The Big Hunt
As the next deer season approached W. L. talked more and more about how he was going to spend the bulk of his vacation hunting deer. First there would be bow season, then muzzleloader, and finally rifle season. I soon realized I had missed hunting and was happy to be getting the opportunity to take it up again. But it would be a slow process. Good hunting is slow and steady. Good preparation makes for good hunting. Strong anticipation can make a bad hunter though.
The 1997 rifle season finally arrived and I was ready to go. I had attended a hunting show or two, read a few issues of Buckmasters magazine, and scouted out with W. L. where I would be hunting. I would hunt from a blind overlooking a branch with a clear view to pine woods to my left and on the side of the ridge in front of me. The branch meandered around the ridge and flowed into a bigger branch that caught the runoff between several more ridges that had recently been logged and reseeded with saplings. There were abundant signs of deer in the area and the mating season had just begun.
Deer normally bed in the woods and begin to move at daylight toward feeding and watering areas. I felt sure that I was in a choice location. But that first season of hunting again proved to be disappointing. I managed to see one deer, a large doe, streak across the neighboring ridge as she was being chased by a pack of dogs. Hunting with dogs is illegal in our part of North Carolina but some "hunters" insist on releasing dogs to run the deer and spend all day trying to find their dogs and the deer they run. Much to the dog owners dismay when the dogs cross over into the hunting club's land they just have to wait until the dogs come home. The hunting club maintains strict rules and keeps their leased land posted. W. L. is lucky in that his own land borders that of the hunting club's and it provides a place for me to hunt.
The next season meant more preparation. Along with some other hunting club members W. L. located some better spots for placing his stands. They proved to be excellent sites for him but not for me. But his success continued to bolster me in my hopes that I would soon get that first deer. I hunted the 1998 rifle season again without seeing a single deer until my last hunt. Again it was a doe but it was smart enough to stay in the thickest part of the woods behind my stand. As in the past I was disappointed but was fortunate to even see a deer.
When Ray and I began hunting the deer population in North Carolina was about half the size of the herd today. Proper game management and strict enforcement of hunting laws have allowed the deer population to grow while the number of deer taken each year continues to increase. I had seen the signs of this in the area of Stokes County that we have hunted now these three years together.
The 1999 season approached and W. L. and I made a trip to Duncan's Gun Shop in North Wilkesboro. I had intended to buy a muzzleloading rifle soon but didn't have that in mind for this trip. But in that moment when a man sees something that he's got to have