Never Vigilant
A Treatise on Hunting
By
Mibo
They mock me; they mock me I tell you. As a child, growing up in the U.P. was a challenge of man over nature. All the kids learned to shoot a rifle before the age of ten. I took well to marksmanship winning a second place trophy at a local shooting tournament. OK, so there were only two of us eight year olds competing. I still knew that I was destined to be a great hunter.
With all the stealth that I could muster I plodded through the woods. I could go a mile without making a sound. Ya, really, I could. You just need to concentrate on your gliding. The practice of gliding can be mastered in most homes by walking up the stairs without making them creak. Or, in my case, by walking down the stairs. I had mastered this while on many late night treks to the refrigerator. I could sneak up on a sandwich and a glass of milk without waking the best of them.
Though my skills were adept and my heart was fully in it, my success at hunting was just beyond the next ridge or past the next clearing. I was not disheartened. My next door neighbor was a legend of the naturalist arts. Urho hunted for food to feed his family since the early 1900's. I had heard others speak of him with reverence as to his knowledge of the woods. I asked Urho to help me. He told me that I would never capture my prey without the finite focus that can only be gained by chopping wood. He showed me how to recognize the cracks that wish to be split and taught me to wield a five-pound splitting maul. He persuaded me that if I could make the woodpile four rows deeper that I would build the strength and focus to persevere over the animals of the woods. I also knew that if he spent less time on the wood he would have more time to hunt.
Between backaches, Urho taught me reloading. He had six coffee cans full of empty shells. I reset all the primers and charged them with powder, wad, and wax. I hauled all the old fishnet weights up the embankment and sorted through them. I kept the ladle full of molten lead while Urho poured bullet after bullet. With my newfound focus and several hundred rounds of ammo I knew that I would soon be reaching out for my success. Instead, Urho taught me how to shoot the wood pile.
Walking through the tree farm seemed less laborious. My stealth, focus, strength, and marksmanship were all at their peak. I began to notice the animals motion beyond the veil of brush and trees. If I stood still long enough the animals would mobilize and I could identify the species by the sound of their steps. I had sat at the base of a tree to wait and listen when it happened for the first time. I could hear the steps of a porcupine but I could not quite make out the direction of its approach. The sound intensified and I knew that I would soon see it. Then, suddenly, the steps stopped. I could hear it breathing. I slowly turned my head. It was right behind the tree that I was leaning against. I caught sight of its face. It was no more than two feet away from me and I froze. I stared at it and it at me for what seemed an eternity. It had a puzzled expression that slowly changed into more of a smirk. It seemed to chuckle a little as it disappeared into the brush. I know now that it had recognized my fear.
In the fall I was out hunting for partridge. After hours of gliding through the woods, I picked up the sound of a covey not too far away. I made it out to be at least eight birds. I came around a boulder and saw a group of short evergreens. The sound was emanating from this group of trees and I knew that I would soon flush them out. I readied my shotgun and prepared myself. With my first step they took flight straight at me. Their thunderous flutter sent a shudder through my heart. I ducked down as they passed and while bent over I saw two of the stragglers running past me. The look on their faces was one of amusement and a little superiority. After a time I followed knowing that they would not go far. Several hundred feet later I flushed them out again and received the same shock. As they flew away, there was a strange Doppler effect. The sound could only be described as a chortle.
I decided that my close proximity to the animals was a little too confrontational for me. So, I decided to take-up bow hunting. If I were up in a tree I could oversee the landscape and be insulated from the tactility that the animals had over me on the ground. After a few weeks, I was sitting up in my tree looking out through the firing lanes that I had opened up when I saw two deer slowly moving in toward the pile of apples that I had set about ten yards out from my blind. A third one was approaching from behind. My heart was pounding, but I was settling down when the deer that had approached from behind me walked right under my tree and straight out to the apples. It was a buck. At least eight points. With all my might I silently stood up in my blind and swung my bow around and aimed at the buck. As I pulled back the string my nylon slicker swished. I immediately stopped and the buck immediately looked right up at me. We were both froze in place. His eyes stared right at me; almost through me. He didn't look frightened. He looked more impatient as if he were about to say," get on with it". Then I noticed that my muscles were beginning to twitch. Soon my knees and arms were fully shaking like if I had Parkinson's disease. Still the buck was staring right at me his look seemed more quizzical on its way to jocular. I couldn't take it any more so I yelled at him to get out of here. He sprang away jauntily.
My internal disgust with my shortcomings and the seeming disrespect that the animals were showing me took its toll and I decided to quit hunting for good. It was bad enough that I hadn't ever shot anything, but the abuse that I was getting from everybody around me including the animals was just too much. I did give it up and for two decades I have put up with the jokes and made the breakfast at the hunting camp without shame. That is, until this year.
My brother Marc, who gets his buck every year, built a blind for me as a surprise. He had been stocking the bait pile for six weeks and had an established route for the deer to graze through. I just couldn't miss. I set out on opening day at about four fifteen. It was about an hour before daylight and the deer would be still sleeping when I arrived at the blind. I settled in at the blind. Marc had set me up pretty good. The blind was reasonably draft free and he had a heater that warmed up the blind very nicely. As the eerie light of dawn in the woods began to assert itself, I was enjoying a cup of coffee. The smell of the coffee mixed with the aroma of the decaying leaves brought me back to the many times I had spent silently in the woods. So comfortable and relaxed and warm, I drifted off to nap. I dreamt of shooting my buck and dressing and hauling it out to the camp. The dream seemed bittersweet. As if maybe bagging a buck wouldn't really satisfy me. It was in this mood that I awoke to the sound of a breeze rustling the leaves. I noticed some woodpeckers tapping away at a dead tree right out in my shooting lane. I set my rifle up against the window of the blind and got out my camera. I settled back and waited for the birds to move around to the front of the tree so I could get a shot. I was just about to take a picture when I heard the cshook, cshook, cshook of a deer just off to the left. It walked right out in front of me. And it happened again, with emphasis. They mock me. They mock me I say.
