It was the last Saturday in the regular firearms season. I eased the door to the Toyota closed and shrugged into the heavy wool coat, lifted my 870 and slowly wended my way into the woods, using an almost hidden logging road.
This shall be known to my family as the Year Dad Didn't Get To Hunt Much. Wonderful Wife had some surgery, has been off work for a year, and I've been working two jobs to keep things together. Mostly it's been work, sleep, care for WW, repeat, with a little trap shooting to dull the ache.I may have been a bit grumpy at times, like a dog chained up too much...
I live to hunt. It's my escape from a world more cruel,crazy and complicated than it needs to be, a return to my roots, and yours.It's a drink from the wellsprings of our origins.
People have been living in clumps and growing most of their food for a few millenia. For many more millenia, we were social predators like lions, wolves and orcas. There's little evidence to my theory, but I bet the first true humans out of Africa were part of a bispecial hunting pack, us and wild dogs. Yup, the partnership goes back that far,IMO. It works, and the combination ended up moving us to the top of the food chain.
And we were hunters long before the first orphan pup was adopted instead of eaten.
But no dog today, this is deer hunting and I'm alone.
20 yards in on the track,I stop and remove 4 slug loads from the little nylon belt pack, dropping one in the ejection port and closing the action, then snicking the rest up into the magazine. This holds 7+1 with the extension, but 4 is more than I've ever used, or needed in the woods. I double check the safety, and take that first tentative step into the wild. I'm hunting...
I move quietly in the drizzle,with the low light levels adding a film noir air to the proceedings. The little Bean boots make no more noise than moccasins would, with more traction on wet leaves.
I eye the foot long piece of fly tying floss hanging off the front sling swivel stud, but with max humidity and no wind it hangs limp. A great day for still hunting.
Still hunting involves moving so slowly it's excruciating to watch. It takes a while for most folks to slow down from the modern pace and relearn the magic of moving in nature's rythyms. This time,it's like slipping into a warm bath. I need these woods and I need this day.
I glance down at my 870, a classic "Serious" shotgun that serves as my goto deer gun. It shoots its slug of choice into a bit more than 4" at 100 yards if I do my part, but shots today,if any, are more likely to be VERY close.This new place is thick jungle,bramble hells, blowdowns, reeds and cattails in the wetter spots, and a ton of deer. Shot opportunities today might be best measured in feet, not yards. This logging road is the only easier access to about 300 acres of brush, greenbriar, and lots of deer.
Best buddy leased this just this year, and has begged me to reduce the does. The farmer's hurting from a 100 deer per square mile density, and the DNR has been lavish with crop permits. Today though, I'll take one if I can on my license.
A few dozen more yards into the woods, I note a scrape made right in the track, to be refreshed by the buck as soon as weather allows, and checked by any estrus-positive does ASAP. I could set up and wait for a sighting, but this isn't a big buck hunt, but for meat. I'll not bother the bucks, they're for Best Buddy and his clients.
An hour later I do set up, finding a down log that gives maybe 75 yards either way up and down the trail. There's been more scrapes, some rubs, and enough dung to fertilize a good kitchen garden. No sightings yet, but there's something electric around, some change in the earthly carrier wave we ignore in the "Civilized" places, something wild and basic as our heartbeats.
Many young hunters are louts of some sort, but every hunter over 40 I know has depths of spirituality they've acquired in the wild and silent places.
I know there's a Creator, there's way too much beauty in this world for it to be happenstance. And because there's so much beauty out there,I know the Creator wants us to be happy.
As for organized religion, I'm as cynical about that as I am about politics or the other things men make to understand the world or to make others do as they want. But here's my cathedral,and the Geese overhead sing their Hymn,with organ solos Praising He Who made geese.
I pray also, while waiting to prey. I thank the Creator for the blessing of this day, however it turns out.
The mist has thickened a bit, turning into a faint drizzle. The faded colors of winter fade more, giving hues and shades that Ansel Adams spent decades showing folks, or like those Chinese paintings on rice paper, where the spaces in between tints are as important as the tints, Yang and Yin personified.
And then mist and light go solid, and two spike bucks, like as peas, materialize out of shadow. They move by unmolested, unknowing that a predator with ethics gave them their barely begun lives back. I don't do little bucks,and here I've promised Best Buddy to only take does. It would have been a gimme shot too, 15 yards or so and broadside.
The last hour before I have to start back goes by in a flash, the way good times do when there's a deadline. I slip back to the car a bit faster than I came, still looking for meat, looking more for renewal.
I get back to the road and unload, keeping the action open until I get to the Toyota and wipe it down before casing it. The fanny pack and coat go into the big zip bag with the cedar shavings, and I settle behind the wheel knowing I'll feel this in the morning. For now, I'm somewhere between euphoric and numb.
As I head into the traffic on 301 headed home, to eat, change clothes and then go to work, I call the family on the cell phone to let them know I'm OK. Daughter answers, and asks if I got anything.
Telling the truth, I take a deep and free breath and say, "Yes, and No".....
This shall be known to my family as the Year Dad Didn't Get To Hunt Much. Wonderful Wife had some surgery, has been off work for a year, and I've been working two jobs to keep things together. Mostly it's been work, sleep, care for WW, repeat, with a little trap shooting to dull the ache.I may have been a bit grumpy at times, like a dog chained up too much...
I live to hunt. It's my escape from a world more cruel,crazy and complicated than it needs to be, a return to my roots, and yours.It's a drink from the wellsprings of our origins.
People have been living in clumps and growing most of their food for a few millenia. For many more millenia, we were social predators like lions, wolves and orcas. There's little evidence to my theory, but I bet the first true humans out of Africa were part of a bispecial hunting pack, us and wild dogs. Yup, the partnership goes back that far,IMO. It works, and the combination ended up moving us to the top of the food chain.
And we were hunters long before the first orphan pup was adopted instead of eaten.
But no dog today, this is deer hunting and I'm alone.
20 yards in on the track,I stop and remove 4 slug loads from the little nylon belt pack, dropping one in the ejection port and closing the action, then snicking the rest up into the magazine. This holds 7+1 with the extension, but 4 is more than I've ever used, or needed in the woods. I double check the safety, and take that first tentative step into the wild. I'm hunting...
I move quietly in the drizzle,with the low light levels adding a film noir air to the proceedings. The little Bean boots make no more noise than moccasins would, with more traction on wet leaves.
I eye the foot long piece of fly tying floss hanging off the front sling swivel stud, but with max humidity and no wind it hangs limp. A great day for still hunting.
Still hunting involves moving so slowly it's excruciating to watch. It takes a while for most folks to slow down from the modern pace and relearn the magic of moving in nature's rythyms. This time,it's like slipping into a warm bath. I need these woods and I need this day.
I glance down at my 870, a classic "Serious" shotgun that serves as my goto deer gun. It shoots its slug of choice into a bit more than 4" at 100 yards if I do my part, but shots today,if any, are more likely to be VERY close.This new place is thick jungle,bramble hells, blowdowns, reeds and cattails in the wetter spots, and a ton of deer. Shot opportunities today might be best measured in feet, not yards. This logging road is the only easier access to about 300 acres of brush, greenbriar, and lots of deer.
Best buddy leased this just this year, and has begged me to reduce the does. The farmer's hurting from a 100 deer per square mile density, and the DNR has been lavish with crop permits. Today though, I'll take one if I can on my license.
A few dozen more yards into the woods, I note a scrape made right in the track, to be refreshed by the buck as soon as weather allows, and checked by any estrus-positive does ASAP. I could set up and wait for a sighting, but this isn't a big buck hunt, but for meat. I'll not bother the bucks, they're for Best Buddy and his clients.
An hour later I do set up, finding a down log that gives maybe 75 yards either way up and down the trail. There's been more scrapes, some rubs, and enough dung to fertilize a good kitchen garden. No sightings yet, but there's something electric around, some change in the earthly carrier wave we ignore in the "Civilized" places, something wild and basic as our heartbeats.
Many young hunters are louts of some sort, but every hunter over 40 I know has depths of spirituality they've acquired in the wild and silent places.
I know there's a Creator, there's way too much beauty in this world for it to be happenstance. And because there's so much beauty out there,I know the Creator wants us to be happy.
As for organized religion, I'm as cynical about that as I am about politics or the other things men make to understand the world or to make others do as they want. But here's my cathedral,and the Geese overhead sing their Hymn,with organ solos Praising He Who made geese.
I pray also, while waiting to prey. I thank the Creator for the blessing of this day, however it turns out.
The mist has thickened a bit, turning into a faint drizzle. The faded colors of winter fade more, giving hues and shades that Ansel Adams spent decades showing folks, or like those Chinese paintings on rice paper, where the spaces in between tints are as important as the tints, Yang and Yin personified.
And then mist and light go solid, and two spike bucks, like as peas, materialize out of shadow. They move by unmolested, unknowing that a predator with ethics gave them their barely begun lives back. I don't do little bucks,and here I've promised Best Buddy to only take does. It would have been a gimme shot too, 15 yards or so and broadside.
The last hour before I have to start back goes by in a flash, the way good times do when there's a deadline. I slip back to the car a bit faster than I came, still looking for meat, looking more for renewal.
I get back to the road and unload, keeping the action open until I get to the Toyota and wipe it down before casing it. The fanny pack and coat go into the big zip bag with the cedar shavings, and I settle behind the wheel knowing I'll feel this in the morning. For now, I'm somewhere between euphoric and numb.
As I head into the traffic on 301 headed home, to eat, change clothes and then go to work, I call the family on the cell phone to let them know I'm OK. Daughter answers, and asks if I got anything.
Telling the truth, I take a deep and free breath and say, "Yes, and No".....