Through a hunter’s senses
- Bob Hanna: Someday
- December 2, 2020
- 1056
As I sit here in the serenity of nature, I begin to wonder how many people who read my articles have never or will never have the chance to see, smell, hear or feel what we hunters take for granted.
What brought to mind this question? As I sat in my stand last week, just prior to the doe story (which is why it slipped my mind), the king of all hawks that governs this area flies over my stand — not just over but close enough I could hear his wings beating the air.
Those of you who have read my stories know about the confrontation I had with a hawk in Canada. But this was different — majestic flight with power. Things that we see, as hunters, sometimes become so commonplace we become complacent to their beauty.
The smells of our travels vary greatly, depending on location and weather. As I get older, I’m not so keen on sitting in freezing temperatures for three or four hours as I did as a youth. But nothing can match the smell of the fresh pines after a rain or the smell of a campfire after a long day in the woods. The clean, crisp smell of the morning is hard to explain.
The sounds? Well, they are as calming as nature can be. The quiet serenity sometimes is more therapeutic to the soul than any musician could write. Our world has become so congested it’s hard to find places where we can totally block out all the sounds of civilization. Even at our new property, we can hear traffic in the distance. It seems the young people in this area still love to see how much noise they can make with their cars and trucks, from the burning of rubber, which is very artistic on our highways, to the loud exhaust systems on their super-sized 4-by-4s.
The place I remember most was the Arctic — flown into base camp hundreds of miles from civilization with absolute quiet except for the distant sound of the river cascading over the rapids. We hunters love the feel of a breeze filtering through the branches, the warmth of a properly selected hunting coat, the bite of the cold — which will teach you which coat to wear next time — and the pride of a hunter when laying our hands on our quarry.
So let me put these all in perspective as I finish my story from my last article. We did find a good processor in Morehead, so to begin Taryn’s birthday, we took my doe in. It was a small family operation, but they said in the two weeks of rifle season here, they took in about 350 deer.
We had a nice day shopping and dining, but the next evening I was back in the woods. I remembered what the previous owner had said about sitting along our back fence line overlooking the neighbors’ pond, and the owner had verified deer frequent the pond in the evening. I drove the Kawasaki Mule up the hill and left it on the trail behind me.
Crawling under the fence, I chose a small spruce tree to sit beside and perched about a hundred yards above the pond. I settled in. Those that follow my Facebook page may remember the blog titled “Peace, Serenity, God lives here,” which is simply an expression of all the sights, smells, sounds and feels we’ve been talking about. Time seems to stand still.
The silence is broken by the sudden thrashing of leaves behind me — just over the hill so I can’t see them but too loud for squirrels. The thrashing stopped, so I just assumed the deer had gone on up the trail.
As my attention turned back to the pond, my hunting senses felt a presence (other than God’s). I slowly turned my head and looked through the spruce tree to see a buck coming directly toward me at about 15 yards. Remember, I’ve got the 7mmRemMag with 139 grain bullets set up for long shots.
I recognized this was the odd-looking 4-point I had seen on my trail camera. I told Taryn this buck should be taken to improve the quality of the herd. As he momentarily stopped to rub a pine tree, I slid my rifle barrel between the branches of the tree. As he raised his head (scope was only on 4X), I rested the crosshairs at the base of his neck and boom, down he went. Now you know where the word “overkill” comes from.
He dropped about 10 yards from our trail, so I went back to the house and brought Taryn out to help me load the deer. We picked up both deer today for the freezer, along with the 15 pounds of bacon and 36 pounds of butter we picked up in Holmes County last weekend. It feels like a couple squirrels readying for winter.
So from our “den” to yours, wishing you a Merry Christmas.