Deer Me

Deer Me by Gary Benton
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A few years back I had a good hunting buddy, let’s call him Lane. Now, Lane was not your usual hunter. He was, and most likely still is, one of those guys who goes over board not matter what he does. Lane and I were both in the military when we hunted together, so we have since moved apart. I have lost all track of him, but I still remember him. He was one of those guys who just made you feel like an experienced hunter, even if you couldn’t spell the word. See, I usually start my deer scouting and getting a feel for land early in the year, say August or so, and continue up until the season starts. Lane always went with me, but our techniques were a bit different. This story starts in the later part of one of our deer scouting seasons.

The morning was cold as I bent down and placed some tinder on the gray coals from last nights fire. I could see my breath as I blew life into the dying coals and then leaned back to watch the slight wisp of smoke move skyward from my tinder. Suddenly, the tinder caught fire and I added a few small pieces of kindling to get the fire burning better. I cupped my hands on each side of the fire to feel the newly found heat. I enjoyed the cool early mornings on our scouting trips. Mother Nature and I have always been close, and I am sure if I had been born 150 years earlier, I would have been a mountain man.

It took me a few minutes to get Lane up and moving. Well, perhaps more than just a few, see, he likes to sleep in when we camp. I usually don’t mind it much, but this morning we were to scout an old logging road on some private land that ran down a fence line. The road ran parallel to the fence line in an east and west direction. I suspected the bucks and does were moving between the alfalfa field and the river. If they were, we just had to find the spot where they crossed. However, Lane took his usual time to get moving. As my old grandpap would have said, “That man is slower than dripping molasses in the dead of winter.” I had put on a pot of coffee, had two cups of coffee and was cooking breakfast, before he had made his morning toilet and finally got dressed. All he had done so far was complain about the cold and how hard the ground had been the night before. I shuddered to imagine what he was going to say about breakfast!

Breakfast was quickly finished, without a word from Lane, and we were soon at the road. As we slowly moved east I had to constantly remind Lane to keep his voice down (he was listening to his cd player with a headset on). The road had not been used in years, but there were still a few old ruts holding water. Here and there you could spot the tracks of a few deer. The sun had finally broken through the clouds and was starting to shine as I noticed the first real clear track that indicated a deer had crossed that morning. Lane, still half a sleep, had stepped on many of the tracks and that made them harder for me to read. From the depth of the track, as well as the size, it looked like a very healthy buck had crossed the road just a little before we had walked down the trail.

As we reach about mid point of the road, I saw a doe standing off to the right, in some trees. I have always been fascinated watching deer and this day was no exception for me. There is, to me anyway, something magical about seeing wild game in the woods. I don’t have to be hunting to enjoy myself. I stood watching the doe, expecting her tail to twitch up and for her to bounce off, but it did not happen for a while. We were down wind, and stood motionless, so I guess she was unable to detect us.

Or at least she was unsure of what we were, until I heard Lane say, “Come on, I don’t wanna spend all day looking at a dumb doe.” At the first sound of his voice the doe was gone, or it may have been his singing along with the cd he was listening to that scared her away. One thing about Lane when he sings, you get the urge to cry.

The morning and then the rest of the day passed too quickly in my mind and it was soon evening. It had been a productive day. We had discovered where the deer were crossing and I placed a few lines of sewing thread across a couple of trials to see if the deer were moving at night. I wanted to know what was happening in the area. Lane had laughed at me and turned in to his sleeping bag early.

The following morning I decided to sleep in and heard Lane get up, dress and leave the campsite while it was still dark. I knew he was going to put up his tree stand, but I have to admit, I was surprised he was up before daylight. I slept another hour, got up and had a small breakfast. By the light from a false dawn I then walked out into the bush and checked the thread I had placed the night before. Deer, a lot of them from the tracks, had been on the trail since I had set the thread. (In one spot though, I saw where the thread had been broken by Lane’s number eleven size boots). Well, now I at least had an idea now where the deer were moving at night. I did not reset the thread then, but decided I would reset it an hour before dark. I could check it after dark to see it they were moving through the area at dusk too.

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