Deer fever ignites with opener无毛视频檚 approach
The fever for deer season finally began to smolder last week. For me, it无毛视频檚 always been there but, nowadays, it seems to take longer to ignite.
This year it started while I was hunting for a turkey on a marvelous day to be in the woods. That late-autumn span when most leaves are down but the burnished beech foliage still clings is special but short. Beech trees stand out then like ragged flames. A stand of beech can also be a good place to find a flock of feeding turkeys.
But no turkeys had answered my slate-yelps when a doe came sprinting up through the woods. She stopped close by under the coppery beeches, panting, and looked back the way she无毛视频檇 come. The doe watched her trail for a while, then bolted up the hillside, pausing again near the top.
Maybe two minutes later, what I was sure would happen played out as expected. Another big deer came trotting along the same route as the doe, its head down so that I didn无毛视频檛 see the antlers until it entered the open grove of beeches. It was a long-tined buck I无毛视频檇 have been happy to tag, and he was intent on that doe. Where she无毛视频檇 stopped, he paused too, curling back his upper lip to concentrate her scent. He never looked my way, but charged up the slope in pursuit, grunting like a boar. I无毛视频檇 been privileged to witness the opening act in the next generation of whitetails.
The fever intensified days later in our first snowfall, along a woods-trail at Fort Necessity National Battlefield. Deer there are accustomed to people, so they无毛视频檙e tolerant but still wary of a human无毛视频檚 approach. Five does and yearlings were bedded among deadfalls along the trail, where I couldn无毛视频檛 see them until I got close. All five vaulted up together and bounded away, like pale gray spirits adrift in the driving snow. It was quite a sight, enough to enflame the annual fever to hunt deer.
The firearms deer season starts two weeks from tomorrow, a controversial opening that ends the long tradition of beginning the hunt on the Monday after Thanksgiving. I think a hunter无毛视频檚 acceptance of the new schedule depends on circumstances and life-stage. Had this change happened 20 years ago, when we annually shared Thanksgiving with Kathy无毛视频檚 family in Virginia, this would have caused tension and conflict because I would have chafed to hurry back to western Pennsylvania on Friday for deer hunting the next day.
Now, at our new life-stage, we stay here and our son Aaron visits us from out-of-state, so I无毛视频檓 glad for the Saturday kickoff because it gives he and I one bonus day to hunt together before his departure.
These next two weeks bring on pleasant rituals that I enjoy nearly as much as the hunt itself. I无毛视频檒l cruise the grocery stores, and maybe a specialty butcher shop in the mountains, selecting items I wouldn无毛视频檛 normally buy to construct lunches that will taste good in the woods. It无毛视频檚 the only time each year that I buy candy. Nothing perks you up after a long sit in cold woods like a piece of dark chocolate and a cup of hot coffee.
My friend Ron and I will sight in our rifles to be confident of a quick kill should a chance present itself, and I无毛视频檒l clean my garage-turned-butcher-shop in preparation for success. I无毛视频檒l disinfect the worktable, scrub the floor, check my antique refrigerator, and organize all the clutter that got scattered from summer use.
If I get time before the season, I like to trim back the briars and brush along the path I use to enter my hunting area, so I can move more quietly when the time to do so arrives.
One popular ritual that I do not follow is monitoring trail cameras. In my thinking, knowing the precisely predictable patterns of an individual buck无毛视频檚 movements diminishes what I can only call the 无毛视频渕agic无毛视频� of seeing a deer appear in the woods. I like to be surprised by what I encounter out there. I crave that breathless excitement that climbs up my throat with a buck无毛视频檚 approach, and I sense that impact would be lessened if I无毛视频檇 already viewed electronic evidence of that deer无毛视频檚 habits. I know camera use is widespread, and this is my personal quirk, but camera reconnaissance, for me, feels less like hunting than it does surveillance. It无毛视频檚 a puzzle to me why a hunter would wish to introduce such complex devices into one of the few pursuits that offer a temporary escape from the technological tentacles that, increasingly, engulf our lives.
We are fortunate to live in a place where a large, elusive, adaptable, and beautiful, game animal lives in such abundance across the landscape, and to be free to pursue that creature in a way that mimics, at least, the ways of human hunters for thousands of years. No wonder we look forward to such a privilege. Wishing safe and successful deer hunting to everyone 无毛视频� whatever success means to you.
Ben Moyer is a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America.