Road Trip To Cataloochee Valley, North Carolina

Four-thirty in the morning sure isn't as easy on an old body as it was back in my working days, but that's when Judy and I struggled out of our warm beds and prepared for an all-day road trip to Cataloochee Valley, North Carolina; one hundred and thirty-six miles east of Harriman, TN.

First stop heading east was the Sevierville, TN exit off I-40 for some coffee, eggs, grits, bacon, gravy, and biscuits!  That's a must if you are going to last most of the day in the wilderness.  Incidentally, that Cracker Barrel was very friendly and the wait was minimal; unlike the week before at the Strawberry Plains exit where we waited and waited until even the later arrivals had been served, before leaving; walking right past the waitress who had apparently forgot to turn in our order.  I told her, "Thanks for the coffee," and we left, stopping at a Hardee's across the street!

 

Anyway, at around 7AM we arrived in Cataloochee Valley.  The sun was just peeping over the eastern mountains and illuminating the hillsides on the opposite side of the valley.  At the first field we stopped and waited in the "magic hour" light, but there was no elk to be photographed.  "Where are they," we both thought?

The Cataloochee Valley consist of about three fields in an almost straight line about two to three miles long.  We ventured further west up the valley, passing things I wanted to shoot later when the light was better.  

 

Finally, we came into the last field, which is much larger than the others.  It's stretches for about three-quarters to a mile and is about three to five hundred yards wide.  That's when we saw the parked vehicles along the last two hundred yards of the field, and across the field, were the elk.  I was amazed at the number, maybe two or three dozen, consisting of mostly cows with three or four bulls.

There was one obviously dominate bull standing tall against a backdrop of fall leaves right in the upper most part of the last field.  We quickly parked and I got out; grabbing my monopole; which turned out to be a minor mistake.  I got some decent shots, but all were, at least to me, sub-par due to "long lens shake".  In retrospect, I should have set up my tripod, but I was excited and was afraid all the elk would scamper away any moment.

 

 

 

They don't scamper away, like the deer all did, because they just aren't afraid of "man"!  They stood proudly and grazed unconcerned; even venturing up to smell the hoods of a couple of trucks parked along the road.

The main road into Cataloochee ends at the far end of this field.  So you have to exit the way you came in, or take a long route back toward Cosby and eventually Gatlinburg in Tennessee.  The road winds forever, at least that's how my wife described it, and is a bumpy gravel road.  However, the views in fall made it bearable, and we even stopped along the way, in one of the many curves where the road widens out, to have a "pickup picnic"!

To me it was worth the early rising and the winding and bumpy roads.  The light, the frost on the grass, the fall colors, and the rising fog in the valleys made for a great adventure.  It's one I won't soon forget, and at least one of us will go back one day.

Lessons learned: 

1.  Return the way you entered (unless you go in from Cosby).  Get off Exit 20 on I-40, which is about fifty miles west of Asheville.

2.  Take the time to use a tripod...the elk aren't going anywhere!

3. Arrived at or near first light.  The elk seem to know you're coming and enter the field right on the sun's cue!

4.  Oh yeah, be sure you have a large memory card or two in your camera.  I heard a couple of people who were having to delete frames in order to continue shooting.  Shoot lots and delete later.  You never know which snap is the frame you will want to sell or frame!

You can see a pictorial tour of my trip by clicking HERE!

What's That...What's Going On?!

It's been awhile, about 30 days, since I've posted, which is getting to be about par for the course.  So, I thought I would bring those interested up to date, and maybe prove the point, that retirement is loads of fun!

True, the fun is often broken by a low spot, like the last prostrate laser surgery, but boy, has it ever helped.  If you listen at the door, you would think a young horse was relieving himself!  I mean...even when I was young I never had a stream like the one I'd proudly show off now!

Anyway, I'm back to feeling myself (not literally), and having fun.

Dennis Tufano, Stevie G, and Steve Jarrell

I guess the first great adventure I had following the outpatient procedure was the "Dennis Tufano" concert Princess Productions put on down at the Princess Theatre.  He has lost little in his voice, the original voice of the Buckinghams, and his back up band, The Rockerz, with lead singer and guitarist Stevie G, did a bang up job.  The vintage ladies in the audience were screaming like they were 16 again and the boys on stage loved it!

I'll have to put in a plug for Michael "Crawdaddy" Crawley too.  He warmed up the crowd with his box of harps and his gravelly bluesy sounding voice.  He and went outside at break and took a few snaps of the Princess.

Bill Landry, Elizabeth Rose, Sam Venable, and Jim Claborn

They all loved our Princess, and I sure hope this gets things rolling downtown.  We plan on bringing in a quartet of storytellers next.  They are quite a crew, and well known to East Tennessee.  They spin yarns of Appalachia, country folklore, and even a golf and fishing tale might come out.  I had a recent promo photo shoot with them and they keep me rolling the entire afternoon and into the evening over a brew!

Judy and I are still out hiking when we can, even though the wildflowers came early, we still enjoy a walk down a wooded path by a mountain stream.  There just something about the woods that brings the child out in me again.  Being raised essentially an only child, being ten years older than my brother, I found solace from loneliness among the quietness of Tennessee forests.  I did my best thinking out there and discovered a lot about my self and the world there.

It's like the bear we recently came upon in Cades Cove, or the deer in the front yard.  They are my kind of people!  The only animal we came across that I don't consider "good people, was the grey snake at John Cable's mill!

Even the horses in the fields I see almost everyday take me back to a time when I got to be a kind of country cowboy, riding through the woods with my cousin Larry.  

Or the time Richard Lacher and I sneaked into a "walking horse" barn near our trailer park in Florence.  There we met the devil, and his name was "Midnight Sun", a Tennessee Walker of some renown.  

He saw us before anyone and wanted to kill us immediately, although "walkers" are generally gentle!  Came right up to us, trying to break through the steel gate, snorting like the wild thing he wanted to be again!  Probably was all that anger in having to wear those cruel weighted shoes, "stacks" (stacked pads), or weighted chains his trainer made him wear.

I discovered from the embedded web link that he was born in 1940 and accumulated quite record over his career, being a world champion in 1945 and 1946.

Last weekend I shot the "Cruisin' Harriman" car show downtown, which occurs the second Saturday of each month, April - August.  That's always a hoot, and I love community events, and the history that comes alive because of them.  Take this Saturday, it's the seventh annual WWII reenactment at the Secret City Festival in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  I can't wait to see all those tanks, half-tracks, and American and German reenactors running amidst all that smoke and gunfire!  Talk about a hoot and a feast for a photographer!

Photo actually by Kaitlyn Russell

I missed a great feast last week by being too old to tackle Bonnaroo!  The only shot I got was from my granddaughters iPhone...the arch as you enter the rock'n playground for wannabe hippies!  Alas, it's as close as I'll ever get, but I just want to give her credit for sticking it out!  She almost gave it up after the first day of heat, and being ignored, but sucked it up and stuck it out for the full "right of passage" tour!

I'll stick to my hikes, waterfalls, old barns, lotus ponds, and visits to the strange "world's tallest tree house" in Crossville!  That's about as far out as I want to get these days.  That's my element at this stage in my life.

So, I'll sign off by telling you that I'm bushed...we had a big thunderstorm last evening, with the power going off at 9PM and not coming back on until 5AM.  I don't sleep well in the dark...pitch darkness, that is, or in quietness so still I can hear my heart beating.  At this age you think the next beat might be the last one, and you just don't want to hear that last one.  I run an air filter in my room to mask all the static noise...heart beats, squeaks from house expansion and expansion, crickets outside, the refrigerator running, or Judy snoring!  Without, I'm wide awake!

The rain and hail came down in buckets, and I was still there clicking away.  I made these HDR renditions of it all, even catching that spooky orange glow that comes in some storms.  

So with that...see ya next time...maybe sooner than 30 days...IF I got got shots during the war games!

HUNTING WITH MARION

I KNOW A LOT OF YOU HAVEN'T ENJOYED MY DEER HUNTING POSTS, BUT YOU HAVE ONE MORE TO READ. ACTUALLY, THIS IS THE LAST OF MY MEMOIRS, THIS COMPLETES EVERYTHING I HAVE INCLUDED IN "THE LAUGH & TIMES OF MUSHY". FROM HERE ON...IT'S JUST THE HERE AND NOW!

Marion Henry is a friend of mine, but we rarely see each other anymore. He still works and I’m retired, and our lives have gone in different directions. However, I miss him, as I’m sure he does me, because we will always share the memories of our deer scouting and hunting days together.

I must tell you up front that Marion is a black man, a very muscular and handsome black man that always turned women’s heads. I only tell you this because of the circumstances of this story. It was never important to me that Marion was black, because, truth be known, I rarely thought or cared about it.

The fact is that Marion and I scouted and hunted deer in Tennessee counties that have a history of not being very tolerant of “black folks!” However, we did not let that stop us. We would often go into these areas and the woods there well before daylight and come out only after dark.

I did not realize until Marion and I was on our first outing that Marion had never been to most of the areas we visited. He explained that black people just do not get out and roam the back roads of the south, but especially where it is known they were not historically welcome.

Cumberland and Scott Counties are two of those areas in East-Tennessee. As a small child I remember my dad pointing out a sign at the city limits of Crossville, one of the "sundown towns", that plainly stated, “N--ger, don’t let the sun set on you here!”

I felt so sad for Marion not being allowed to enjoy the countryside that I took for granted, and I felt very ashamed. However, he has a great sense of humor and seemed to feel comfortable as long as I was with him. I remember him telling me once, as we sneaked into and out of Oneida, on our way to Big South Fork, that “You know J. Paul, if they catch us, they’ll hang me!”

I had never given that much thought, but realized it was never far from his mind. “Well, if they do, I’ll hang with you,” and I meant it!

The whole thing was just something I had never thought about, and I hated that I had to then. But, I did enjoy my time with Marion and teaching him the “ropes!”

I remember encouraging him to buy a Ruger .270, and then inviting him over to try it out. I warned him about how the rifle would recoil and about how to hold the rifle and position the scope so that it did not hit him in the forehead. Unfortunately, he forgot and the powerful rifle “half-mooned” him right between the eyes! After that, I think he was a bit “gun shy” and anticipated the recoil by pushing forward as he shot. Therefore, his aim was not quite what it should have been.

This habit would come back to haunt him later.

Marion loved the woods, dressing up in camo, and spending the day traipsing around looking for deer sign. After pointing out several things he had never noticed, he began calling me “Kemo Sabe!”

He patterned his hunting after me, sitting very still behind camouflaged netting, and the results thrilled him. One day I heard a “whoop and holler” coming from his direction, so I quickly made my way to his stand. A doe had come to his netting, looked him in the eye, and poked it with her nose. Marion could not believe it! “You were right Kemo Sabe!” He would not have been happier had he actually killed a deer!

It turned out that when I told him the story of a doe sticking her head over my netting and into my blind that he did not believe me. He never again questioned my advice.

Then there was the day I will always regret. I was almost asleep in my blind when Marion touched off a round about 100 or so yards away. My heart leaped with excitement, anticipating that he had downed his first deer!

When I arrived where Marion stood pacing back and forth, he was beside himself. “He was right here J. Paul! He was right here and had a rack…must have been 12 points!”

“Did you hit’em? Which way did he go?” My heart was beating as if I had shot at the buck myself.

“I don’t know…he ran…he ran that way,” he said pointing!

I combed the area, asking again and again where the buck was standing when he shot. I looked and looked, even down on my hands and knees, but I could not find a blood trail, or the first drop.

Suddenly, I spotted a tuff of white hair and right over from it, in line with Marion’s stand, was a bullet hole in the base of a small tree. My heart sank. I knew immediately what had happened. Marion had anticipated the recoil and pushed the weapon forward, causing the bullet to rake the buck’s underbelly, taking only hair!

“How did you find that Kemo Sabe?”

“I don’t know…but man, I sure am sorry.”

I got an email from Marion the other day and this was how he remembered that event:

“J. Paul,

You took this picture during one of our scouting trips. It was a cool damp rainy Sunday. I remember you telling me to stand by the tree and blend in.

This was also the general location that I missed that deer that to me looked like a moose. It stomped and snorted from behind me (I was in my camouflaged fabric blind) and I was afraid to turn around for fear that I would spook him. My heart was pounding hard and loud. I am surprised that the pounding of my heart didn’t spook him. All that I could do was turn my head as far as possible and peek out the corner of my eyes to get a look at this beast. He was probably an eight or ten pointer. Then I heard him move on, so I slowly stood and turned, trying to make as little noise as possible and scanned the area, the beast had disappeared. I repositioned myself on my hunting seat and began to relax again, and then out of nowhere the beast reappeared, no more than twenty yards from my stand. My heart began to pound loudly again. I was unable to control my breathing. I watched as the beast of a deer with antlers that looked more like moose antlers walked into an opening directly in my line of sight not more than 20 yards from my blind. I slowly raised my Ruger M-77 Bolt Action .270 (newly purchased) and found the beast in my Charles Daly scope. Buck fever had yet another victim! I could not steady my weapon. My heart was pounding even louder now; my breathing was very erratic and uncontrollable. Knowing that I only had seconds before the beast would move out of the opening and into the wooded area, I aimed slightly behind the right front shoulder and without hesitation squeezed off a round.

Well you know the rest of the story, we found some fur but not blood…I guess I was unable to time my shoot between the erratic breathing and heat pounding. But as you can tell, it was an experience that I will always remember and cherish. I have many experiences that we spent together and they will always be very special to me.”

Anyway, on the out chance the round had passed through the deer without leaving blood, we scouted the area in ever enlarging circles for over an hour, but my first conclusion was exactly what had happened.

However, Marion had a deer tale he could tell his friends, but I don’t think it was ever as important, or as exciting, to him as the doe’s nose!

I miss our time my friend. I love ya!

THE CRYSTAL FOREST

Do you remember the wonderful scenes in the ‘Ice House/Palace’ in “Doctor Zhivago”? Well, back in January of 1989, on the last hunt of Catoosa for the season, I hunted a day in the woods there that was reminiscent of those scenes. The only difference was that instead of everything being covered in snow, which in reality was wax, everything that day was encapsulated in about ½ inch of ice!

I remember the prism like effect the ice had on the rising sunlight, refracting it into the full spectrum of colors, and making everything appear as if it was all part of a giant Christmas display - a kind of crystal forest. The light danced and sparkled off the ice that began to be too much for some branches to hold, and the normal quietness of the forest was periodically broken by the crack and crashing sound of some falling to the white floor of the woods.

It was January, the second week in January, a time that if it is going to snow at all in Tennessee this was usually the week it happens. About four inches of snow had fallen the week before, and most of it still lay softly waiting something else to happen. What happened was an ice storm!

I had also hunted the week of the snow, and was nearly caught in the Genesis Road valley that lay between the management area and the way home. However, having learned how to drive on snow years earlier from my dad, I made a slow steady climb out of the valley and made it the thirty miles on home.

That day was not a total loss, because I had a 5-point buck walk within ten yards of my ground stand between two huge oak trees. Completely concealed behind the camo material I always used, and the branches of small scrub bushes, the buck walked slowly by without as much as a casual glance. I had him perfectly framed in my scope, through which he appeared close enough to poke with the tip of my rifle.

I scanned his small, non-typical rack counting its five points, and compared it in my mind to the 8-point rack that hung over our dining room table. I had become somewhat of a “trophy hunter” and was determined not to shoot anything of less value to me than the 8-pointer, so I watched him pass and bid him good health.

So, on the day of the ice storm, I sat in the exact spot mesmerized by the light display and thanking God for his wonders, when a tinkling sound came from about 100 yards away. I immediately dropped off my little stool onto one knee and pushed off my safety and peeped through the mesh of the fabric and around the tree to my left. More tinkling sounds came and grew louder, but now with the distinctive sounds of heavy feet breaking through the frozen snow covered leaves!

Suddenly, there appeared a deer, no a buck, and my heart began to pound as it always did. I slowly raised the rifle and lowered my head to the scope. It was the same 5-point buck I had allowed to pass a week or so earlier. “Damn,” I thought, “What shall I do?”

I surmised that if fate allowed this same buck to pass me again that I was bound to shoot him by some unwritten law of deer hunting! “Okay big boy, you had your chance!”

I waited until he passed the tree to my left, just 10 yards or less, and I squeezed off the 150 grain round. I was so close I actually saw the impact on his right shoulder and the resulting ripples that dissipated about 18 inches from where the bullet hit!

The buck charged forward into a ticket, making crashing sounds like you would imagine a “bull in a china shop” would make trying to find his way out, and then there was quiet again.

I sat there, breathing hard and listening to see if I could tell which way he was headed. However, I did not hear anything and grew afraid I would lose him in the dense under brush.

I ejected the .270 round casing and pushed it deep into my pocket, stopping to smell of it first, and then injected another round just in case I had to finish him off at some point.

I could wait no longer, so I stood up and began inching my way toward the narrow gap in the thicket, through which he had gone. Immediately I realized I would have no problems in tracking the buck. There on about every other bush was a frozen icicle of blood, like colorful ornaments on a holiday tree. I walked forward, following the bloody spike markers, until I cleared the thicket completely.

The 100 pound buck lay motionless in a small pool of icy water just feet from the edge of the thicket. I knew that wounded deer often seek water to soothe their wounds, but this was the first time I witnessed such an event. However, the deer had died just after lying down…my muzzle touch on his big brown eye confirmed it.

I have heard seasoned hunters say that it is important to take out the inferior genes from the deer herd and that they needed to be culled, so I suppose this was my contribution to the future of the Catoosa deer population. His rack was non-typical, uneven, and may not have improved with additional seasons or food, but one thing for sure; he never got to add to the gene pool, good or bad.

So after field dressing the buck I sat for about thirty minutes, with my hand on the buck’s head, feeling the remaining warmth, just listening to the forest crackle, watching the light show – just enjoying my own private crystal forest.

THE FIRST BUCK

It is well documented that ancient tribes used chemical means to reduce fear and increase the fighting power of their warriors. One such drug was from the Amanita muscaria mushroom, a red-speckled cousin of the deadly "Angel of Death." The shamans of the tribes learned that when a warrior urinated after eating the mushroom, the potency of the drug in his urine was many times greater than before. Warriors would then store the urine and drink it on the eve of battle.

Hippocrates stated that: "...from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joys ... as well as our sorrows, pains, grief, and tears. It is the same organ which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear …brings sleeplessness ...and aimless anxiety."

It seems that tobacco was the drug of choice for the 19^th and 20^th Centuries: "As a marketing device by the tobacco companies, cigarettes were portrayed as a companion, something you could find solace in during pre-battle tension, anxiety and loneliness," said Kluger, author of Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War.

And so it was that I slept fitfully on nights prior to deer hunts, and woke with the need for a cigarette to calm my nerves. To me, it was like going into battle and my mind dwelt on every aspect of the next day’s hunt, shifting through each aspect of the hunt over and over.

I thought about and dreaded waking in the early hours, the lonely ride to my selected hunting area, the walk to my stand in the dark, being surround by square miles of mysterious dark forest, the perception of being the only soul in the entire area, the possibility of firing a tremendously loud round in the quietness of the woods, and giving my position away to the enemy (deer)! I know, it is all so ridiculous, but nonetheless I whipped myself up into a basket of nerves and preconceived notions right up until the moment I finally settled into my ambush point, either high in a tree, or behind a camouflaged blind inside a “downfall” somewhere near a thicket, which I perceived to be the “bedroom” of a huge bedazzled buck. It was not unlike the nights I spent on QRF (Quick Reaction Force) at Da Nang – simply the unknown and the perilous possibilities!

Once I passed the point of having to move anymore, and had injected the first .270 round into the chamber, I began to breathe regularly and blend completely into my surroundings, with only my eyes moving slowly watching for the slightest of movements.

This particular morning, I could not wait to get to that stage of “blending in” and to get high into the tree I had selected two weeks earlier. It was a nice slender oak that had grown tall to reach the light of the sun above the surrounding pines. Its first limbs began just above a low hanging limb of a hemlock, providing my lower body with added cover from directly below.

This tree was only 30 yards from a blackberry briar thicket I had scouted and had witnessed on occasion deer moving into it and hiding for the remainder of the day, and about 100 yards from a crabapple tree loaded with fresh green fruit.

All I had to do was get to this tree an hour before daylight and catch the resident dominant buck before he made it to the cover of the thicket!

I went over and over the scouted path into the woods, that went wide around the ticket, and back up to “my tree” most of the night, seeing almost every hour come to my clock. Finally, just as sleep came, or so it seemed, the clock rang out, frightening me awake!

The thoughts of preparation did not leave me until I turned off the truck, and began to pack up for the trip into battle!

Everything went well until I somehow got off my appointed round and ended up totally surrounded by pines. I finally relented and flipped on my flashlight, only to find myself totally confused by the close thicket of pines that reflected my light back on me. The pines seemed to close in, so I turned off the light to allow my eyes to readjust.

I bumped around among the pines for what seemed like an eternity, making much more noise that I intended. Finally, I broke out of the pine forest into hardwoods that seemed familiar. I walked and walked, but could not find anything familiar – I was lost…or at least “my tree” was lost.

In frustration, I flashed the light around and found some dead limbs and a log that I could sit down by until first light.

Slowly the forest floor became light enough that I could make out familiar trees and noticed that I had sat down amidst a large “down fall,” obviously a stand of two to three trees that had blown down at least a year or two earlier. It was a good hiding area, but “my tree” was no where to be seen, and since it was already daylight, it was much too late to be clamoring up a tree.

I became very mad and disappointed in myself and just said, “To hell with it…” and lit up a cigarette. “What the hell…the day is over anyway!”

I sucked on the Winston and exhaled forcefully, not caring which way or if the wind was blowing. I would sit there until about noon, giving any hunters in the area a quiet time and then walk back to the truck and go home.

Just as I crushed out the butt, I heard the snap of a twig from the other side of the dead tree’s root ball. I pushed off the Ruger’s safety and rolled quietly over and laid the rifle upon the horizontal trunk of the dead pine tree.

I could not believe it! There was an 8-point buck, with very dark hair between its wide tines, just moving quickly along a path and headed directly for the briar thicket. I lowered my eyes to the scope and framed the crosshairs right behind the front leg and squeezed.

BOOM! Through the scope I could see the hide ripple at the impact like the concentric circles on a pond of water from a stone. I raised my head and the buck, not twenty yards from me, looked directly at me, wide-eyed and very surprised, almost as much as me!

The buck may have fallen right there had he not fallen against one tree then another, until after traveling about twenty yards further it fell into a heap, kicked twice and lay still.

I could hear my own heart beating as his stopped!

I sat there about five minutes, breathing as if I had just ran a marathon, before moving up to the buck. I poked the buck, first his leg, then his side, and finally his big brown eye. There was no movement – he was dead.

Then, I heard another twig snap and I pivoted to my right! There stood two of his girlfriends with puzzled looks, looking over the situation. One snorted and then stomped her foot and they both ran off. This proved once again how curious deer are, even after the loud noise the rifle had made, they had to come and see. I felt kind of embarrassed having been seen committing my act against their kind.

I turned back around and surveyed the area…not ten yards away from where the buck lay was “my tree!” I never used that tree again, even though I hunted the same area twice more over the years.

I began the task of field dressing the buck, dreading the long pull back to the truck. I spayed out his hind legs, one foot on each leg, and started to make my first cut when he moved! I jumped back, thinking to myself that I would have to dive on him and stab him to keep him from running away, but, I soon discovered that it was me that had moved, the adrenalin in my muscles caused them to twitch, only making it appear that the deer had moved its legs in the dry leaves!

My scouting had paid off. The buck was indeed trying to make the thicket prior to sunrise, and had been eating crabapples – his belly was full of them.

You will note the video I posted has no sound, something I did wrong on the upload, but it is not really necessary. Just enjoy the quiet woods of the Genesis side of the Catoosa Wildlife Management Area, and note the horizontal line of the downfall I used as cover, and the green crabapples the buck had often enjoyed. I taped this about a month after the season closed.

After huffing and puffing for over an hour, I finally managed to drag the 140 pound buck about a ¼ of a mile back to my truck. However, I would frequently hang on trees, sucking in air and saying to myself, “Man, if you don’t die of a heart attack today, you never will!”

I thought some nosey hunters would stop once I got to the highway, but not one stopped. I finally dead lifted the buck into the back of my truck and made my way home.

It was a day I will never forget – you never forget your first buck!

THE DISAPPEARING DEER TRICK

As I stated in a previous post, I hunted the Land Between the Lakes (LBL) twice during my hunting career, the first time scoring my first kill, but the second time was a heart breaking experience. This story is about the second time.

The second hunt was with Allen and Judie Henegar, her brother Buzz, and a mutual friend Art Mallard. As a side note, Art’s wife was named Debbie, and we often referred to her as “Debbie Duck” for obvious reasons! Always thought that was great!

Art and I bunked together in his pop-up camper and after setting up camp we scouted the hills and valleys in walking distance of our camp site. Later, we sat up most of the first night talking, drinking, and playing cards with the others.

Art is a funny drinker. After a couple, he piddles around the camp, or camper, making a sound like “Huum” almost as a punctuation mark of some sort at the end of this thoughts. As the evening progresses, the “Huum’s” get more and more numerous until it makes you want to drink more so you don’t notice them!

On another hunt, years later, we again camped on a bitterly cold night, with a light snow falling into our food, while we sat eating our supper in lawn chairs, and watching UT play in some bowl game on a 6-inch TV he had brought. By the time the game ended we were out of booze, and I threatened to drain the radiator for us to drink, but luckily Art knew I was just kidding…I think! He just said, “Huum,” and wobbled off to bed.

Bright and early that morning at LBL, well before daybreak, I walked directly across the road from camp, jumped across a small ditch, and stepped over into the dark forest to allow my eyes to adjust.

The fall leaves took turns dropping dew from leaf-to-leaf, drop-by-drop, to the forest floor, smothering all other sounds. My darting wide eyes suddenly caught movement just 20 yards from where I stood. I froze, not daring to move a muscle, even though I was also blurred by the morning fog, so I waited until the buck passed behind a large oak just ahead of him.

The buck’s head was decked by a huge rack; I estimated at least 8 points with a wide separation. I could not believe my eyes or my luck! My heart was about to pound out of my chest!

The huge rack soon disappeared behind the oak tree, so I raised the Ruger .270 to my shoulder, found the tree in my scope, pulled the rifle hard into my shoulder, leaned slightly forward anticipating the recoil, made the perfect crosshair picture, laid my finger lightly on the trigger, held my breath, and waited.

“How easy this has been,” I thought! “The guys will never believe the size of this big boy, and how I just walked into the woods…man!”

I continued holding the sight picture and released half my breath and began to tighten my squeeze. I waited…and waited…finally I had to take in another gulp of air and held it. Nothing!

I finally raised my head and looked over the scope…still nothing!

I stood frozen for at least 5 minutes before I began to inch slowing in the wet leaves toward the oak. “He’s hiding…must have seen me…I’ll get’em though,” I said to myself.

I reached the tree, which must have been three feet wide, and peered around its side, slowing scooping out the area on the other side. Nothing! “What the…? This can’t be,” I now said out loud.

I later surmised that the seasoned buck had seen me and turned after reaching the tree and angled straight off with the tree been him and me. Don’t tell me deer aren’t smart…this ol’ boy knew exactly what he was doing and he certainly made a fool of me that day.

That night I went over and over the tale until I’m sure everyone was sick of it, but finally we all, being worn out, went to bed early. However, not long after lights out, the rains came, and I mean came down hard. The huge drops beat against the canvas top of the camper’s pop-out wings so hard that you could feel tiny bits of spray on your face. It really rained and it seemed to have rained most of what I remember of the night.

The night was also filled with dreams of the huge buck. I kept seeing him walk by me in the fog, snickering to himself, and finally tip-toe behind the tree. I awoke with new resolve and excitement. I was determined to get in the woods even earlier and ambush this ol’ boy!

I quickly dressed and tossed down a breakfast bar and headed off filled with anticipation of that being the day I would score my first buck.

I did not get half way across the road before I head the sound of rushing water. The little ditch I had easily hopped across the morning before was now a 10-foot wide raging creek! My heart sank…but I was determined and turned and walked first up the road and then back the other way. There was no use…the water did not subside until after noon that day…much too late for an early morning ambush.

The hunt ended with no further sightings, but I was again armed with lessons for the future. I would never again be fooled by the ol’ disappearing deer trick!