Good luck is a capricious commodity. Completely unpredictable, you need to be thankful when you get it. Consider me thankful.
I was fortunate to hold membership in a hunting lease in North Florida for five years. A scant 7.2 air miles from my home in Jacksonville, the Flatwoods Hunt Club was not only proximate, but charming and endearing. Its 1800 acres of wetlands and piney flats were home to an extraordinary number of game and non-game species. Black bear, white-tailed deer, wild turkey and other bird species too numerous to count held me in thrall for all my years as a member. Sadly, we lost the lease last year. My melancholy at that loss was palpable. I was losing access to a property teeming with wildlife in an old Florida setting, a short 15-minute drive from my house.
That capricious commodity, good luck, arrived before my sadness had time to ferment, even before the next deer season had begun. The man who sold Flatwoods still owned a smaller holding that bordered our old lease to the east, 500 acres of essentially the same ecosystem. One of the founders of the original club was able to negotiate access for six hunters on the new, lesser parcel. I was one of the lucky six.
The Hunt Begins in May
“To the true hunter, the death of the game is not what interests him; that is not his purpose. What interests him is everything that he had to do to achieve that death…”
-Jose Ortega y Gassett, Meditations on Hunting.
When you are blessed with an opportunity to hunt a new property so close to home and so rich in possibilities, you do not take it lightly or for granted. You apply yourself to the hunt, to preparing for the hunt, and you do so months before the season opens. That preparation began in May, with some help from my friends and fellow club members.
The first, and truly enjoyable task was to select a primary stand location. With six hunters on 500 acres, we all wanted to have distinct and defined hunt areas, places where we could focus our pursuit without interference from (or interfering with) other members. This was made easier by the goodwill and friendship that exists among the six of us. So much so, that we helped each other with stand selection. Being the newest one in the group, I was the receiver, not the giver of that help.
Another founding member of Flatwoods knew an area that he thought I might enjoy hunting. He graciously showed me a locale that I warmed to instantly. Not only did he walk me over the region, for my stand he suggested a particular pine tree that grew up through the branches of a laurel oak. On that May morning during our reconnoiter, I saw three species of woodpeckers—pileated, red-bellied and downy. I named the stand Woodpecker. After erecting my leaner, the hard and satisfying work began.
Sitting in Woodpecker, looking west, an old dim road turns to the north at 115 yards. West of that turn is a transition area, where swampy wetland converts to scattered pine and oak. Any experienced deer hunter could discern that most of the action and movement would emanate from that transition area. A clean shooting lane was clearly needed. Armed only with a hand saw, I worked for weeks, cutting, trimming and removing those obstructions that would impede an open shot.
While I was convinced that my best opportunities would come from the west, looking down the road, I did not want to limit myself to a single option. Northwest of the stand, I could envision an opening in fairly thick cover that would appeal to deer for feeding and staging.
Envisioning is one thing, designing is another. Several more weeks of vigorous labor produced a glade-like opening at about 75 yards that I believed would draw deer. Sitting in Woodpecker a few weeks before the opener, I surveyed my efforts and knew that I was ready for the hunt.
The Happy Man
“There is one general vocation common to all men. All men, in fact, feel called on to be happy…(and) the most appreciated, enjoyable, happy occupation for the normal man has always been hunting.”
-Jose Ortega y Gassett, Meditations on Hunting.
Opening morning weather was a North Florida deer hunter’s dream. Cool, still, clear skies. (So cool, in fact, that no defense against mosquitoes was necessary.) Unfortunately, the ideal conditions did not generate any deer movement. It was a delightful morning, though, with visits from five gobblers, a coyote, a barred owl and two tufted titmice that landed only an arm’s length away in the laurel oak around my tree stand.
The evening sit was more productive in terms of deer sightings. I saw two adult does and a fawn at the turn in the road and was able to watch them for several minutes. They were completely unaware of my presence. The little glade to the northwest also produced some activity… a spike buck that came out in the gloaming. None of these deer were legal, but they all inspired optimism for the next hunt.
My next hunt occurred on Tuesday evening, November 7. Walking down the lane to Woodpecker, I was gifted with a hunter’s premonition. I cannot explain it, but I have experienced it often enough over the last 50 years of deer hunting to recognize it and embrace it… I felt gamey, which added a dollop of extra awareness as I climbed into the stand.
At 5 p.m., a doe and a spike stepped into the turn in the road and began loitering. The spike wandered off around 5:30, but the doe remained. Fifteen minutes later, with shooting light rapidly waning, she picked her head up, froze and stared hard to the north. In moments, a buck with some weighty bone on his head stepped squarely into my shooting lane. I shot without hesitation, and he jumped and ran into the heavy brush north and east of the turn.
If a man tells you that he has never killed a deer that ran off, that they have all dropped to his shot, there are only two possibilities. One, he is lying, or two, he has not hunted enough for his opinion to matter.
Climbing down from Woodpecker, I experienced what I call the “dichotomy.” On the one hand, you are hopeful and expectant. The crosshairs looked right when the trigger broke. On the other hand, since he did run off, you are anxious and nervous that you might never see him again.
I arrived at the turn in the road where he was standing at my shot with barely enough natural light to see blood. Not finding any right away, the anxiety and nervousness increased. Before making a diligent search for sign of a hit, I decided to walk the line he took into the brush. I did not need a flashlight; I was hoping to see a white belly. Within 30 yards I saw that belly.
The buck was lying next to an old pine log and he was magnificent. With heavy, asymmetrical antlers and a very large body, he was an old deer, one of the oldest I’d ever killed. All the preparation, all the work, all the anticipation that preceded this moment overcame me and I had to sit down. Admiring my prize, I realized in that instant that Ortega y Gassett had it exactly right. I was indeed the happy man.