Deer Hunting 2009

Just My luck!

            Well, another tale from the woods.  Saturday was such a beautiful day.  It was shameful to spend the entire day inside doing some business planning stuff for work.  By 3pm I had almost had it.  By 3:30pm I was sleeping on top of my paperwork.  Waking a bit groggy from my nap I realized “holy smokes it’s 4:30pm I am going to miss the chance to hunt today”.  Doing my fastest 10 minute change I pulled my camo from its scent free sealed bag, cased my bow, off I go.

The woods I hunt are only a 5 minute drive.  About 10 yards into the woods I dropped to my knees, like a fireman gearing up to enter a building.  Scent lock hood, hat, gloves, release, and I knocked my arrow.  Slowly I stalked to my stand, being ever cautious not to snap the twigs under my feet.  Quietly, I moved through the freshly fallen leaves. Finally seated in my spot, a perfect funnel between a pond, and a swampy drainage any deer crossing by would have to cross here unless they were up for a swim.   My cover scents out, I sat restfully up against a tree.  My seat was a soft styrofoam bean bag type in camo fabric; it cushioned me from the hard earthen floor of the woods.

New England is so beautiful in the fall, the colors, and the mild temperature.  A slight breeze musically whistled through the forest.  I sat next to an old property line.  A pile of rocks delineated the boundary and partially sheltered my outline.  In my hunting attire, I was hidden to the world.  My body instinctively got into the zone.  The zone is a place between awake and asleep where hunters find solitude.  My breath had slowed, my body had stopped fidgeting.

A small but distinct crackle sent a slight dribble of adrenaline through my body.  Enough energy to move my eyes downward to see my release instinctively clip onto my bow string.  I looked in the direction of the growing clamor to see a rather large tom (turkey) pop out of the brush.  He strutted in all of his glory, directly towards me.  Following him was another, another, and another, an entire flock.  First there were ten then, twenty, now is it twenty-five? 

It was turkey season, sure enough, but remembering back to the excitement of getting by license this year, I recall the agent pulling off the turkey tag, and discarding it.  I never hunted turkey, never bought a license.  It was a maybe someday deal.  Well now with this flock closing in at the twenty yard mark, still unaware of my presence, boy did I want to kick myself.

It took almost twenty minutes for them to pass by, they scratched, and pecked at the ground, kicked and jumped around.  It was just another gay old day grazing through the woods.  Being closer to thanksgiving I sure felt bad once I got on my way home that night.  I salivated with the thought of wild turkey being fried up for thanksgiving dinner, the crispy skin tasting so good in my mouth.  Maybe I would have roasted it in the oven, traditional midwestern style.  The stuffing soaking up the flavor of the bird, as it slowly cooked hours basking in its succulent juices.  How many meals could I have gotten from a bird that size?  I love left-over’s that last for a week, turkey sandwiches, or maybe turkey salad?  Alas, none would be my treat, maybe a store bought hen for me this year.  (My stomach grumbles)

Nature didn’t care that day where I was, but it shared its beauty with me.  For that I am thankful, even though this thanksgiving won’t be as tasty.

Posted October 17th 2009.  Copyright Rob Elstad 2009 

Be Prepared!

Well, if you read my last article you will know exactly where I was going on Monday.  Straight to city hall I went.  It was only $16 for a turkey license; bag limit was just one of either sex, by bow only.  Great, home from work, changed into my hunting clothes.  Off I went, speeding to the special spot.  Twenty-two years of hunting under my belt, the chances of being run over by a flock of turkey was well, improbable at best.  Saturday’s event was truly something special, so sure I had a license, but did I have expectations, no not really. 

Just like the last umpteen times I have entered the woods, I dropped to my knees.  Maybe this ritual is similar to the karate student bowing when he enters class.  It is a psychological respite to leave the outside world behind, which makes my hunts so much more enjoyable.  Face mask, gloves. release, and knock the arrow.

Slowly I stalk my way to my spot, the sun is so nice.  It was a bright red sky, such a contrast to the sleet and snow of the day prior, or even the sunshine of Saturday, when I had my turkey flock without a license debacle.   I moved west into the woods, keeping my polarized sunglasses on to aid my sight into the brush.  Slowly I was looking for those grey bodies hiding in contrast to the rays of orange light bouncing off the fall leaves.  The hues of yellow and the red of the maple leaves jumped out, still damp from the day before.  The grass was green again, and wet enough to be quiet under my feet.

As I rounded the bend and broke off the main trail, my pace had somehow quickened.  Eager to get to my spot, I forgot to keep an ever watchful eye.  The flock of turkeys was once again passing my stand.  So naturally, my bow came up.  It was unconscious how my string went taunt against my cheek.  My right eye strained for my sights, but... my glasses.  I have shot many a rifle with the aid of shooting glasses, or even sunglasses, yet I never seemed to master it with my bow.   Pushing them downward with my wrist, they are caught on my nose, being held behind my ear by my scent lock hood.  One more try since the birds have already seen me.

Pulling my finger off the release, my glasses spring forth triggering my arrow.  My finely tuned sixty pound pull, Matthews’s switchback XT shoots the arrow at a twenty degree incline well above the birds, even above the tree tops in this case.   Striking trigs, branches as it breaches the roof of the woods.  The swoosh of the bow sent the turkeys scrambling into the underbrush.  My second arrow knocked and ready, but it’s too late.  Like most hunting experiences, it’s just a one shot deal, and I blew it.

I hiked for about twenty minutes looking for my arrow, lost cause.  Finally I plopped down.  Frustrated, the Boy Scout motto began ringing in my head.  BE PREPARED, BE PREPARED!  In so many ways I live my life by this, but yet today, I was just too happy to be in the woods to be cognizant of such a tiring remembrance.

  Sitting alone in the woods, just you, your own thoughts, nature can be a daunting task.  Somehow as the hour passed I worked through it.  Fortunate, was I to be in this place, at this time, having the privilege to have seen such beauty, much more than those city dwellers ever get to see.  The calm of the wild came back over me.  Once again my mind had become still.  My doubts of myself as a hunter subsided, and confidence restored, the sun had set.

Shouldering my backpack, bow in hand I make the somber trek back to reality.  Hiking to the main trail, over branches, under brush, it was a relief to be back on the trail.  Yet, something came over me.  As the hair on my neck stood up, my mind rewound the last few frames of my photographic memory.  What was it, not a deer, too big?  My heart pumping, adrenaline beginning to flow, natures fight or flight response began primally emerging while my logical mind struggled with the picture.  Someone in a Halloween costume, out here, why? The grandeur of a black silhouette, tall and slender didn’t seem to fit.  The imposing shadow moves left, revealing the massive body.  I am face to face with a moose at twenty yards.  Frozen like a deer in its headlights.  The massive body towers over my six foot-two frame.  I had seen them in zoos but never this close. 

Half mystified, half horrified.  I see its black beady eyes burning through me, never flinching a bit.  I am so close I can see the fly that caused the left ear to twitch.  My brain quickly assesses the magnitude of my situation.  I had picked this spot because it was such a logical funnel for game.  Pond to the east, swamp to the west (perfect for a moose, might I suggest).  My only exit was this trail, having pondered momentarily the option of going further into the wilderness in this quickly fading light.  Slowly I backed away, returning towards my stand. 

It is almost 2010, and who doesn’t have a cel phone in the woods.  Being like the actor in Slumdog Millionaire I called my friend.  Lee is from Northern New Hampshire, “Hay Rob” he starts, abruptly cutting off his banter, “what do I do with a moose”?  “What, where are you”, a quick explanation and he responds, “shoot the F’n thing”!  Well remember that Boy Scout motto, something about being ready, was it?  No gun, yes atypical behavior for me, but I had a supposedly lethal bow in my hands.  Marching back to the trail hoping my giant friend had departed, it came to me the time it takes for a deer to fall when hit with a bow.  No shooting it wouldn’t work, besides no license, after all that cel phone banter it would be gone, right?

Wrong, I had trespassed into the Moose’s living room, not it into mine.  Firmly it was holding its ground, steam blow from the nostrils upon the sight of me.   There was no getting around it.  I had to choose; do I want to risk confronting a moose, and maybe piss it off, or how about a long walk.  Well we are all in need of exercise, through the briar patches I went.  Climbing through stuff so thick, by bow, and backpack snagged on every branch.  Finally getting to the trail I looked back, still there, as if to remind me where I didn’t belong. 

Getting back to the road, I dropped to my knees, gloves off, release into my left pocket, hat into my bow case.  Oh and that’s why they call it a sport.  Man, do I feel alive tonight.

Posted October 19th 2009  Copyright Rob Elstad 2009