HUNTING STORY

 

A Story Of The Joys And

Frustrations Of

Hunting Camp

I remember a hunting season in 1979 that will probably be etched in my memory as long as I live. It might have happened years ago but it seems like it was just yesterday, probably because of the series of events which occurred the first day of buck season. During that time, my wife was working as a nurse doing the weekend/day shift at the hospital and I was the designated sitter for our two children, Julie and Rick. I was unable to leave early for camp with the rest of the guys because of this. We always planned to get there early so we could relax the evening before opening day. Our wives have always had this notion that getting there early only meant that we had more time to play cards and carry on. Of course, that was the truth but we would never admit it to them. Anyway, my wife had to work that Sunday and while I was all packed and anxious to get to camp, I had to wait until she hit the door before I could hit the road.

By the time I arrived at camp, everyone was gathered at the card table playing euchre, and this was for the Championship of the World series. While I sat out my turn and watched the game, I snacked on some of my favorites, cheese and crackers smothered in pure Louisiana hot sauce. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep track of how much I consumed but I soon found myself quite full. The euchre game eventually gave out for this night’s series and we decided to get a few hours sleep before the alarm let out with its horrendous clatter. Early morning arrived too soon and with it, a cold snap that could easily have frozen your tongue to the barrel of a rifle. This of course meant layering lots of clothing, underwear, long johns, jeans, and sweaters and coats. Lee, the camp owner and head cook, whipped up the usual greasy breakfast we all look forward to each year, sausage, bacon, and fried eggs. It’s quite a sight to see the "camp cook", making our breakfast, all the while attired in his long johns, kind of takes the edge off the appetite.

With a full belly, we were set until lunch, four or five hours later. One lesson I’ve learned over the years at camp, I always steer myself towards the head for relief after a breakfast that I just described. This morning though, there was nothing productive, no urge, no relief, and a bad omen I thought as I loaded my pockets with a third of a roll of toilet paper. This was going to be a long morning, what with no relief and a freezing chill outside. We all packed up, put our layers on and in the chill of the early morning darkness, snaked our way through the woods. I had hopes that the guy ahead of me wouldn’t let that tree branch fly and smack my ear again for the third time. Nothing smarts like a frozen ear being hit by a swinging tree branch.

About five hundred yards out of camp it hit me, my God, I had the immediate urge to take a dump, I meant immediate! I remember saying, "you guys go ahead, I’ve got to stop now!". Well, the only times I’ve ever been able to shed clothes quickly is when I see that look in my wife's eyes, unfortunately, that was not what was on my mind right then. I had a flashback to the evening before, all those cheese and crackers’ dripping with shots of hot sauce. As fast as I tried, undressing quickly was not in the numbers. I heard that explosive sound and felt the warm sensation of excrement, well, it was crap that had exploded in my pants, hot sauce crap. I was glad I had sent the guys on ahead because I honestly don’t know how I would’ve explained the situation. There I squatted, pitch dark, freezing, and obviously covered in crap. What to do, knife in hand, I cut off my underwear first, and with the illumination of my flashlight, I saw what reminded me of all those years of changing my kid’s diapers after they had eaten too much fruit.

I used all of that third of a roll of toilet paper that I had taken with me, and then realized I had gotten some of the crap in the expansion band of my watch, on my long-johns, and jeans. While I squatted there, I thought, how could I go on with this morning’s hunt and expect to see anything in the woods to shoot. The deer surely would smell me a mile away and never come near my stand. Yet, if I went back to camp, I’d spook everything in the area for the other hunters. I decided to go on to my stand, just another hundred yards or so. Once up in the stand, I looked down that fifteen feet to the ground and started feeling sorry for myself. The way this deer season was starting, it was destined to be yet another year of my hunting failure.

 I must have stood there for another hour and while looking to my right, I felt the presence of something off to my left, no sound but that strange feeling that something was there. I didn’t want to move too quickly and scare myself or whatever else might be there. I slowly swiveled my eyes as far left as they would go without becoming detached from their sockets and then turned my head until I saw it…a four point buck, walking along the slope directly towards me. My first inclination was that this deer had lost its sense of smell. My body odor must have permeated at least a hundred yards in all directions, why would this animal come anywhere near me. All the hunting material scattered around camp all relate to body and clothing odor as being the reason most hunters never see a deer in the woods. Yet, here is this deer thirty feet and closing in on me, oblivious to the smell that has been plaguing me all morning. As he walked under my stand, I could easily have spit on him. As he walked by me, and moved to about fifty feet off to my right, I knew it was time to take him out. Eyes frozen on the deer, I neglected to notice the branch next to my arm and as I brought the gun to my shoulder, bump, I barely felt it but to that buck, it must have sounded like a mortar on the forth of July.

As he jumped, I shot, and he went head over heels and hit the ground with a thud! I thought to myself, I got him but it wasn’t to happen. He was up and gone before I could ram another shell into the chamber. Now, besides missing the buck, the turkey that had mocked me half the morning flew out of the brush on the left and crossed right in front of me, seemingly, giving me the finger. All I could do was to stand there like a bump on a log and watch everything go by. What a sad morning this had been, no one would believe what I had accomplished all by myself in such a short span of time. I stood there in my stand, shivering in the cold, wondering what could possibly happen next.

In about twenty minutes, Sam came along and wanted to know who had taken the shot. In all my embarrassment, I spilled out the events of the morning, all the while, Sam was unable to contain himself. I came down out of the stand and the two of us walked down the trail to see where I had taken the shot at the buck. There on the ground were fresh pieces of flesh and bone, couldn’t identify what body part they might have come from but bone none the less. No blood though, funny we thought, no blood sign. We walked a hundred yards or so down the hill without any sign of blood. For now, we decided to head in to camp and bring an end to my dismal morning events. I had a sick feeling as we walked back to camp, knowing that I had hit the deer and it was out there somewhere wounded.

Arriving back in camp, everyone had gathered for lunch and wanted to know what all the shooting was about. They all had their laugh, and I decided that before I had lunch, I would go down to the stream and cleanup, best I thought for all of us. Mind you, everyone had kept their distance from me all this time. I gathered some clean clothes and a washcloth and soap and headed down to the bottom of the ravine where the spring fed stream was flowing.

The property is located on a plateau, with a mountain ridge to the rear, facing a series of three ridges; one only needs to see the view to appreciate it. Over the years, the trees have been cleared so that the ranges could be viewed from the camp porch. On the right side of the camp, looking out of the front porch windows, is a sharp drop off, maybe forty feet deep with a small trickle stream flowing at the bottom. It only runs during a wet year. The stream flows down through the ravine to the main creek at the lower frontage of the one hundred-acre property. From camp to the front of the property are roughly six hundred yards downhill through heavy trees and some partially cleared fields. The spring fed stream at the bottom of the ravine seemed the logical place for me to clean up; I needed some privacy in all of my embarrassment.

As I started to walk out of camp, I heard Sam call out, "better take your gun with you, never know what might come along." Hell, I grabbed my rifle even though I knew I’d have no use for it. I started down the steep slope with all of this stuff in my hands and after sliding most of the way, I finally reached the bottom. I had to sit down and remove my boots, socks, camo bibs, jeans, and shorts, no, that’s right, I had cut them off and covered them up with leaves near my stand this morning. I straddled the ditch facing upstream, with the stream flowing between my legs. I still remember how cold my hands were after dipping the washcloth in the icy water.What I really remember is where that washcloth went next. The icy cold air, combined with the cold water, resulted in my manhood resembling that of a two-year-old. There I was buck naked, washing myself, hoping no one would come over the hill and razz me. Then, I heard a sound; it was as if someone was running up behind me.  No, no, I thought, someone has spotted me in this position.  It couldn’t be, I had just left everyone up on the hill at camp, was it someone not in our group? I heard the running again, coming up the hill behind me but I couldn’t turn far enough around because of the manner in which I was straddling the ditch. Finally, when I managed to turn my head just far enough to the right, I was horribly shocked. There, running at a fast trot, no more than fifty feet behind me, was a four point buck. Instead of a beautiful animal, the deer was a horrid sight; its lower jaw was swinging freely with every step, held onto its head by skin alone. Its jaw swung like a screen door in a windstorm. It was the deer I had shot hours earlier. My shot had passed through the jaw, shattering the bone, part of which Sam and I had found where the buck had fallen. It must have run down the hill after being shot and laid in one of the lower fields until someone spooked it and it ran back up to me. I grabbed for my rifle and almost dropped it; my hands were still covered with soap. The deer completely ignored me as I wrestled with my gun trying to get a grip. He just kept up his ghastly pace, crossed the stream behind me and started up the slope on my right. It was heading up the hill toward camp! My first shot was at thirty feet, missed, understandable when hands are freezing and covered in soapy water. With much difficulty, I reloaded and shot again, missed again from forty-five feet. By now it was near the top of the slope and I expected to see heads pop up on top to see what was happening. I found out later that everyone hit the ground when they heard the shooting in their direction. Third shot, down it went, ten feet from the top. At that point, everyone popped over the hill in time to see a very strange sight.

As I stood there, still straddling the stream, gun raised over my head, and still buck naked, I let out a scream of triumph. I had put my deer out of its misery. In the condition it was in, it never could have survived and would have died a horrible death. Later, after I had finished cleaning up and the buck had been dressed out; we all sat around the campfire and talked about the strange events of the day. We all finally agreed that my deer had caught a whiff of my sensual musky like odor when walking under my stand earlier that morning and just had to come back to get a second whiff.  It was good for both of us….

BACK