It’s possible-if you’re careful and your tree’s circumference is less than your wingspan-to attach both platforms of a climber and secure a tote rope to your bow without moving your feet. It’s the nearby ones that may be shielded from view that I’m focused on. I figure the deer that can see me have already done so. When I finally arrive at my tree, it may be bright enough to see, but my first priority is still making the least possible amount of noise. Mine is lacking in the musical note of a real deer’s snort, but I’m pretty good on the air part. I roll my tongue, purse my upper lip out, and exhale sharply. It’s not hard, and because so few humans ever try it, it’s not necessary that your snort be pitch-perfect to fool most deer. But there have also been times when I snorted back, stamped my stick a few times, and was taken for another deer. I’ve bumped countless deer on my way in and know too well the heart-sink of hearing hooves crashing madly away through dry leaves. The biggest, however, is that darkness forces you to do something that animals do constantly and that humans almost never do in daily life, which is to move as though you have all the time in the world. One is that reduced vision makes your ears work that much harder. There are other advantages to operating in the dark. The best is when there’s just enough light from the moon and stars to follow a path. But the less light you use, the less you disturb the woods. Electricity and flashlights have made us such strangers to darkness that it takes an act of will not to push that button and destroy the night. Nothing beats the feeling-your heart full of hope and anticipation, your senses already working overtime-of sneaking into the whitetail woods in the dark-dark. Dave Hurteau The Walk In There’s nothing like sneaking through the woods in the dark. Fifty yards away and out of range, he circled over to the sunlit side of the knob, stepped broadside into a small clearing, and stood there for the longest time-muscled and giant and perfect-as if to show me what a whitetail buck could be, and exactly what I couldn’t have. ![]() As the headlights came on, the traffic buttons glowing like cats’ eyes, the lights of Las Vegas mounted ahead.īut he just stood there and stared, for an honest five minutes…10 minutes…then he spun, as if on a heel, and slunk back into the ragweed and saplings. A Jeep CJ crammed with gear, jerry cans on the rear and a rifle rack mounted inside, came up and slung past. At last light, in the next lane, was another pickup with a camper top or a load in the back lashed under a tarp. Then the interstate descended the Nevada side of the Clarks, leaving the Joshua trees behind and the glare sank away, the highway flattening out and running straight as a ballasted railroad across the dry lake bed, the desert air growing slaty with the dusk progressing toward night. Photo illustration by Nick HallĪt the top of Mountain Pass, the glare in the rearview was like the afterglow of a device gone off in a long-overdue airburst above the coastal city. Collectively, they tell one great deer story The Drive To Camp Sometimes deer camp is where you make it. But when you read them together, the narrative builds from tale to tale. Individually, the stories are all enjoyable in their own way. Their accounts are grouped into chapters that represent the most elemental stages of a deer hunt-Anticipation, Pursuit, and Harvest. ![]() The writers were given titles named after various phases and moments of a deer hunt and asked to share their best story. With that in mind, we’ve devoted our second annual collection of great stories to deer. That’s never more valuable to remember than now, when most deer seasons are over. Some are short, others are epic, but they’re all special because they remind us of everything we love about deer and deer hunting. ![]() Because stories are everywhere in the wild. Not every trip into the deer woods ends with a deer, but hunters always come home with a new story.
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