Around 1965, during one of the first Bow Seasons in Mississippi, I was hunting a field edge on a private club “over the levee” in the Delta. The field was known as the “Pea Vine Field”, as the club grew field peas there to attract and hold turkeys and deer, and provide extra nutrition. We found and noted the afternoon wind direction, and skirted the field on foot and out of sight to get to the down wind side to hide and hunt. I found a distinct, well-worn trail leading to and from the field, backed off 20 yards from the field edge, and set-up on the ground in a thicket of second growth saplings, the slight, failing breeze distinctly in my face. I had a clear shot along 10-15 yards of the trail from my hide-out. In a short while, deer, turkeys and a few feral hogs began to enter the 45 acre or so field. Watching them closely as they fed and frolicked unconcerned in the pea vines, I noticed one of them was a huge bodied deer, noticeably larger even at the over two hundred yards distance. The sun had set, leaving only about 30 minutes of available shooting light, till “last dark”. The big deer bluffed and bulllied the smaller bucks, chased and smelled the does, and gradually worked closer to my spot. His rack became visible in the failing light the closer to me he moved. It was wide, with tall tines and heavy mass. Minutes passed, and he was close enough to make out a perfectly symmetrical 6 x 6 set of antlers, a twelve-point! He had to weigh nearly 300 pounds! I shook and shivered, as much from adrenaline-stoked oncoming buck fever as from the falling temperature. He edged closer. Just as light was failing, he began to head onto the trail just in front of me, not spooked, just using the trail as his exit route. The wind or gentle breeze had died to complete calm-or so I thought. I came to full draw with my 53 lb. draw Bear semi-recurve bow, the 30 inch cedar arrow tipped with a deadly Bear Razor-head, slightly quivering from my anticipation of the coming shot, and the exertion of holding the full draw. As the huge buck came into my shooting lane, he stopped, raised his head, and looked directly at me. He snorted, wheeled and crashed away off the far side of the trail through the saplings. “What happened?”, I wondered, and probably yelled-no, SCREAMED- aloud. It dawned on me, then, with crystal clarity: I had forgotten the thermals. My scent, borne by the faint, nearly undetectable air movement of the down-falling late afternoon thermal had billowed out in all directions from my spot! The air all around me had to be saturated with my human scent! That buck was then the biggest I had ever seen, and now, all this hunting and observing deer time later, one of the biggest I have EVER seen. Is it little wonder, then, why I harp on thermal air movement, wind direction and speed, and “hunting into the wind?”
Oct
13
Whitetails is the “kwaziest’ animals…
Being already 13 days into the Mississippi Bow Season, a lotta beasts have been stuck, downed, shucked, chopped-up and freezered. Due to having to make an unexpected, long drawn-out residence move, I haven’t even been out into the woods yet. Too much packing stuff, then moving the same stuff; now, I’m faced/burdened with unpacking, settlin’ in, getting services and utilities switched over. The only way I’ll ever move again is due to an eviction notice, armed and hostile sheriff’s deputies at my heels, and/or the county coroner taking out my mortal remains! Primary excuses aside, the extended rains here (Central Mississippi, 45 miles north of Jackson) have made gettin’ in and gettin’ out of hunting areas tough, if not impossible. Still, tho, I’ve heard of some successes. Stand and blind hunting in hardwoods where the acorns have begun to fall, in and near standing and partially harvested crop fields, over food plots,and the tried and true “easing and slipping” (aka “still hunting”) along and near well travelled game trails (catching ‘em going and coming) have worked. It is still too early to hunt scrapes (natural, buck made ones and artificial scrapes created to lure and hold a buck in decent bow range). We’ll get into the creation of artificial scrapes later when the older, more mature does begin to come into estrous. In this area, that can begin as early as mid-November (usually with the full or “Harvest” moon), but is more likely to begin a month or so later, with the December full moon. Besides this year’s moderate to skimpy acorn crop, abundant browse is all over, everywhere. A few persimmons have ripened and dropped, green leafy forbs-watered by the unseasonal rains-are still actively growing all over, as are honeysuckle, greenbrier, blackberry and dewberry (favored by deer as much as the proverbial “mule eatin’ briars”). Food is everywhere. The deer folk don’t need to travel far to fill their paunches, then settle back down to bed and chew their cud. My personal, all-time favorite bow hunting method is trail watching, along the most well-worn trails, between bedding and known feeding areas, often referred to as “staging areas”. Deer seem less alert going and coming than when exposed in open food plots and fields, or when picking up acorns-requiring a lot of head down postures. Other favorites are near mature soy bean fields, machine cut corn areas-before the exposed, unshucked corn kernels swell and mold. I know, too, of a persimmon tree, that every time a ripe ’simmon plops to the ground, several deer race for it. Colder weather will ripen them even more, but, this sweet-if often fairly bitter-fruit bounty won’t last much longer. Wild pecans are another favored carb and protein source, as is your granny’s turnip and mustard patch! In short, hunt ‘em where you find ‘em. Ask rural mail carriers to clue you in if and when they see a particularly good buck or a concentration of does, yearlings and fawns-which they often do on their routes. UPS and FED-EX deliverymen, too. Heavy use, even by the does/yearling/fawn contingent may mean a good buck is nearby-or following “the crowd”.