How can the woods be so still and yet so noisy? No wind is stirring and no critters can be heard in the brush, but the birds are calling loudly, their sharp voices carrying easily in the cool, clear morning air, their noise creating a sound screen, under which a deer might slip past unnoticed.
Will that damn dog ever shut up? A distant canine bow-wows and his racket carries the mile or so between him and me. If he is a tame dog run wild, will he come over here to spoil my hunt and to let me shoot him? And if he does come, will he be running a deer towards me on his way?
How can it be so cool - almost flat-out cold - on a morning like this, yet warm up to the almost-insufferable 70s and 80s in the afternoon? Sometimes I feel like I'm hunting in a desert - albeit a desert with hundreds of thousands of acres of hurricane-battered woods.
Will I break out of my rut, and see a deer instead of a bear - or nothing - this morning? So far this opening week I have seen three deer and four bears - and every one of the deer were seen while driving through the forest, not while I was hunting.
Will I see a buck? Even if I see a deer step out into the long, straight, narrow trail before me, will there be any antlers on its head? And if so, will I have time to ID the deer as a buck and get a shot before he steps into the impenetrable brush which crowds the trail on either side?
What is it, exactly, that drives a person to forsake a warm, comfy bed for a folding chair in the chilly woods? It is, of course, the thrill of the hunt, but something more must compel us to actively seek the discomfort that's found outside our climate-controlled homes.
What is it about whitetail deer that turns my joints to jelly and makes me shake like I've swallowed a jackhammer? It doesn't have to be a buck for me to get all loose and wobbly - I'm an equal-opportunity trembler.
Am I just an adrenaline junkie, willing to go through such rigors as a two-and-a-half mile hike to learn part of the woods I'm hunting... such trials as lying in the cold, cold mud waiting for an odd goose to fly in... such extremes as running pell-mell through a steaming Florida swamp pursuing dogs and hogs with the ultimate goal of killing a porker with only a knife?
Was that noise I just heard a buck? Sounded like something just kicked a palmetto frond in the scrub just then... I think I'll put this pen and paper down and see if anything shows up.
Well, the answer to one of my questions stepped out into the open a few minutes ago - a beautiful whitetail doe. Though antlerless, she again caused me to ponder another question - the one about deer, any deer, turning me into a quivering mass of Jell-O. I suppose I'd better get back to the hunt and think about it a while. Meanwhile, stay safe, and happy hunting to you.
- Russ Chastain
