Fatboy the first, just turned one year old and I went up three days early to hunt a little with Harrison. Harrison has already had some luck this year and he had to get back to work but he put me in a few of his foolproof spots. I hunted pretty steady for three days but I did not see a deer during legal light. We saw plenty of them on the ride onto the camp but once it got light they vanished into the earth. It also got very cold and windy during that period so it added a special survival aspect to hunting in the mountains. It is very hard to shoot a deer when you are shaking uncontrollably and your little fingers cannot close around the trigger. Harrison is a seriously hardcore hunter who likes to get up at 4 in the morning to get out there while all of the deer are still hanging out at motel six, drinking coffee. The first day he gave me a donuthole for breakfast and he told me to hike up to the top of the ridge where the really big ones live. It was pitch black and my eyes were watering and freezing into like spikes of joy. I had guns and rocks and knives and frozen poptarts for self defense.I was stumbling through the woods like Helen Keller looking for the bathroom at Walmart. When the sun came up about three hours later I was frozen so completely that the only way I could have killed a deer would be for me to touch it with my frozen hands. I did see some wildlife, I saw a Boone and Crocket Chipmunk and a number of very tasty looking Juncos hoping around trying to break through the ice to find some food. I am not complaining. The truth is that I had a great time. It is no longer important to me to kill a deer. It was a thrill just knowing I was in a place where a giant could appear at any time. The scenery was wonderful and I found myself walking on trails that I had not traveled in 40 years. Spending time with my son and having him tell me all of the things that I was doing wrong, Priceless. Even though I did not get a deer it will remain as one of my favorite hunts of all time. I have learned after all these years it that hunting is a package deal. It allows you to have a little quality time away from everything and everybody. You see things in the winter woods that are deeply hidden in the green swath of the summer. If I simply wanted to kill a deer I could just lean out of my bedroom window and shoot one in the yard. I would not even have to get dressed.The babies birthday was a great break in the routine of hiking and freezing. I had no idea how much work went into putting on a party for a 1 year old. It was like a production by Cecil B. Demille. You make a normal cake and then you make a cake called a smashcake just for the baby. This will be the first time the small human has tasted sugar. I could tell by the look in his eyes that it will not be the last. Every move he makes is photographed from 12 different angles. He is picked up and squeezed like a ripe lemon until juice comes out of him. Talk about over stimulation. 2000 new toys to play with. Some assembly required. It was a great time and I would not have missed it. On Sunday morning I hunted for a while and then we headed back to West Virginia. As soon as we hit the State line we noticed that there were deer standing all over the place,herds and pods and swarms of deer. These is no Sunday hunting in West Va and i think the deer know it. I was doing about 55 on a long straight stretch when a big doe exploded out of some tall swamp grass along the road. Normally i am very good at spotting deer but this one came out of nowhere. I hit the deer on the drivers side and she flipped completely over the car and almost hit the guy behind us. The deer was killed on impact and so was the Saturn that we brought about three weeks ago. The left quarter panel is gone and the headlights are missing and it has a stylish new angle to the hood. It is making a few new sounds and there is a new light on the dash that says Check engine soon.It occured to me that maybe I was using the wrong weapon at Camp Powhatan. I should have just been riding around the camp roads at 55 miles per hour with the radio and the heater turned way up. I am sure that eventually I could have killed something.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 01:26:08 +0000
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