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Greene County student savors time outdoors

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By Jim Morris, Staff Writer 11:59 AM Monday, April 13, 2009

XENIA — Samantha Pitstick loves the outdoors.

She’s more at home slogging down a creek in waders than dressing up for a dance.

She hunts, she fishes and she has her own trap line.

That’s right; the tall, slender 18-year-old has a line of traps out in the wilds of Greene County.

“I’m just old-fashioned, mountain-man unique,” she said.

As a senior at the Greene County Career Center, Pitstick has been in the Natural Resources Technology program the past two years. The Cedarville resident plans to continue that course of study next year at Hocking College.

“I want to be a wildlife educator,” she said. “I love working in the outdoors and being around nature. And since I also like to talk, I think it would be fun teaching others about wildlife.”

She has learned most of her outdoors skills from her father, David Pitstick, a retired Greene County sheriff’s deputy. When he and their good friend Dave Linkhart of near Xenia run their trap lines, they often have taken Samantha along. And she doesn’t just watch. She has her own trap line and skins the animals she traps.

She has trapped beaver, muskrat, raccoon, mink, opossum, coyote and skunk.

“You have to be extra careful with skunks,” she said, pointing out the obvious reason.

She said she has been questioned about the political correctness of trapping and hunting, but points out she is doing her part to control wildlife populations and the possible spread of disease.

She also loves to hunt and plans to take part in the upcoming Ohio wild turkey hunting season that begins April 20. She hunts deer, although she has yet to bring down her first whitetail, and lately has been going to southeast Ohio to hunt wild boar.

When she’s not going to school or pursing her outdoor passions, Pitstick is the bait house attendant at Spring Lake in Bellbrook for Greene County Parks.

“I love fishing, and it’s so much fun talking to people and helping kids,” she said. “And I do get a chance to put a line in the water.”

While some of her friends might not be able to do some of the things she does, such as skin animals, handle dead animals or even bait a hook with a nightcrawler, those things don’t bother her at all.

“Getting my hands dirty doesn’t bother me,” Pitstick said. “I work on a farm when I’m not working at the lake. I pick up nightcrawlers and snakes — I love snakes — so I guess I’m just a very unique person.”

Or, as she says, mountain-man unique.

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