Thursday, March 23, 2006
Remembering A Good & Bad Night
The wind blew in strong swirling gusts, the rain pelted down, and a huge rain drop formed on an overhead pine limb, and with precision accuracy, hit my neck in the only exposed location before trickling down my back with an icy chilliness.
I wondered why continue sitting out here? I could be warm and dry back at the house, and instead, there I sat. Miserable but having fun..
Another huge gust rocked my tree, and just for something to do, I came to full draw. The tree swayed, and my sight was all over the place. Had a good buck walked within shooting range the wind would have caused my sight to sway from the deer’s hind end to his nose and back again.
No whitetail deer with an ounce of sense would be out wandering around. They can’t hear anything over the keening wind, and if they looked up into any tree for danger, a big rain drop would splatter against their eye. It would be impossible for a deer to smell me even directly downwind. My scent, if there was any, would blow past the deer before they could smell it.
So, why stay? It was a question I asked myself several times. Is a deer worth subjecting yourself to getting soaked. My outfit, although reasonably warm, was soaking wet. I won’t hunt in a rain coat because they make too much noise.
The wind continued to build, and then the final indignity was delivered. It started to snow, and some of it stuck to my coveralls until what little residual warmth was left melted it. I was wet through, through my jeans, and then the trickle that had run down my neck became cold.
A twig snapped, and I was instantly alert until a small dead tamarack limb fell onto a slightly larger limb and both piled up at the bottom of a nearby tree. Cool, I thought, the wind is breaking up that old tamarack. It will go down this winter anyway because it has seen its better days.
Not a bird moved. They were probably crowded close to the trunk of my pine tree and hanging on for dear life. The porcupine I’d seen previously while sitting in this tree had more brains than me. It had hightailed it to some place out of the weather. The chickadee that had roosted momentarily on my arrow several days before had probably been blown into the next county.
Another quick peek at my watch. Still 30 minutes to go before shooting time ended, and that made me shiver. A moment later another shiver, and it dawned on me that I was cold. I took off one glove, and it promptly fell to the ground below my tree stand ladder. Great. Wonderful. A big mistake compounded by many little ones.
The shivers became more frequent, and another look at my watch told me that only two excruciatingly slow minutes had passed. Use your head: think of something warm. Ah yes, a thick steak dinner and a cup of hot chocolate. That made me feel warm for just about as long as it took you to read that sentence.
This was a waste of time. My buddy, I knew, was a half-mile away shivering in his stand. Serves him right, I thought, to be out hunting on a wicked evening like this. He was probably thinking the same or worse about me.
My watch was checked again, and finally I decided that enough was enough. A cautious look around was made, and nothing was seen, and I heaved my rattle bag hard against the ground 15 feet below. It rattled and clattered as it hit and bounced, and there were no snorts. No noise except the cold wind howling.
The bow was lowered to the ground, I had three secure hand and foot holds, and down the ladder I went like a wrinkled prune. My hands, never a pretty sight, had more wrinkles than Santa Claus.
I walked across the field, and heard footsteps behind me. My buddy was bird-dogging my tracks, and we both headed for the truck. It wasn’t a race but I admit to stepping along rather smartly. The bows were stowed in their cases, and we bailed into the cab of his truck.
“Great night,” he whispered. “See anything?”
“Nope, just you. It was a rotten night.”
“Yep,” he said, “but we didn’t have any competition in the woods, did we?”
And that was the best part about hunting last night. That and when the truck heater finally began blasting out some hot air. It was a welcome reprieve from the storm, and a reminder of how dumb some bow hunters can be. It makes a normally sane person wonder we hunt on such nights.
It’s like the old question of why people climb mountains. The answer is because the opportunity is there, so ... why not?