Overall, Norris said, “I’m just as busy as I was down there (in Fayette County) and just a far behind.
“Some guys did OK up here in the early goose season,” Norris said. “There are some dyed-in-the-wood duck hunters up here. They do quite a big of wood duck hunting on the slower-moving streams.”
Norris said he hasn’t heard too much about antler restrictions.
“Most guys are going to abide by the rules,” he said. Those who will, will, and those who won’t, won’t.
“There may be a lot of mistake kills turned in. You are going to have mistake kills and honest-to-goodness mistakes, and then you’ll have those who will try to snooker the system.”
He said he as pleased to say that there was a good number of students in his hunter education classes.
At the present time, he has been keeping busy trying to build a deputy force, and at night he has been patrolling his new district.
“There hasn’t been too much night activity lately. It’s here. If you spend enough time out there, you’ll find it.”
In just a brief chat with Norris, he sure seemed happy to be “home again.”
Herald-Standard outdoor writer Rod Schoener can be reached on line at rschoener@heraldstandard.com