Dave McCracken
January 11, 2003, 02:11 PM
I haven't been able to take much time off for hunting this year as some of you know. But I did use up one of my scant supply of vacation days yesterday and headed over to the Eastern Shore for a day's hunt with best buddy. Md has inaugurated a 2 day special firearms season following the end of M/L season,this year the 10th and 11th of January.
It could have gone better. B/B took a nice breeder, a yearling one and one half year old doe with his inline.
I set up on a hot spot over 2 acres of uncut soybeans,saw maybe 40 deer and put a good shot into another breeder at maybe 45 yards,but couldn't recover her.
Let me say something for those not familiar with the Shore. It's still mostly rural, a real food factory, and everything flat and dry enough to raise crops on is tilled, year round. The food triad, corn, soybeans and winter wheat, means year round food for deer. Many places, including this one, have deer densities of over 100/sq mi. Food cover, relatively mild winters, make it a Utopia for deer. Mature does don't have twins, they've triplets, and I've seen a couple with 4 fawns in attendance.
The cover, those areas too wet or steep to crop, runs from thick to inpenetrable. I've kicked up deer at 10 yards and never seen a hair. Once that doe I shot yesterday was in that swamp, chances of reducing her to possession were not great. After an hour of searching, I was soaked to the knees and bleeding some from briar scratches. I doubt she suffered, she gave that upward jump and twist that means a lung shot, but in the minute or so she had left she went deep into the jungle and was lost.
These deer are hunted hard, and are as spooky as any alive. So while there's plenty of targets, the hunt's no gimme. And, it's shotgun only, so up close and sudden is SOP.
Anyway, I returned last night bummed out a bit. I've only lost 3 deer in my life, and losing this one was a major disappointment. I resolved to rework my schedule and get in a few hours this AM, the last day of any season I could take some venison in. So, dawn found me wending my way through the wet spots in the logging road at the place mentioned in "A Walk In The Woods".
A new lease, this is 300 acres of really nasty stuff, logged long enough ago to grow back up thick as quills on a porcupine. Greenbriar, bramble, poison ivy, sumac, and in the summer millions of skeeters and ticks. Lyme's endemic and West Nile Virus is showing up.
The wind was marginal, the temperature cold enough that the leaves were dry and brittle enough to make it sound like I was treading on cornflakes. Still hunting was lunacy under these conditions, so I trudged along the logging road that was the only access point and decided to sit on stand until my toes went numb.
Naturally, I jumped some up as I entered, and at 20 yards the brush was so thick they walked away, not bolted with flags hoisted.That's thick cover, when the deer can't run through it. I couldn't have inserted a slug through that stuff, so I didn't try.
A little more bummed out, I snap/crackle/popped down the twotrack to a cross trail with some rubs marking a buck trail. Fishooking in gave me a better wind, and I sat on a down log next to a tree with a few weathered boards nailed in it, showing where another hunter in decades past thought he had a good spot. I decided to sit it out until my feet got too cold and call it a season.There were tiny trails nearby, and some recent sign, so it was as good a spot as any.
I need hunting like I need oxygen. It's my decompression, my avocation, the relief from life's wounds. And with Wife's surgery, money probs, my less than good health, life's been a little painful lately. But,now in the woods,
those problems seemed less overwhelming.Still important, but not an avalanche of $%!+ bearing down on me.
A flicker of movement ahead of me snapped me from revery, and the 870 came to hand. I deciphered the clues about the time the red fox moved into view. A flame with volution, it counterpointed the drab colors around it as it moused along a down log, eyed me, decided I wasn't good to eat and was possibly dangerous, and exited, stage left.
So,I settled back, kept my attention on the woods around me, eased my shotgun back to a comfortable but ready position, and breathed better than I do in the haunts of home. I saw nothing manmade but what I brought, and not even the sound of a distant engine was heard. I was in a wild and silent place, full of muted beauty, and the Healing began.
This was the Shore in winter,so geese flew by and called an ancient summons to others. The brittle clarity of the moment held long enough that I could almost hear the dynamo that is our world humming like a note too low for ears, but easy to feel, infinitely sustained.
And so the time passed, intent on the world around me,but having the time needed to take my life out, look at it closely, and note all that was good.
I held out as long as I could, but feet and bladder eventually got me moving. I eased back down the trail and over the boggy places, moving easier and better than on the way in despite my immobility for some hours. Unloading near the Toyota, I stowed everything and climbed in. As I headed back towards Rt 301, I noticed I was whistling....
It could have gone better. B/B took a nice breeder, a yearling one and one half year old doe with his inline.
I set up on a hot spot over 2 acres of uncut soybeans,saw maybe 40 deer and put a good shot into another breeder at maybe 45 yards,but couldn't recover her.
Let me say something for those not familiar with the Shore. It's still mostly rural, a real food factory, and everything flat and dry enough to raise crops on is tilled, year round. The food triad, corn, soybeans and winter wheat, means year round food for deer. Many places, including this one, have deer densities of over 100/sq mi. Food cover, relatively mild winters, make it a Utopia for deer. Mature does don't have twins, they've triplets, and I've seen a couple with 4 fawns in attendance.
The cover, those areas too wet or steep to crop, runs from thick to inpenetrable. I've kicked up deer at 10 yards and never seen a hair. Once that doe I shot yesterday was in that swamp, chances of reducing her to possession were not great. After an hour of searching, I was soaked to the knees and bleeding some from briar scratches. I doubt she suffered, she gave that upward jump and twist that means a lung shot, but in the minute or so she had left she went deep into the jungle and was lost.
These deer are hunted hard, and are as spooky as any alive. So while there's plenty of targets, the hunt's no gimme. And, it's shotgun only, so up close and sudden is SOP.
Anyway, I returned last night bummed out a bit. I've only lost 3 deer in my life, and losing this one was a major disappointment. I resolved to rework my schedule and get in a few hours this AM, the last day of any season I could take some venison in. So, dawn found me wending my way through the wet spots in the logging road at the place mentioned in "A Walk In The Woods".
A new lease, this is 300 acres of really nasty stuff, logged long enough ago to grow back up thick as quills on a porcupine. Greenbriar, bramble, poison ivy, sumac, and in the summer millions of skeeters and ticks. Lyme's endemic and West Nile Virus is showing up.
The wind was marginal, the temperature cold enough that the leaves were dry and brittle enough to make it sound like I was treading on cornflakes. Still hunting was lunacy under these conditions, so I trudged along the logging road that was the only access point and decided to sit on stand until my toes went numb.
Naturally, I jumped some up as I entered, and at 20 yards the brush was so thick they walked away, not bolted with flags hoisted.That's thick cover, when the deer can't run through it. I couldn't have inserted a slug through that stuff, so I didn't try.
A little more bummed out, I snap/crackle/popped down the twotrack to a cross trail with some rubs marking a buck trail. Fishooking in gave me a better wind, and I sat on a down log next to a tree with a few weathered boards nailed in it, showing where another hunter in decades past thought he had a good spot. I decided to sit it out until my feet got too cold and call it a season.There were tiny trails nearby, and some recent sign, so it was as good a spot as any.
I need hunting like I need oxygen. It's my decompression, my avocation, the relief from life's wounds. And with Wife's surgery, money probs, my less than good health, life's been a little painful lately. But,now in the woods,
those problems seemed less overwhelming.Still important, but not an avalanche of $%!+ bearing down on me.
A flicker of movement ahead of me snapped me from revery, and the 870 came to hand. I deciphered the clues about the time the red fox moved into view. A flame with volution, it counterpointed the drab colors around it as it moused along a down log, eyed me, decided I wasn't good to eat and was possibly dangerous, and exited, stage left.
So,I settled back, kept my attention on the woods around me, eased my shotgun back to a comfortable but ready position, and breathed better than I do in the haunts of home. I saw nothing manmade but what I brought, and not even the sound of a distant engine was heard. I was in a wild and silent place, full of muted beauty, and the Healing began.
This was the Shore in winter,so geese flew by and called an ancient summons to others. The brittle clarity of the moment held long enough that I could almost hear the dynamo that is our world humming like a note too low for ears, but easy to feel, infinitely sustained.
And so the time passed, intent on the world around me,but having the time needed to take my life out, look at it closely, and note all that was good.
I held out as long as I could, but feet and bladder eventually got me moving. I eased back down the trail and over the boggy places, moving easier and better than on the way in despite my immobility for some hours. Unloading near the Toyota, I stowed everything and climbed in. As I headed back towards Rt 301, I noticed I was whistling....