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Bob took a quick trip back up to Alabama.  Our lease is a combined set of lands totaling around two thousand acres. Most of the land consists of oak groves, planted pines and cutover.  Typical Alabama land.  Bob set out to straighten out the bad luck he kept having.  Turkeys were gobbling, but they were still henned up.  Bob worked back and forth running into the same problems as before.  This time he decided to work the greenfield by setting up his ground blind. It was a little warmer this time around so it could get a little hot in the blind.  He picked a spot we call “Hughes” which was a large two hundred and forty acres tract that was clear cut last year.  The land was hilly and had small creek bottoms running through the property.  The woodline on one end of the property kind of dog legged up a hill and then cuts back down to a creek then cuts again ninety degrees to create basically a odd looking “Z”.  In the top corner of this Z is a greenfield set out into the cutover.  Already one hunter from the club missed a good gobbler in that area.  Several toms would roost just off the clear cut then fly down and work the creek bottoms.   Bob just couldn’t get them onto our property.  He knew they did, but where and when was a mystery.  So he decided to set up the blind on the only greenfield in the area and got quiet.

Now Bob likes guns. He brings a couple and always tries to challenge himself by using a setup that adds to the difficulty.  This time he brought up his twenty gauge shotgun loaded with #5’s.   Bob said he sat down and waited.  A couple of hours past and then he glanced up and saw a hen’s head coming up over the hill near the edge of the greenfield.  He picked up his camera to snap a photo and in the view finder he sees another hen’s head pop up.  So, he puts his camera down and picks up his twenty.  Soon he sees a third head, this one is red and big.  He grabs up his rangefinder and camera again to snap a set of photos.  The three birds aren’t paying attention to his blind at all, so he feels safe.

The gobbler eases up and Bob reads thirty-three yards.  Easy money for the tight pattern shooting twenty.  Bob takes grabs a couple of photos and then picks up the gun. He carefully aims the twenty and pulls the trigger. The bird flops over and starts flapping his wings.  Bob shoots him in the head again noting the pattern dusts up all around the tom’s head.  He stops flapping and lays still.

Now he takes his eyes off the bird, which is situated just on the edge of the greefield, looks down to put away his camera, book and gear. He steps outside the back of the blind, scaring off the hens and walks over to the bird….which is gone!

Bob looks back at the blind, down at the ground, around at the cutover and there is nothing, no bird no blood, nothing expect a single feather.  Needless to say, Bob tells me he’s a bit mystified if not down right stunned.  What the heck?  Bob does what he knows he has to and starts a grid search all the way to the woodline and oak bottom. No bird. No blood. No tracks.  Three hours.  He called me when he got done and told me the story.  I said that thirty-three yards with a twenty shooting three inch fives should have pole-axed that bird.  His dad confirmed that fact in another call.  The only thing that made sense was the gun shot a little low and maybe he chest shot the bird.  But still..

The only other answer is this  is no ordinary bird.  He was some kind of superhero bird.  A real “Iron Man.”    Bob had to leave and could not get right with another bird before he had to travel.  His season is over.  Mine never got started as my wife’s business went south with the recession and on top of that, she was diagnosed with cancer and must have surgery.  I had told “Raining hens” that my daughter and I would live vicariously through him this season.   And so we did.  Last year’s effort mimicked poor Bob’s effort this year.   As he said earlier. “I understand why you hate turkeys so much.”

Wait till next year.

I managed to spend some time hunting the rut in Alabama.  I saw or heard a number of bucks, sadly most at night as they started dogging does seriously about the time I left.  However, this buck came in, downwind, of my stand, went through my scent trail and STILL answered the Primos doe bleat and Harmon’s doe scent I used at the edge of the greenfield.  There is no doubt during a normal period he would have went the other way when he crossed the downwind side.  But, as we all know, women can get you killed.  And so it was for him.  My favorite weapon for deer hunting is my scoped MIA in .308.  The round caught the deer at about ninety yards just behind the right ribs and lodged in the left shoulder.  He went about twenty yards and piled up.  The damage was devastating.  He didn’t bleed beyond a few drops out of his nose.  Luckily for me, he ran directly at my stand and dropped dead about forty yards away.

It’s been years since I’ve hunting Florida.  I live here, but my hunting heart belongs to the great state of Alabama.  People are good, the weather is good, the land is exceptional and the hunting is solid-good deer, good turkeys, good small game, just good.  Back in the late nineties to around 2005 I hunted a public piece of land up the road from me called the Yucca pen.  The land was open, filled with ATV’ers and mudders.  People shot, hunted, goofed around and basically just “ran the woods” on the weekends.  There was a small population of pigs and a smaller population of deer on the land.  I ran a feeder or two and usually hunted in the mid-week.  It was fun, but not very productive.  I killed a few pigs, no deer but spent a good deal of time in the woods, which is where I would prefer to be.

Several years ago the State of Florida bought the area up and sealed it off.  I pulled my stands and gear and left.  Years passed, finally I broke down and decided to try to hunt it with all the rules and regulations the State demands (I have a basic dislike for bureaucrats telling me where, when and how I hunt.  Who are they?  Most aren’t even outdoorsmen.)  But I bit the bullet and signed up.   I went on Google and printed down an aerial map of the area.  I quickly noted a series of flag ponds situated in the back corner of the property about a mile from the main road.  A friend of mine said most of the hunters stayed close to the main roads, so I figured this would be a good place to hunt.  Kaley-Ann and I made a quick scouting trip and I had to eat a little crow.  Whoever set up the area did a good job.  The staff and the rules were laid back.  I was surprised and pleased.  Kaley-Ann was even more pleased.  We jumped a number of small game and a couple of hogs, which was the goal.  We also saw deer- silly, stupid, non-afraid deer.  On the way back to the truck around dusk, a young spike refused to get out of our way.  In another time, my dad would have put him in the cooler without a blink of an eye.  But times change and we think about QDM a lot harder today.

Kaley-Ann really wanted to take a hog with a bow.  She had built her own bow from Rudderbows from a bamboo backed hickory blank.   It is a fine shooting bow, but a little heavy and she is working on trying to master it.  As a backup we decided to bring along her Remington .260.   On our first trip we walked to the back of the hunting area.  It was about a mile in.  Most of the other hunters tried to stay closer to the road.  We pulled along a game cart on the off chance we got something we could pull it out.  We went to the area we scouted and worked slowly into the wind.  We circled the slough where we had jumped pigs before.  About a hundred and fifty yards out, we heard the squealing and popping of teeth coming from the tall grass and palmettos surrounding the slough.  Kaley-Ann’s eyes opened wide in awe as the sounds of pigs fighting with each other echoed across the slough.  It was hard to tell if the pigs were in the palmettos on the far side of the slough, or in the slough itself which was covered with chest high thickets of grass under which the pigs a burrowed dozens of trails.  We both crept closer, Kaley-Ann readying her rifle.  It took about twenty minutes to circle downwind and come up from the south.   The pigs quit fighting so we were still a little confused as to their location.   We eased up to the edge of the slough with me a little to the inside.  I figured the pigs were so loud because they were in the palmettos on the far side of the slough so I kept an eye in that direction.  As we snuck up I caught Kaley-Ann looking past me to my right so I turned my head and to my surprise saw about a hundred pound boar walking along with us only fifteen yards away!  He didn’t see us because of the tall grass and thickets but we could see him from about the shoulders up.   Here I was between Kaley-Ann and a pig.  I backed up and drifted towards her and away from the pig, but I still could see both at the same time.  Kaley-Ann raised her rifle and fired.   The pig squealed and took off.   I figured he’d be DRT (dead right there) but he jumped into the slough and was gone.  No blood, no hair, no signs at all.  We circled the slough and even went through it on a grid search, nothing but other pigs complaining about us disrupting their day.  Kaley-Ann scratched her head, fifteen yards and a clean miss?  She finally admitted the adrenaline dumped when she saw the pig so close may have gotten the best of her as she tried to shoot through the tall grass.  (I think she overcompensated trying to shoot “through” the brush trying to hit the shoulder.)

About three days later we tried it again.  This time we brought a climber on the cart and wheeled it back into the same area.  Kaley-Ann climbed up a tree about eight feet which was all the tree would handle.  I left her and went to another area to sit and watch a game crossing.  (It was more her hunt than mine.)  The day was breezy and just a little warm.  The kind of day you’ll find yourself dozing instead of paying attention.  Around dusk, I got up and went for a little walkabout.  As I approached a large pond a heard a rustling and two large pigs jumped out about ten yards away.  They didn’t stay long enough for me to get a bead on them, but I wasn’t that interested because Kaley-Ann had just radioed me and said she was covered up with pigs.  She was just trying to pick one that wasn’t surrounded by piglets.   A few minutes after my encounter, I heard her rifle bark.  She radioed me she had one down.  I walked over and sure enough a nice fat sow was lying dead on the ground.

It was easy money.   We went and grabbed up the cart, pulled it back and loaded the pig.  We started out.  That was when I learned a valuable lesson about weight, thin wheels and soft Florida mud.  To say it was easy to get out was an understatement.  Six hundred yards of pulling that fat pig through the slough and I thought I was having “the big one Elizabeth!”   I’m not twenty-five anymore.  I decided to lighten the load and gut the pig right there.  I did and it was a little easier, until we loaded up the rest of the gear including the climber onto the cart.   There are moments when we look back and say “this was a special time.”  The struggle to walk out with her prize, pulling side by side, talking and laughing about how weak we looked as the sun set and the moon began to rise was a special moment for me.   Towards the end, Kaley-Ann tried to persuade me to go and get the truck.  “Dad, they won’t care if we drive a couple of hundred yards!” she panted as we pulled the cart across another rut.  I said to her, “Rules are rules, and it would be my luck the game warden would drive by just as we were coming out.  Let’s just stay the course and we’ll be okay.”  We did and finally made it out.  The funny thing was by the time we got out of the woods and back to the check out station everybody had gone home!   I could have driven all over the place and nobody would have known or cared.  But it was still a good lesson.   However, one my back and arms reminded me of for several days afterward.  Now I see why all the other hunters hunted closer to the roads.

Life is good when you spend time hunting with your kids.   This hunt was no exception, except for the fact that about half way out I had this great idea for an invention- a motorized game cart for old farts like me that tend to forget I may think I’m twenty, but my body is on the back side of fifty and has all the dents and dings that come with it.  Motorized carts, a sure money maker.  I’m just saying…

It was deer season again which meant a trip to Alabama and a stay in our wonderful single wide trailer on our fifteen hundred acre lease. Not many members were hunting as it was the last week of archery and muzzleloading season. Before I left I dug out my old .54 caliber Renegade and tried to sight it in. I hadn’t shot it in almost fifteen years, instead opting for bows and rifles. We had some trouble sighting it as it jumped from left to right and back to left. At one point, my buddy, Bob, wondered if the sights were loose. I pulled on the rear sight and it was fine. I pulled at the front sight and much to my dismay it moved back and forth easily. That explained the wandering groups! Several quick taps from a hammer and a punch rolled the dovetail down and the front sight was working again. We didn’t have a chance to sight it back in before the trip so we grabbed up all the gear and hit the road.

Now I love bowhunting in any form including crossbows. I don’t like wheels so I took along my Excalibur. It is a tack-driving weapon and I have the shaved and Robin Hooded bolts to prove it. However, it is an awkward weapon. Sorry guys at Excalibur, but it is what it is, and this creature can get in the way. Especially when sitting in a tree stand or trying to move around inside a shooting house. (Shooting houses on my lease are built on the basic 4×4 design. Good for rifles, bad for anything oddly shaped.) I knew my daughter would have trouble with it, so when we got up to the lease I had her shoot my old black powder and I’d use the crossbow. I should say that I may gripe about the crossbow’s design, but it is a deadly weapon. I killed a nice sow with it one year, hitting the pig at better than thirty-five yards in the near dark and nearly knocking her over. It sent a bolt with a Fred Bear Razorhead through her ribs and out the other side in a blink of an eye.

With a quick sighting in session and a few lessons on how to handle the rifle like how to     prime it with caps and the safe removal of the same, I sent my daughter out to a shooting house on our “400” property while I climbed a pine tree with my Summit at another food plot. As I struggled up the tree, it had been a year and my biceps were not used to pushing me and my gear up, I realized that being on the wrong side of fifty was starting to take a toll on me. Next year, God willing, I’m getting one of those sit down/pull up stands. Anyway, I get settled in and start to relax. It’s a good clear day and a good wind. I ranged a couple of trees and got ready for that six point I was after last year. It was only a matter of time. About thirty minutes later I hear BOOOM!!! from the area where Kaley-Ann had set up. I waited a minute and she radios me (we use radios to communicate when set up separately) “Dad, I got one.”

I was grinning under my face mask “What was it?” Hoping and not hoping it was that six point we both were after.

“It’s a doe.”

“Is she dead?”

“Oh, she’s dead!”

I figured as much. Getting hit with a 230 grain lead ball a half inch in diameter had to put the dinky-dink on that deer. So I realized my hunt was over and I got down so I could go back to the truck and drive down to Kaley-Ann’s location. When I showed up she had already tracked and recovered the deer. It was a small doe and I could see the lead ball hit her right through the chest. Kaley-Ann smiled and said it was right where she was aiming. However, she didn’t like the gun that much. “Dad. I’m not sure about this black powder deal.”

“Why? It seemed to work.”

“Because when the deer showed up I followed your instructions and pulled the hammer back. When I pulled the trigger the hammer fell but nothing happened. The doe looked up at me but luckily didn’t move. I so quietly pulled the hammer back again and pulled the trigger a second time. That time the gun went off! I couldn’t see the deer! The smoke was everywhere! Then I see her run off. When she did I saw my right hand trying to work the bolt like I do on my .260. But there’s no bolt, I’m out of bullets!!

I was laughing out loud imagining my daughter frantically waving her hand back and forth working a bolt that doesn’t exist. I pointed out the rifle did exactly what it was supposed to do, hence the dead deer on the ground next to the truck. She had to admit I had a point and we loaded her trophy into the bed of the truck and drove back to camp. We later figured out she didn’t have the primer set square on the nipple and the first strike set it up correctly. It went off on the second, as it was designed. Had it been a nervous six point, I think I would have lost a future black powder fan. As it turned out my Dad, who is failing steadily and giving away his things, told her he would give her his old .50 caliber Hawkins when he got back to Florida. That is a tack driving old style rifle, fully decorated in brass and wood. The old way for sure. It’s a hard way to gain a prized possession, but if he lasts till she shoots a deer with it, the moment will last forever in the stories told by our family. Isn’t that really what hunting and family and loving is all about?

I think it is.

P.S.- With this deer, Kaley-Ann has taken game with every type of weapon except a bow.   Although she did hit a running bunny with a blunt, just the wrong arrow head. Pretty good for a fourteen year old girl who has to travel 600 miles to hunt.

I have decided on occasion to pass along stories of my wife. A good hunter has either a good wife backing him, or a wife that encourages escape from the rigors of matrimony into the woods where peace and common sense apply. My wife doesn’t mind me going because when I’m gone the silly things she does go unnoticed. I was there for this one.

———-

For all of you that know my wife, she is a lovely woman, now forty-five years of age, who acts and models on occasion. She is in the process of building her portfolio with photographers and agents. She is constantly either modeling (as she did last week on the East coast and when driving back ended up in Orlando. Which is odd because we don’t live there… but I digress) or going to photo shoots. I’m not really sure about all of that; it’s an “artist” thing.

Another thing you have to know about my wife, if you don’t already, is she is a blonde. Tragically, it has gotten worse over the years, to the point now where I just do a “Jerry Sheffield” and shrug my shoulders. What else can you do? (Jerry is my father in law and the most patient man I know. He has had years of experience doing the shrug with a wife and three daughters. My wife antics resemble her mother’s more than she wants to admit and has led to more than one argument over the years between us. Truth is that apple not only didn’t fall far from the tree, it rolled back up against the trunk!!)

Now, yesterday she tells me she is going to Sarasota to do a photo shoot at a beach with some photographer she met on-line. Yes, the whole serial killer thing pops up, but she’s insured and hell you can’t tell her anything anyhow. So off she goes. Of course you might all want to point out that the current weather on the West Coast is unsettled at best and downright ornery at worse right now, and the chances of getting a nice sunset on a beach (I know, again the serial killer thing) is remote. But you can’t tell her that. So I do what I do, and shrug.

Marty makes it back around dark. It is raining, as it has every day for the last week and a half. She comes running in. Now try to picture this. She is dress in a light blue (turquoise maybe?) string bikini and three inch clog shoes. (I have to add tastefully; she had some “improvements” made this last year and in a bikini they are quite evident.) She has her hair up (actually it is a “fall” so accurately it is someone else’s hair, but that’s not important) and makeup on. She is running from her car to the house trying to drag everything in. She asks for an umbrella and says she is freezing to death. So now she’s running back and forth, in the dark, in the rain, in a turquoise string bikini, carrying a leopard print umbrella, freezing to death. She claimed later the reason for the umbrella was she that the rain running in her face “blinded her.” So more accurately she is running back and forth, blinded by the rain, in the dark (using some kind of sonar system like a bat?), in a bikini, carrying a leopard print umbrella, on clogs, and of course freezing to death. I asked her later why she was wearing the bikini driving back instead of, I don’t know, clothes, and her response was “The only other outfit I had was my Jeannie (from “I dream of Jeannie” TV show) outfit and the dress I wore up. The dress was wet from the rain.” I asked her wasn’t her bikini wet? “Yes, but that’s different.” (I know scratch your head moment) How I’m not sure, but I had visions of her in a car wreck or on a traffic stop with some trooper going, “Ma’am those are sure nice, but I’m going to have to write you a ticket anyhow.” Or “Jeannie? You gonna try and blink yourself out of the ticket?” An extra change of clothes would have been nice. That’s all I’m saying.

Now, some of you know me. I’m the guy who says “Y’know, I don’t think this is working out so well”, and tries to regroup and rethink the situation. My dad had a deer hunting dog like that once. If she got confused, she’d sit down and just mull things over for a minute or two and try to figure out what was going wrong. A hound dog. A dog… On the other hand, my wife tends to get an idea in her head and go with it, regardless of how bumpy the road gets, or if in fact there is even a road left after a while. She just keeps plowing along. Me, I would have probably come inside, changed into dry clothes, put on a raincoat, picked another umbrella other than leopard print- but that’s just a personal taste issue- and went back out to get ONLY the things I needed, not try to unload the whole car. Or, I would have done all of the above and then waited until the rain stopped before going back out. Really, I mean, does it have to happen right now?? Not my wife. Nope. She had to run back and forth like some kind of crazed Playboy bunny in a scene from Hefner’s highlights, complaining the whole way just how miserable she is.

Of course, as I watch this all go by I do what any good husband will do, I told my daughter to go and get the camera so I could get a picture of it all, which was about when my wife started cussing me.

Go figure. All that and no sense of humor….

There is an old saying about fathers and daughters; “A son is a son until he takes a wife. A daughter is a daughter all her life.” To many men, until they are fathers of daughters, this old saying doesn’t mean much. But when you see your daughter for the first time, held in the arms of your wife, it all makes sense. With my daughter it is especially meaningful. You see, when she was only a year or so, she became sick with a simple flu. But as young parents, my wife and I didn’t know the dangers of the flu in a small child.  After a few days of futile home remedies we brought her to the doctors.  One look at my daughter and he admitted her immediately to the hospital.  The doctor told us had we waited another day or so, my daughter would have died from dehydration.  This I know to be true, because another acquaintance of mine didn’t act fast enough and his daughter died in her mother’s arms.

As I sat next to my daughter’s bed, in a darkened hospital room, tears quietly rolling down my cheek, I vowed never to make that mistake again and I have spent my life keeping my promise. As time passed, my daughter, Kaley Ann, grew into a happy, intelligent young girl.  She was always serious about school, about pleasing her parents, about doing the right thing in life. Kaley Ann has always been a huge lover of the outdoors.  Part of it was probably from the days she spent as a five year old perched along side me in a homemade stand hunting pigs or other critters during bow season.  She was the best partner a hunter could want, content to play with twigs and leaves while helping her dad listening for incoming game. Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when Kaley Ann decided she wanted to be a hunter too.  Kaley Ann is your basic tomboy, more comfortable in jeans than a dress. She is her daddy’s buddy and tried and true hunting/outdoors partner.

I taught her about all types of hunting; rifles, pistols, bows and shotguns.  At first she learned the basics with a .22 rifle.  But soon she graduated to a 260 Remington and took her first buck with a hundred yard downhill shot which broke both shoulders.  She killed her first turkey with 20 gauge hand-me-down.  I couldn’t have been prouder both times, not only for her skill but the respect she showed nature.

As much as I liked to use other equipment to take critters, my first love has always been traditional bow hunting.  I bought the kids some wooden youth bows to play around with so I could see if they were interested or not.  When Kaley Ann was around eleven or twelve she said she wanted to try bow hunting.  I bought her a compound, figuring that type of bow would be a good first step into bowhunting and it would give her the energy to take animals safely.  Kaley Ann never complained; the good daughter that she was.  She shot the compound and seemed happy with it.  I, on the other hand, shot my Mahaska recurve (a fine bow) and an old Bear whitetail I picked up years ago on Ebay for seventy five dollars.  Last year, I decided to do something different and bought a bow kit from Rudderbows.com.  The bamboo backed Epe longbow was sent to me in the basic raw form, ready for me to shave and shape it.  It turned out to be a fine tack driving longbow.  Soon, Kaley Ann and I would have competitions to see who could shoot better, her with a compound and me with the longbow.  She often won.  She loved beating at my own game, and I loved loosing. But there were times I did as good or better with my traditional equipment.

I figured she was happy until about a month ago when she came to me and asked if she could build a bow like mine.  I was a little hesitant, thinking that the bamboo backed bow that Rudderbows makes were probably too slow at her draw to be successful hunting bows.  However, she really wanted a bow like mine.  I called Rudderbows and they walked me through my concerns.  We settled on a bamboo backed hickory bow at 66″ for her first attempt.  They added a handle and took the extra time to tiller the bow around 60lbs before shipping it to my daughter.

Kaley Ann was on pins and needles until the bow arrived.  Immediately, she began shaving the limbs down as I watched and guided her in the process.  I explained how the bow worked and the need to take it slow and easy.  “You can always take more wood off, but you can’t put it back on.” I’d say as she shaved, sanded and then tested the pull.   I explained that taking the time to finish your own bow to your personal likes, makes that bow special.  She carefully sanded and filed the handle, checked the tiller and slowly, methodicallybegan to bring the bow to life. Working on her bow inside my cramped, messy shed. Her mom didn’t like the idea of shavings in her clean house. Rudderbows will help a lot with the basic layout on your bow.  Here they started the handle and gave a solid center cut.

I would stand over Kaley Ann and worry that she would do it wrong and become disappointed. But, Kaley Ann is a very smart and independent girl.  After a while, she would glance up at me with that “leave me alone I know what I’m doing” look and I would force myself to walk away.  I shouldn’t have worried though.  She knew what she wanted, as she always did, and slowly the bow became hers.  She left it a little heavy, in order to challenge herself to build up to the bow’s weight.

Kaley Ann  picked out a stain that would color the wood to her liking.  We went online to Three Rivers Archery and picked out what kind of accessories she wanted on her bow.  Kaley Ann tricked it out the way she wanted; a leopard skin arrow plate, leather grips and musk ox puffers. All I can say it is a darned fine looking bow. So much so, I warned her she had better keep an eye on it, or I might find a reason to hunt with it myself.

I can say this, the people at Rudderbows make a seriously accurate bow.  Kaley Ann’s was the third one I made or seen made and all were tack driving bows.  I watched as Kaley Ann took her bow out for the first time, and while using my arrows (which aren’t tuned to her bow), drive arrow after arrow into a small plastic bottle at more than ten yards.

Kaley Ann laughed at me as she pinned the bottle to the target yet again, as I missing repeatedly by mere inches.  Her velocity needs to come up, but that will come with time, practice and tuned up muscles. Watching her bear down on the target and drive arrow after arrow into the bull’s-eye, all I can say is this, if I were a deer within twenty yards of my daughter this fall, I’d be getting ready to be served for dinner along with some rice and gravy.

I watched Kaley Ann put the finishing touches on her bow, I turned to my wife and said what I am sure all fathers say, “Someday she’ll discover boys and spending time with her dad with be all yucky and such.” My wife patted me on the arm and smiled. I thought to myself, I know someday Kaley Ann will go her own way, chasing boys, chasing careers, chasing her dreams. And “old dad” will be the guy she visits during the holidays.  I’d be less than honest if I said the thought didn’t bring me sadness.  But until then, critters beware!

Update: I wrote the above story about a year ago.  This year Kaley-Ann didn’t get a deer, but she did manage to hit a running bunny at almost twenty yards as he darted through some pretty thick brush.  She flipped him, but the type of blunt she had didn’t close the deal. (we have since corrected that!)  Still a running bunny at twenty, not bad!

A long time ago, I had promised myself if I ever retired I would spend a month hunting deer in the great state of Alabama.  The plan was originally set for seven years down the road but fate stepped in.  Our department offered a buyout for a number of senior officers. So, after over eighteen years, most of it as  detective, I felt it was time to hang up catching bad guys and spend more time with my family.

A few days after I retired I took my two children, Kaley-Ann and Jacob, to our lease, which is northwest of Auburn, for a long hunting vacation. On the way up we visited another retired detective for a day and then set our sights on our new home, an old trailer next to a lease my father and I had. Unfortunately since the last time I stayed there the trailer had lost its well and the overall condition had fallen beyond repair. We struggled for a week until we could make other arrangements. Both my kids kept a good attitude as we carried water from a neighbor to take showers and cook food. When we did manage to find another trailer and secure the water, we settled in and started to seriously hunt deer. The weather was cold and I mean cracking your pipes cold. For a while they expected snow. We didn’t get the fluffy white stuff, but we dealt with everything else freezing solid. Before I left Florida I stuck my Columbia Gallatin Range wool bibs and jacket into the truck just in case. That was a good move. There was more than one day where the set saved my bacon, and other sensitive parts, from freezing solid. In preparation for the hunt I scoped my Springfield M1A. I know, heavy, awkward and there are better rifles out there. I’ve heard it all. But that wasn’t the point. I owned the rifle for

almost twenty years and killed a number of critters with it. In the past I shot the rifle with iron sights only and it was a tack driving weapon. (One time I shot a three round group at less than an inch and a half at 150 yards. Two of the rounds were almost touching. And that was done by resting the rifle against my truck bed.) But I never scoped it and one time I missed a doe at over a hundred yards in a clear cut. She was loping along so it was not a great shot anyway. However, my hunting buddies gave me a hard time and persuaded my wife to get me another rifle. That Christmas I ended up with a Winchester .300 Win. Mag. It shot great and I killed a number of deer with it, but I didn’t like it that much. It was just too much gun for deer here in Alabama. Besides, it just wasn’t sexy. I’d seen the M1A scoped out and it looked like something special. In addition, I wanted to try some long range shooting with the setup to see just

how accurate the rifle was with me behind the trigger. I set a goal of two hundred yards or better in the clear cuts. I should mention that as a .308 weapon system the M1A, with its extra weight and good balance, is phenomenally stable. I had no doubt I would be able to put a round on a target if given the opportunity. But as chance would have it, I had trouble when I first set the rifle up and didn’t get a real opportunity to get her tuned in right. It was shooting high but I didn’t know it. It shouldn’t have been, but the high mount on the M1A caused some issues I didn’t anticipate. I finally tuned it in while up in Alabama but not after missing a deer. After that the rifle was a good to me as I could ask.

January 9^th- With the hunt for shelter finally over, I sent Kaley-Ann down the back side of the property we were staying on. The club leased the land where the trailer sat. It was part of an eighty-five acre old farm that had been clear cut three or four years ago. The brush had grown up quickly and the deer began to work back and forth across the three main ridges the farm contained. Each ridge had one greenfield at the end. The one where I sent Kaley-Ann was at the end of the ridge near a swamp. Originally, the farm was usually good for a doe or two, but as the surrounding brush began to thicken, bucks were being taken more and more. I escorted her to the shooting house and helped her settle in. For safety, I used small handheld radios. My daughter was instructed to radio me when she was on her way back. From time to

time, we’d check in with each other. While she hunted I stayed at the trailer with my son cleaning the inside to make it habitable. I got sidetracked working and when I glanced outside I noticed it was almost dark. The day before Kaley-Ann had gotten a little cold so I was worried I had left her out too long. I keyed up the radio just as I

walked out and began to ask if she was ready to come down. When I stepped out I realized there was about five minutes of shooting light left. I quickly shut up after a few words and hoped I didn’t screw up her hunt. Less than a minute later my question was answered with a loud boom from her direction. I waited on pins and needles until the radio crackled with her voice. “DAD, IT WAS A BUCK, A HUGE BUCK!!” Kaley-Ann’s voice was bursting with excitement. “He ran up by the shooting house and I saw him fall over, I think he’s dead.” It was dark by then, so I grabbed my son, my dog and a flashlight and started heading down the muddy road. Kaley-Ann’s voice came over the radio again, “Dad, I’m not sure he’s dead. I think I can hear him moving around, but I can’t tell.” I stopped and retreated back to the trailer where I grabbed my .45 Kimber, a bigger light and had Jacob put my dog, Chloe- our Golden Retriever- on a leash. The last thing I needed was my dog chasing a wounded deer through the woods at night. We started

back down to the road better prepared. When we got to the bottom, Kaley-Ann met us at the base of the shooting house. She pointed to where the deer was laying. We carefully walked over but caution was not needed, the buck was dead. The funniest moment was when Kaley-Ann was describing what happened as she walked over. She whispered, “Dad, I was up in the shooting house when I saw this doe run into the field. She busted me almost immediately and turned and ran off. Just about dark I heard something in the woods off to the right and out pops this huge buck. He runs right to the tree in the middle of the greenfield. Just then you called, but I had put the radio on the floor of the house to muffle any sound. The buck didn’t hear a thing. I tried to put the rifle on the window but it made noise and he looked my way. I froze and then I heard another deer in the woods behind him. The buck looked over his shoulder and then jumped up on his hind legs and put his front hooves on the trunk of the tree. He started chewing on the branches. After he was finished he dropped down and started to go to the bathroom. That was when I shot him!” Kaley-Ann seemed tickled about that timing. “I wasn’t going to risk anything. When he first came out and I tried to move the first time I thought he was going to run. So, when he started to go he was standing still and that was all I needed. Dad, the buck is HUGE!” Kaley-Ann made a motion with her hands, holding them apart by at least twenty-four inches. I was curious to see just how big this buck was. So, we walked over in the dark to the tree where he had fallen. Sure enough he was dead, and he was big, but not as big as Kaley-Ann remembered. She was in front of me when we walked up on the deer; her hands were up and out showing the size of the rack. The farther we walked the wider the gap between the hands grew. The flashlight beam hit the buck’s headgear. Kaley-Ann paused. She studied the deer’s rack for a moment. I

heard what we all have said many times before. “I could have sworn it was bigger…” Kaley-Ann just suffered what we call “ground shrinkage.” I broke out laughing but told her the truth, this was a big deer. The buck’s antlers were also very unique with twists and turns at the tips and a small sticker on the back side of one antler. There was fresh wood still stuck to one beam. He had a very stocky build and was obviously the big dog in this part of the woods. Kaley-Ann was so excited I decided to video her telling the story. For no reason other than to be funny, Jake decided to act out the story like the sign language person you see on television. It was so funny I nearly dropped the camera as Jake imitated deer sneaking, gun shooting and finally a buck peeing on a scrape. God knew that boy needed charm, and he sure gave it to him in spades! I had the kids drag the deer out by themselves. I stood by with a video camera and encouragement. My son, a good hearted twelve year old, protested more than once. But I explained to him that everyone has their time, and this was their time. I drug many a deer or hog or whatever across different types of terrain in my day, now I’m the designated camera holder. I watched as the kids worked out the best way to drag the deer. I had to remind Jake a couple of times that pulling in the same direction as his sister would work better. We finally got the deer out and back to the cleaning shed where Mike, David and Bob met us. Mike had gotten a nice eight point only two pounds lighter than Kaley-Ann’s buck.

January 19^th, I carried a climber onto a hill behind a green field in an attempt to catch the deer staging in the select cut pines surrounding the area. Another hunter shot at a huge buck on another field about five hundred yards to the east. The buck was scent checking the fields for hot does. The rut in this part of Alabama was in full swing. But, as it happens to me frequently, the best laid plans seem to go astray. The weather was unstable and the wind was kicking up. Usually, the wind lays down in the evening, but not this time. I sat in the climber clinging to a fairly stout pine tree as the trunk swayed back and forth under what turned out to be twenty five to thirty mile an hour winds. It was super cold that day, and the wind chill from the gusts made me put on every scrap of clothing I had. Thank God for my Columbia wool bibs, they were to only thing that kept me up in the tree for any length of time. In the end, I managed to stay aloft until dark and get out without suffering any serious damage beyond no feeling in my fingers and face. 

January 23- What can I say? It’s windy and cold-again. I finally got the wind to go in my direction so I could hunt the draws in this huge cutover. The first time I tried it the wind was coming from the northeast with gusts up to 25 miles an hour. Even with that I was able to sneak up on two young deer, a small four point and his teenage girlfriend. The young buck got up less than twenty yards away and stared straight at me. He refused to move because the doe he was hooked up with didn’t want to leave the sunny side of the ridge. She finally got up and hopped away with the buck quickly followed. I figured I’d come back when the wind switched and hunt the draws and thickets below. There had to be deer laid up in the thick brush along the ridges. When the wind changed directions I went back and set up in the same ridge top, which was really part of a long saddle. The wind direction was fairly stable, somewhat unusual for my area. There is a saying around here, if you don’t like the wind directions, wait five minutes. But this day the wind held steady and I

could cover about 270 degrees without giving myself up. I waited for an hour and hit the Primos can. About every twenty minutes I’d hit the can with two calls and let it rest. Now I should tell you up front I’m about deaf in one hear with any sound in the range of a woman’s voice or a deer or turkey walking in brush. Being married for almost twenty years, I count the first as a blessing, but curse the second as it causes me trouble. Add that if there is any background noise, like road traffic or a creek bubbling, and it’s all over for me to hear anything walking up on my left side. The reason for the loss is years of shooting guns without hearing protection. This is something I corrected in my children’s habits. As I sat on the ridge on a small stool I fought hearing through the constant roar of passing traffic including logging trucks. One truck was especially bad, with a low thumping noise repeating over and over. As the truck noise faded I realized the thumping noise was still there, but now it was a steady grunting and it was getting louder. To my horror the grunting was dead behind me, directly downwind and just over the lip of the hill. I just hung my head as I heard the grunting hesitate and then stop- “grunt, grunt gru…” Quietly I swung down to a knee and pivoted, I heard one more grunt but it was farther away. I stepped over the rise, knowing all along that I was out of luck. The brush was way too thick to pick out any buck sneaking away.

Jan 25^th- The Primos can. It works. It worked twice today. But again, I was sitting in a shooting house which had the wind working into my face; great for covering the green field and the huge open cutover beyond it, but not for the small knoll behind the shooting house. The area I was hunting was a five year old cutover with new cutover along the edges. The land behind me was too thick with brush to hunt without using the green fields and the few old logging roads that crisscrossed the land. There were no treestands along the roads so greenfields were the best option. I hit the can several times during my setup, about the third series I could hear the buck grunting as he came in downwind and knew he was looking for the doe he heard. Instead of a girl, he smelled me. There was nothing I could do, again. AAAGH! A little later I coaxed another single grunt from a thicket in a bottom as I snuck along a scrape line. I did the same thing several years ago and killed a nice six point which had run full speed up a hill to the sound of the call. Even after he saw me and hit the brakes, he refused to leave and I shot him from less than fifteen yards. The call works at certain times during the rut. It works best when the bucks are running around looking for does. It will definitely bring them into range, but you better be set up to take advantage of the situation. A bad setup will stop any chance you have to take the big guy.

January 26^th- Success! Well, kind of. With Kaley-Ann’s deer already down and five big grocery bags full of deer meat, my goal was to kill one more deer for food. There was a call for extra meat from my extended family. If it was a buck then great, but I would be happy with a good sized doe as well. However, the weather took a dive as the temperature jumped up. The deer simply stopped moving as much. Mike, a real bad to the bone deer slayer, mentioned that the swamp behind the ridge top greenfield in the middle of the farm usually held deer. I remembered the area, last year’s spring turkey season found me easing along the briar infested swamp wondering if I could pull a hog or two out of it. (On a side note, I hate briars and thorny vines. When I say I hate them, I cannot overstate the feeling. I HATE briars! Like the mosquito in Florida, I can find no real reason why God put them on the earth other than torment people like me.) Despite my feelings I took Mike’s advice and signed out for the swamp area. I took my Summit climber and pushed my way

through the outlying briars into the swamp below. Once inside the swamp I chose a straight hardwood tree which overlooked a small creek and two trails coming off the ridge behind me. The area was thick with brush saplings and briars, so I climbed, and climbed until I could see over the limbs. (I am not a skyscraper tree climber. I am comfortable around twelve to fifteen feet. But you know the deal, you climb, look around and think, “Just a little higher and I can see all I need to see.” Before long you are watching planes go by at eye level!) I settled in, covered by my 3D leafy scentlok suit. I tucked my scoped Springfield M1A under my arm, got “quiet” and waited. My companions were squirrels and small birds which spent most of their time on the ground imitating walking deer. For those who hunt deer you know what I mean. “Crunch, crunch, hop, hop” you get ready and finally you see the offender, a small gray squirrel jumping up and down on the dry leaves, doing their best to sound like hoofs. After a while, one small squirrel made a point to run up a neighboring tree and give me the once over. I was invisible in my leafy wear until the squirrel spotted my eyes moving. He recoiled in horror and scrambled across the limbs of trees to a safe distance. There he paused and studied me for a long time, every once in a while letting out a small alarm “chuck.” A few minutes later a small rabbit hopped out and made circles around the base of my tree. He saw me shift my weight once and scampered away. I guess rabbits are sensitive to things moving above them, with all the hawks, owls and eagles that fly overhead. About five minutes before dark I heard a different sound to my left, a sharp snap of a limb breaking back in the thicket along the creek. I shifted but before I could move much a doe came trotting out of the brush. She walked quickly along the creek bed from my left to my right only about fifteen yards from my tree. She paused once behind a tree and then started up through the brush. I had to twist to my right and bring my rifle down on a sharp angle. This made seeing through the scope tough. I didn’t risk moving too much because I could see she was looking around. She was about to pass over my trail where I walked in, which meant she might bust me. I pushed my rifle as tight as I could into my right shoulder as I twisted as much as I could to the right. I looked through the scope and searched the brush for the deer. I got what I thought was a good look and pulled the trigger. The doe jumped up straight up like she was stung and took off through the brambles, briars and junk tree thicket. I fired again in desperation, stunned she didn’t fall with the first shot. The doe made it through to the other side of the briars and stopped for a second. That was all I needed, I centered the cross-hairs and fired a third time. The doe fell in place. This all occurred in less than four seconds; for all those with bolt actions, I rest my case. Now, I have to confess a few things. One, I’m a good shot, but the M1A I was using had just been scoped before I left, and anyone who has spent time with the weapon realizes the potential trickiness of the setup. I missed a deer the week earlier on a greenfield at one hundred and thirty-eight yards at dark. I had set the scope up to hit on the mark at 25yds, which should have made it about three high at a hundred and back on again around 225 yards. Yet, when I missed the doe I was high on the shot, too high. I went back to the drawing board and shot a target at a hundred yards and found the rifle was almost six inches high! I re-centered the weapon to be on at one hundred and decided to keep the range reasonable. Now, I have a second doe and I seemed to have missed her, even with the earlier correction. I was getting a little frustrated. Two, I am a horrible judge of deer in the dark or from a high position. I was in both at the time. The doe looked like a younger deer when I looked at her from my stand. I have shot a couple of “suitcase” deer in the past, so I figured it wouldn’t be hard to get her out of the swamp. When I got down I didn’t take the time to check the deer, I just went back up to the trailer, stopped by to see my dad and told the guys at the checkout station I’d be alright by myself. Idiot… never assume. I grabbed my gear and headed back down to the bottom. I walked down the trail back across the creek and eyeballed the tree I was in and dead reckoned where the deer fell. I started in that direction and quickly found myself entangled inside an eight foot high briar thicket with small game trails crisscrossing each other. I pushed through the cutting and slashing briars and around the thick thorny vines wrapped around the young saplings that made up the rest of the thicket. I finally made it to the other side and quickly found the doe… which was a wee bigger than I thought. This was no young doe; she was a mature deer, over a hundred pounds. That changes things. I took a look around and did that “dammit I’m a man” thing. I decided I didn’t need help and tried to drag her out by myself. I managed about twenty five yards before I gave up. It wasn’t the drag itself but the thickness of the brush that held me up. Every thorny vine or brush ripped at the deer and me as I pulled the doe along. I wasn’t wearing gloves so it didn’t take long before my hands looked like they had grabbed the wrong end of a blender! I decided to get some more gear and a machete. By God, if the briars were drawing blood, I’d draw some of my own. So out of the swamp I went. (After a couple of false starts, trying to find your way out of a thicket in the dead dark with a small light doesn’t work so well. Luckily, a dog kept barking from a home near the swamp and that gave me a point of reference. With that I managed to get out and back up to the trailer.) My dad came by and offered his ATV. Great, now we were cooking with gas! I strapped the game cart to the back of the ATV, grabbed a bigger light, some gloves and my machete. Game time! I traveled back down to the swamp, cut a path to the deer and then cut a path back out wide enough to accommodate the cart. I’ll admit I might have taken some extra time to cut a bigger path than needed, exacting a little revenge on some briars along the way. I loaded up the old girl, strapped her down and pulled the cart up the hill, out of the swamp and thickets to the ATV. There I roped the cart to the back of the ATV and pulled the whole thing out. It took a while, but I finally got her to the cleaning shed and processed. But by the time I got home and ready for bed almost six hours had passed since I took the shot! At the cleaning shed I

found out what had happened to the first shot. The deer had suffered a wound through her brisket, just behind her front leg. I figured out it was a combination of the sharp angle from the tree stand to the deer along with the twisting to the right to find her in the scope that caused the low shot. The gun was definite doing its job. That explained why she stopped after running through the thicket. The second shot hit her just behind her left shoulder and traveled along her length exiting high just before the right rear hip. An odd angle, probably caused by the way she was standing on the hill.

January 28^th- Tony Soprano moment- Forget about it. It rained and got cold- again. My plan was to head out to a select cut area where I knew a couple of bucks were running and try to set up a call in. The cold damp weather changed my mind. I wandered around in the afternoon with my bow looking for small game.

January 29^th- Life is about timing. You know what I mean. You walk around a corner two minutes later and you never meet your future wife. You stop at a light and hesitate a second when it turns green and a car going the other way runs the red and just misses you (that happened on the way up). Today I executed a plan I had in mind for two weeks. The area I wanted to hunt had been locked up by other hunters, but now it was free. The buck I was targeting was a good six point according to those who saw him earlier. But this buck had an attitude. He wore out tree trunks no smaller than my lower leg, unusual for this part of Alabama. Kaley-Ann saw the deer in the food plot early in the hunt but he never presented a good shot. The buck was running the length of the creek, almost a mile, making scrapes from one end to the other. My plan was simple. The bucks were not getting near the greenfields, instead they were scent or visually checking the fields for does from about a hundred yards out. Hunting pressure, even light pressure, will make bucks take a back road in a heartbeat. So, my plan was to get above the greenfield on a hill about two hundred yards out and intercept the buck as he makes his sweep. I got a late start due to some late night duties so I was about an hour behind my schedule when I snuck down the gravel road to the hill. I made two mistakes; one was walking up the gravel road-there is no quiet way to ease up a gravel road; the second was not being one hundred percent engaged. I was tired. Three nights earlier I didn’t get to bed until two o’clock after bagging the doe in the swamp. Last night I had some errands to attend to and didn’t get to bed until around one. So I’m walking down the gravel road and I’m just about to where I turn up the hill when a doe starts blowing in the draw to my right. I froze and tried to locate her in the brush at the bottom of the draw. I could hear her moving away. There was nothing I could do about it so I eased up the hill on my left. The woodpile I was going to sit behind was only forty yards away. I made a beeline to it in hopes to get set up before the big boy showed up. Just as I crested the hill I saw something move below me. I looked to see the buck bolt out from some brush into the open only forty yards away. For just a second he turned his head my way, then he gracefully leaped away. I saw him long enough to have the large six point rack burn a

hole in my memory. It was past his ears and tall. The outside tines took a solid ninety degree angle straight up from the main beams. It was like watching fence railings running through the woods. If I had a bat I would have given myself a solid whack right between the eyes. The truth is I forgot to “engage the mechanism” when I got out of the truck. Either you are hunting or you are taking a walk in the woods. I’ll blame fatigue, or the fact that I was really done hunting. I was hoping to take one big buck, and I screwed up the chance by not paying attention to my surroundings. I should have worked my way up through the woods, not the road. All the deer know the road means hunters. I should have kept my rifle off my shoulder and used the buck grunt as I walked to calm any nervous game. Should have, could have. The good news is I have two days left. The bad news is I have packing and other tasks to take care of. The deer have been pressured pretty hard in the last two weeks so getting an easy shot off isn’t on the table. I’m not really sure I have the gas left to put the time in to take one down. Today was the day and I blew it.

January 31^st – Going home. I spent the last two days really not hunting very hard. Truth is, after missing the big guy and collecting enough deer meat for the family for the year, I couldn’t bring myself to drop another deer. So, I spent the two days hunting small game for an elderly lady who owns one of our leases. However, even the little critters seem to be somewhat sparse. I saw a ton of squirrels and such while in trees waiting for deer, but when I showed up with my longbow or .22 the small game seemed to know the score. But I did spend some great time in the woods, took some photos and overall had one great time. Over the years I have learned what works and what doesn’t. Let me share with you what gear I have found to do the job. First and foremost, I wear Fred Bear type hats when I hunt. Yes, the other hunters look a little funny at you at first. However, you’ll be hard pressed to beat the versatility of the hat. I have one in brown and two in camouflage. The brown one I bought last year from 3rivers Archery. I have worn it almost exclusively on this trip to see if a brown hat blends enough so critters won’t see you. It does. It also protects you from the cold, the wind, the rain and anything else going on. If you wear glasses you can tilt it to keep rain off the lenses or to cover the glare so game won’t see the reflection. Wool military issue neck gaiter- I owned two and now have only one. If I lose this one I’m screwed. There are other gaiters out there but this particular style does several things well. One, it is light and it breathes. The fleece one I used briefly was too hot. Two, it stretches. I used it almost all the time for a face mask. Three, it is wool. You can’t get anything better that will fight the cold, even when wet. 10x insulated gloves- I’m not sure where I bought them, probably at Walmart a number of years ago. But these gloves have thinsulate and leather palms. The gloves are fairly thin but warm and tough. My hands got painfully cold only once and that was the day I spent on the cutover in the face of twenty five mile an hour winds and subfreezing temperatures. I think if I had stuffed myself in a sleeping bag and set it on fire; I’d still have been cold. So, I don’t blame the gloves. Primos “the can” call. The silly thing works. That is all I can say about it. Since Primos isn’t paying me anything, take it as you will. I’ll be using it again next year. But I’ll be a little smarter on my setups. The True-Talker deer call from Hunter’s Specialties. It also works well, even under cold conditions. It is simple and sturdy. The Columbia Gallatin Range woolies from Cabelas, which are part wool and part polyester, will keep you warm. They are rugged and quiet. The reason I ended up with them was the price when I bought them compared to other wool outfits. They have never failed to do what I needed, softly, quietly and warmly. The two boots I used while I hunted where a pair of ground sensing Irish setter leather boots with 600 grams of thinsulate. I’m not sure the company makes them anymore, but I found them to be as comfortable as walking across a soft couch while in the woods. They stayed dry and warm the

whole trip. I have had my Danner leather upland boots from a number of years now. They fit like a glove, honestly. They are the best boot I have ever put on my feet. I have resoled them once already and will probably again next year. I bought the Danner boots on sale through The Sportsman’s Guide website as a lark one year and they saved my sore feet from getting any worse. I keep both boots clean and treated with Mink Oil before, during and after the season. The small silver light you see in the photo was bought a number of years ago when LEDs were first the rage. The single bulb encased in aluminum housing gives out a surprising amount of light. Enough for you to find your way to and from your stand, around the camp at night or for that light night visit to the cooler for something to snack on. The single AA battery will last for an entire season of use, so you really can’t go wrong. I’m sure there are better lights outs there now, but for the money I surely didn’t go wrong with this little gadget. Next up is turkey season. There is an old gobbler that has beaten me and Kaley-Ann for two years now. I saw him on my way out the day I missed the big buck. He is in the same area doing the same thing. This year is going to be his last. No more Mr. Nice Guy!