ARKANSAS SPORTSMAN

Mesmerized by close encounters of outdoors kind

I have a new standard for evaluating my deer hunting performance.

For me, it’s no longer about killing a deer, but how close I can get to a deer. Two arms lengths is my record. That happened in Missouri while turkey hunting. Next best was five paces on the ground, wearing hunter orange. It happened last Saturday.

I got within 10 paces in September while squirrel hunting in the Hurricane Creek Wilderness Area in Johnson County with Wayne Crutchfield, Paul Crutchfield and Sidney Crutchfield. Clad head to toe in camouflage, I stood against a big oak tree when three deer walked past me to the right. They turned and passed about 10 paces behind me. They didn’t notice me until they were a good distance away, and only then because I moved to go to another tree.

I hunted deer with a muzzleloader last Saturday, again in Johnson County, in the Piney Creeks Wildlife Management Area. I was in the same spot that I hunted last year with Basel Khalil when he killed his first deer, a dandy eight-point buck. The day was clear, cool and sunny, just as it was when I hunted with Khalil. However, that spot was a food plot last year. Now it is overgrown with tall grass, weeds and saplings. Nevertheless, deer tracks were everywhere, and one well-beaten deer trail stretched across the opening from one pine thicket to another.

I set up in the same spot I sat with Khalil, at the edge of the opening behind a couple of bushes with a big pine tree to my back. It’s a tough place to hunt in the afternoon because the sun was in my face. With so many clothes, I quickly got hot and uncomfortable.

I was just below the crest of a rise. When the vegetation is low, you can see the upper bodies of deer that enter the far end of the clearing if you’re sitting. The high weeds impeded my vision, though. I found a better spot near the hill crest, a small opening in the middle of sumac thicket just big enough to set my portable recliner with a big pine tree to my back. It was in the shade, too, so I wasn’t lit up like I was at the other spot. I could see that part of the clearing entirely, but nothing could see in. I noted all the limbs and saplings and charted all possible shooting lanes.

Just as I was getting comfortable, another hunter popped into the clearing where deer usually enter. He wore a climbing stand on his back. He looked this way and that. I waved both arms at him slowly. He continued to peer. I waved again and caught his eye. He nodded once, turned and walked into the woods. It was about 5:30 p.m., prime time.

“Well, that just shot this place all to …” I thought. But it was too late to relocate, so I stayed put.

My eyes caught movement in the grass. I looked through my binoculars and saw two adult gray foxes frolicking in the weeds. I was entranced, and they absorbed all of my attention.

If I had stayed alert, I would have processed the sounds coming from the interior of the pine thicket. They were quick movements that made loud rustlings. I dismissed them for squirrels, which can sound like bulldozers when they forage on the ground. Only the sound of a heavy footfall snapped me back to attention, just in time to see the body of a deer glide past on the other side of the sumac. The distance was a mere five paces.

It was a doe. She stopped at the edge of the clearing, her ears erect and pointed forward like radar dishes. The scope on my muzzleloader was set at 3X, useless at such close range. I moved my head slightly to get a better look. The doe saw the movement. She spun and bounced back into the thicket, but she didn’t go far. Does are often too curious for their own good, so I expected her to come back for another look or enter the thicket farther down.

I raised my rifle and spooked the deer I didn’t see. It was about 15 yards beyond where the doe had been. It was probably a buck.

They crashed away and the hunt was over, but it’s a hunt I’ll always remember.

Sports, Pages 27 on 10/27/2013

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