Catching Deer When you are born and raised in Mississippi you know deer huntin’ is a way of life. My friends and family love it. They talk about it all the time, even plan vacations around it. Why they practically eat and breathe it too. From early on you know that Opening Day of deer season is a national holiday just like Christmas and Thanksgiving. As a young wife you learn real fast not to use fabric softener when you wash and dry the camo. And as a young wife if you don’t put your foot down fast enough camo will take over your entire house like kudzu in the Delta. ‘Um, no, we are not getting a camouflaged bedspread!” I found myself saying early in the marriage. Anyway if you remember my saying that I have only hunted once and it was under the pretense of a picnic in the woods. Well, somehow I had that pictured in my mind. (Shaking head no.) It was not. Nope, nowhere close to it and my husband realized from that experience that I am not a deer hunter…nor can I sat still for long periods of time and certainly incapable of being quiet. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a walk through God’s nature as long as it is daylight, there are no bugs or any reported sightings of Bigfoot in the area. I can remember playing in the woods just like all the rest of the little Mississippians while growing up in the South. Shoot, I was once even escorted out of someone’s woods by a shotgun…but that is a whole other story in itself. And once when I was staying at my aunt’s house in Maxie, Mississippi I found myself headed into the woods to help retrieve a deer. “Y’all come help me tote my deer out,” said my cousin Wade early one morning. Yep, it was one of those moments that I did not fully think the situation all the way through. “What do you mean I got to touch that thing? It’s dead!” But I put my big girl panties on and helped drag that thing out of the woods. Over the past decades as a deer hunter’s wife I have noticed many improvements in the art of hunting. Now a day hunters have cameras set up to watch the deer during the off-season, they have golf carts that quietly moved them through the woods and even deer condos as I like to call them to keep them warm and dry. But back before huntin’ got all fancy you had this break-through in hunting equipment. Yep, the Baker tree stands. The way this new piece of equipment worked was you stand on the bottom piece and hold the top piece of the equipment with your hands. You raise the top piece up as high as you can go, hold on to it and then bring the bottom piece up to it with your feet. Repeat the steps until you have climbed as high as you want to go. Sound simple, right? Wrong. Of course, at first my husband didn’t have one of these new fangled things because we just didn’t have the extra money for something like that but what he did have was a home-made knock off version that somebody named Bubba had designed. “It’s just as good as the real thing,” I heard my brother and husband saying one afternoon. Only thing was the Baker tree stand was two pieces of hunting equipment and this thing just had one piece. “Aw, it will be fine. Just use your arms,” they continued to convince each other. I’m going to try my best to describe this event but sometimes the written word will not do it justice. My brother Bill and my husband headed out to catch a deer one afternoon with this new home-made contraption. And since it was my husband that had stumbled upon Bubba’s work of art, he would be the first one to use it. Brother Bill would just have to walk through the woods and find a good spot somewhere on the ground which he did next to a creek. Once Bill got all quiet and settled in to wait for the deer to venture out he begin to hear this noise. A noise he had never heard before. At first his mind began to race back to all the animal sounds he may have come across on previous hunting trips but nothing came to his mind. It was more like a scratch…scratch…scratch sound and he started to listen more carefully. What kind of animal could this be and did he have enough ammo to take care of it? Bill remained quiet for several minutes, just listening and wondering. Scratch...scratch. Scratch….scratch. Scratch…scratch. Then out of nowhere the sound would sped up real fast as if maybe the animal was working faster. Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch and then it would return to the slower pace of scratch…scratch…scratch…scratch. After about twenty or so minutes of listening to the never-ending scratching sounds, Bill finally figured it out. It was the sound of my husband trying to climb that tree with a home-made tree stand. After about forty or so minutes Bill could no longer contain his laughter on the inside and he finally began laughing out loud at what he could now picture so vividly in his head. The slow scratching sounds was of my determined husband trying to climb the pine tree and the faster sounds was of my husband bear-hugging the pine tree as the deer stand was racing back down to the ground. I don’t know how long it took before my husband finally got that stand situated enough to keep it from racing back down the tree but Bill said by that time there wasn’t going to be a deer within a hundred mile radius with all that scratching and laughing that was going on. There was only about twenty minutes of actual hunting time once the scratching had stopped, and Bill ventured back to the spot where he left my husband. By this time it was almost dark and with his flashlight my brother begin to see my husband’s hunting clothes scattered all over the ground. A camouflaged cap here and a camouflaged jacket over there. A camouflaged this and a camouflaged that scattered here and there but there was no sign of my husband. Bill shined the flashlight as far as he could see up into the tops of the trees and still no sign of him. You want to know why? Because with all that scratching my husband did he was only able to get that stand about six feet off the ground. Bill said when he finally spotted Chris he was wringing wet with sweat and hanging on to the tree with one hand and with the other hand he was trying to hang on to the stand. Yep, he may have finally got the stand to stay on the tree but he couldn’t get it out of a sloping downwards forty-five degree angle. He just hung on for dear life until my brother showed back up to help him down. Chris said the only way he could have killed a deer that day was if one came up to the tree, sniffed his boots and stood there long enough for him to fall out of the tree stand and tackle him to the ground. Of course that would have had to happen before my husband lost the feeling in both his legs. Yep, by the time Bill showed up my husband had lost all the feelings in his lower body because his legs had been dangling off the end of that forty five degree contraption for what seemed like hours. Not only that but Bill said that tree didn’t have a drop of bark left on it and Chris, completely covered with tree bark and scratches, looked like he had lost a fight with a wild bobcat. That wasn’t the last time I heard Baker Tree Stands mentioned though. Bill had borrowed a real one from a co-worker and since the previous episode with a tree stand had turned out poorly he decided to practice in the yard before heading to the woods. Bill set out to attach the tree stand to the security light pole in mother’s yard. And sure enough that thing worked like a charm. In no time flat he had made it all the way up that light pole with this two piece wonder. Only problem with this practice run was that he accidentally dropped the bottom piece. Insert co-worker forgetting to explain a minor detail until days later. “Yeah, I forgot to tell you to attach a safety strap.” Not sure how long Bill was up there, hanging on for dear life. But I can report my brother’s neighbor, the doctor, is not a deer hunter. This conclusion made by the fact that as he drove by he honked his horn and waved at my brother hanging from the security light pole. Clearly the doc had no idea this was not a common hunting practice since he didn’t stop to help. I guess my favorite hunting story to date is when my niece decided that she wanted to go hunting with her daddy. And since it was Christmas evening and Bill had a 4 by 4 hunting condo that was 18 inches off the ground and less than five minutes from the house it would be the perfect time to let her hunt. I mean what kind of problems could happen, right? And besides, my mother was making homemade chicken and dumplings for supper so they wouldn’t be gone long. Bill loaded up the truck and Mekennah jumped in. This fancy hunting condo was a long ways from the troubled days of tree stands. Yep, it had a door and three windows for shooting. As the daddy and daughter hunting adventure came to an end, Bill reached to pull the wire that released the lock on the outside of the door. Only it wouldn’t work. “What’s wrong, daddy? Are we locked in?” Now, Bill knew better than to exhibit any signs of concern because my niece was already scared of the woods and if he did, this 4 by 4 box would become filled with immediate panic and tears. And he would no doubt be in some serious trouble with his wife when he got home. “Nah, it is just a little stuck but I can fix it,” said my brother. Only thing was it was a lot stuck and if he pulled too hard it would break the wire. Later Bill would find out that the sun had warped the door causing pressure on the lock. All would have been good if my niece would have just let her daddy hang her out the window so she could unlock the door. Mekennah reluctantly agreed but before she got halfway through the window she changed her mind. “No, Daddy, I will fall. Just let me call 911. The cops can get us out.” She had the cell phone ready to dial. Bill decided not to pursue the issue once he realized if he did get her safely outside the window and on the ground what if she can’t open the door? Then she would be outside standing in the dark, crying and he will still be stuck inside. Now, as much as I would have enjoyed retelling that story, Bill refused to admit he was stuck inside the hunting condo and there was no way on this earth he was going to be rescued out of a 4 by 4 shooting house that was eighteen inches off the ground by the Lamar County Sheriff’s Department. “No…put the phone away. We are not stuck. We are not going to have to spend the night in the woods,” he continued to try and convince his little girl. Bill had no other choice but to climb upside down out the tiny window. Once he got his waist to the window he realized he was wearing too many clothes to go any further. Only now, he is kinda stuck and hanging upside down. “Daddy, let me call 911,” Mekennah is pleading and almost in tears. But Bill summoned up the energy to get back inside. On his second attempt to exit through the window he realized that eventually he was going to have to drop out of the window and onto his head. A notion he would prefer not to have happen. He said he was just too old to have broken bones. He would just have to figure something else out. And he did. On his third try he finally got enough of his body out the window to reach around to the door it see exactly what the problem was. His flashlight revealed something he did not want to know. The door latch was on the other side and just out of his arm’s reach. “Can I call 911 now, Daddy?” By this time though my brother is out of energy and he is huffing and puffing and had to scratch, kick and wiggle his tired body back inside. Adding to this scenario is the fact it is dark, supper was probably cold and Mekennah will more than likely never go hunting again. With the last bit of energy my brother had he goes head first out the other side window, pops the latch open and Mekennah jumps out and is now looking at her daddy dangling upside down. “Oh, Daddy, are you stuck?” My brother has no more energy and finally admits he is stuck. “Now can I call 911?” she asked. Now, I tell you all that to tell you this. You know all those times our men folk come home without a deer in the back of the truck? Now you know why?
Posted on: Sat, 12 Oct 2013 20:05:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015