Unexpected visitor at campground
This day and age when someone come back from a camping trip and says you’ll never guess what we had in our campsite, your first instinct is to probably say a bear. One camper from Greene County had a very unique visitor while recently camping at the Youghiogheny River Lake Outflow Campground. Charles Hawk and his wife, from Greensboro, spend five to 10 days at the campground several times a summer.
Mr. Hawk, who is 74 years old, enjoys fishing at the Yough Outflow since his retirement from the coal mines 13 years ago after working at Humphries Mine and Duquesne Light for most of his working years.
As he does most mornings while at camp, Mr. Hawk was getting ready to go fishing about 5:30 a.m. last Wednesday.
“I came out of my camper and was down by my truck putting on my waders when I saw someone above me with a light.
“He came down and said, ‘There is some kind of animal up here. I think it’s a bear,’ because on June 25 there was a bear down here.
“I thought. Well, I’ll go up and take a look. What color is it? He said, ‘It kind of looks white.’
“I got my floodlight out of the car. I turned it on and said, ‘I don’t believe it.’ It was a 350-pound female pig. It looked as though she had young ones, and not too long ago.
“I went up to the host camper, but the people who run the place don’t come in until 10 a.m. and it was only 5:30.
“We just kind of watched it. It was a kind of afraid of it. When I got close it would quit eating and just look at me.
“I watched it for a while and then went fishing. My wife watched it for about an hour after I went fishing. She said it stayed there and ate for about an hour.”
The campers’ food the pig got into were tent camping, and their food was outside in plastic storage boxes.
There is a 15-foot high fence that separates the campground from an adjoining private camping area.
Hawk said that after a while the pig just walked along the fence and disappeared over the hill.
“We didn’t hear any more about it after that,” Hawk said.
“I told the campground host about it after I was done fishing. She was really surprised when I told her what happened.
“The whole incident was kind of funny.”
Hawk, who stays in a 26-foot Prowler self-contained trailer at the campground, says that he “catches a lot of trout” in the Youghiogheny River.
We were up six days the last time. I probably caught 50 trout.”
Hawk, who is a bait fisherman, said, “I fish down below sometime, but I fish mostly in the tailraces.”
In response to the query about trophy trout, he said, “I caught two golden ones one morning. I caught one yesterday (Tuesday) that was 17 to 18 inches long. Last year I caught a 27 ½-inch brown trout. That is the biggest one I caught.
“Earlier this year I had one break my line. It took off toward the (Trout Unlimited) net hatchery.”
The pig in the campground is the Hawk’s most unique experience so far.
“Once in a while a raccoon comes around, and occasionally we smell a skunk,” Hawk said.
On July 25 there was a bear in the campground. It was a 400-pounder that climbed a tree.
It was reluctant to come down, so they used a cherry picker truck to get up to it. It was darted and climbed down on its own once the drug took hold.
“I’ve camped at the campground for 30 years, and this is the first time we had visitors,” Hawk said. Ha. Ha.
(Herald-Standard Outdoor Editor Rod Schoener can be reached on-line at rschoener@heraldstandard.com.)