"The Evening Campfire" from
The Herald, December 14, 2008
The dark and quiet time
before the hunt
It was 6:30 a.m. on Dec.1,
and I sat quietly in the darkness on my large sandstone
boulder a mile and a half deep in the forest and 800
yards up the steep snowy slope above the fire trail that
runs along the bottom near the trout stream. I opened my
thermos of coffee and poured a cup, and the hot, creamy
liquid warmed me to the core.
This was one of my favorite moments in the year, the
quiet time before legal shooting hours on opening day.
Ten of us at F-Troop Camp had answered the 4 a.m. alarm
that morning, gulped down breakfast, packed our gear and
headed out the door.
A gregarious bunch at camp, we are solitary souls, each
on a private mission, as we begin the long hike into the
blackness of the forest at 5 a.m. toward our individual
hunting stands. It had taken me one hour and 15 minutes
to hike back in on the trail and climb the mountain in
my shirtsleeves, carrying hunting coat and backpack and
rifle, to the big boulder perched high up the ridge on
an escape route bench.
But I was here now, resting atop the boulder, sipping
coffee, drying my sweaty head with a towel and thinking
about the upcoming hunt. I did not know then that it
would be the shortest deer hunt of my life.
At 6:35 I put on a heavy hooded sweatshirt, and at 6:45
I donned my orange-camo hunting coat and wool stocking
cap, my final layers of clothing after cooling off
slowly from my dressed-down hike. The eastern sky glowed
faintly now, and I could see the grounds around my
boulder a little because of the background layer of
snow. I poured one more coffee and relaxed.
At precisely 7 a.m., I loaded my vintage .270 Remington,
checked the safety and stood up to begin surveying my
hunting grounds. And there! In the first moment of my
hunt I spotted movement coming toward me in the snow.
Two deer were approaching east to west along the deer
trail that marks the border of bench flat and steep
ridge below my boulder. I got the scope up and focused.
Both were does.
But then I saw them stop and look back, a telltale sign
of trailing deer, and now they scampered ahead, a sign
of a trailing buck. Sure enough, I peered back and
spotted a large deer following. I glimpsed antlers as he
moved quickly into my sight zones before he disappeared
behind some ground rocks. When he stepped out into my
shooting lanes, I counted one, two, three points on the
right antler. I zeroed on the front shoulder and pulled
the trigger, and my opening morning six-point dropped in
the snow. I felt a touch of disappointment at first,
because I’d prepared myself for a full day in the
outdoors on the boulder, but I got over that quickly.
You take your hunter’s luck when it comes. I climbed
down, field-dressed the deer and dragged it three
hundred yards downhill to my friend Gary’s rock. I
stayed with Gary for two hours, helping him watch for
deer. Then I began the long drag out to my Jeep.
One hour and one mile later, I met up with my nephew
Dustin, who was dragging out an eight-point of his own.
Dustin’s a pilot in the Air Force, and this was only his
second deer hunt in 20 years, because of school, travel
and the military. The eight-point was his first buck
ever. I shook his hand and we smiled and smiled. My
six-point meant I’d taken Pa. bucks four years in a row
now and six out of seven years, so I had reasons of my
own to be thankful.
But I knew this day would go down in F-Troop Camp
history as Dustin’s day.
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