I wouldn't mind sitting in a deer stand before dawn if it weren't such a waste of time.
Some habits are ritualistic. Others are the products of experience. In my experience, it is seldom worthwhile to be on a deer stand at first light.
I've killed a few deer at dawn in other places, but at my spot in Grant County, early-to-rise is largely unprofitable.
I keep doing it, though, because I always wonder what I'm missing.
Since I joined the Old Belfast Hunting Club in 2009, one stand has always been my prime spot for muzzleloader deer season. It is in a streamside management zone that contains a lot of oak trees that throw a generous supply of acorns. Hardwoods are increasingly scarce on the property that our club leases, and acorns are a deer's preferred food in early autumn.
Like any dedicated deer hunter, I've always climbed that stand by dawn, and I've only seen squirrels until about 9:30 a.m. when, like clockwork, deer always step into a shaft of sunlight at the end of a clearing.
That pattern ended last fall after the landowner thinned the pine thicket bordering the south side of the hollow. Since then, deer visitations have been sporadic and inconsistent, but they certainly don't come in the morning anymore.
Nevertheless, I was there a little after dawn on Saturday, the opening day of the muzzleloader deer season.
A cold front was due early Sunday, but Saturday was very warm and muggy. Deer don't move much on mornings like that. I spooked two bucks off beds at the edge of a big cutover during the long walk to the trail that leads to the hollow. They appeared to be lying where they could watch for does crossing the access road. They ran just far enough to get concealed and stopped. Either they slipped away quietly or simply bedded down again after I passed.
Few shots were fired that morning. The only two I heard on our lease were from two guys that have stands fairly close together on an interior road. One report quickly followed the first, so I assume they shot at and missed the same deer.
Crossing the mid-morning "bite" off the list of possibilities, I returned Sunday afternoon with my youngest daughter Hannah. She had won all kinds of goodies at a church function on Saturday, including a honey bun, various candy bars and other cellophane-packaged cakes with enough preservatives to last 5,000 years in a cave or tomb, so she was well-prepared for a long sit.
It was still too warm for my liking, but you hunt the weather you have, not the weather you want. We sat side by side reading books. Mine was a Jimmy Buffett biography by Ryan White. Curiously, it does not contain a single direct quote from Buffett. Instead, White got all his material from published sources and from peripheral characters in Buffett's life. If you've read one celebrity biography you've read them all. Sexual excess, substance abuse and solipsism look the same on everybody, but this book does offer some sharp profundities in its asides. It's a decent deer stand read.
It was library quiet when the sun dipped low and settled over the woods.
"This is prime time," I whispered. "This is when deer start moving around. You can look at that feeder down there non-stop for an hour. Look away for a second and a deer can pop up like a genie."
That's how it happened the first time Hannah's brother Matthew hunted from this stand in 2009, and how it happened the following evening when her brother Daniel killed his first deer. I pointed out where a big buck emerged while hunting with her sister Amy several years ago, and where a big buck emerged two years ago, at almost this exact hour.
We were whispering when I squeezed her shoulder.
"Deer coming!" I said. "Get ready."
It was a soft rustling sound that I've heard as deer brush against grass and branches as they walk the two narrow trails leading into the hollow.
You could cut the tension like butter as the sound grew louder. A limb shook, and then another.
"It's a dadgum squirrel!" I hissed.
Hannah giggled, and I chuckled with her.
Evening hunts aren't always so great, either, but I certainly couldn't have asked for a better companion.
Sports on 10/26/2017