TWL Classics - The One Hitter Buck

Originally Published December 2008

The doe bailed out of the woods, skipping through the dog fennels as her six-pointed paramour paced on her heels. Just looking at him you got the sense you could smack him between the brow tines with a 2x4 and he’d shake it off and restart the pursuit of passion.

Ah, love, as much as it can be for deer.

I really wanted a doe for the fridge, but my luck convinced me otherwise. Here I thought I’d missed the best of the rut, and it’s only 2:30 and bucks are chasing. Something great was in the December air, and I fist-pumped a couple of times, just knowing this would be my evening.

A quarter past 3, a larger buck weaved his way through the pines, down a ridge heading towards the creek bottom, nose to the ground searching for a girlfriend. I twisted in the Summit Viper, trying to steady for the hundred yard free-hand shot. All he had to do was hit this one small gap in the underbrush and I could lower the boom on my .300 Win. Mag.

C’mon, boy! Seemed everything about this trip had to transpire within a narrow window – the weather, the moon phase, the rut, the stand location, even the actual shot.

I’d left Lakeland at 7 that morning for my lease, racing up 471 and 75 to Valdosta where I beat it west through Thomasville and a scattering of small towns until I neared the Alabama border. My urgency was not unwarranted. A day-and-a-half later, a frog-choker of a front would settle over and proceed to smother this portion of the South with unending wind and rain. I try to stay positive and realize it’s beyond my control, but even the possibility of foul conditions launches me into a polluted mood.

Even though I’d planned on staying a week and through the storms, by the end of it a full moon would be rising at dusk, and while it may sound beautiful in verse, moonlight through the pines can be rather ugly for the Georgia stand hunter. At least in this part of the state, daylight deer movement nearly ceases as the Man-in-the-Moon watches them feed at night.

And really, diurnal buck activity is not all that high outside of the rut. Sure, every year many hunters get lucky pulling gigantic bucks from the woods in October, but the money time is from around Thanksgiving weekend to the second week of December. On our lease, several guys had already taken nice bucks, or had seen some monsters, but they hit the rut at the peak; I was on the tail-end, hoping their hunting pressure or declining buck libidos hadn’t sank any hopes of filling the cooler.

Luckily, one of my stands hung in a location where deer regularly travel regardless of sexual frenzy, and few people have cared to explore. Or maybe they did, but it’s such a witch trying to get to it they never bothered. I named it the “One Hitter” a few years back after observing the deer that traveled by.

The climber hangs in a dynamite funnel on the southwest side of a ridge rowed with tall pines. To the east is a thicket of smaller pines that serve as a bedding area. Behind me to the west is a creek bottom filled with oaks and small gum trees, and beyond that is another thicket of small planted pines. To the north is the highway, and the south an intersecting, near impenetrable swamp bottom. Deer come from each stand of planted pines and feed on the blackberry bushes, scattered acorns, and whatever else they can find. They also find a false sense of security in the dog fennels that grow shoulder high on me.

By running my stand 25-30 feet up a pine, I can see down into the fennels, but since the ridge is so high, I’m eyeball to eyeball with anything coming from the east. Neat area.

But – and this is the big “but” – with all those dog fennels and thorny blackberry bushes, it’s impossible to get in and out and not make a ton of noise. Next, with all that vegetation grabbing at you, your scent is well-marked.

It took me a while to figure this out. The first time I sat here I saw a ton of deer, then next time, none. I was confused until one day I spied a doe coming down off the ridge. She crossed my trail and began smelling the dog fennels, tossing her head in the air to check for airborne scent, before finally blowing and running off. She was 150 yards away. And upwind. Then I knew that no matter what kind of scent protection I use – and yes, I have the suits, the cover up, and all those fancy tricks – this stand could be burned up in a hurry. So, I restricted myself to hunting it once a trip, and only on days I thought would be the best.

And that’s worked fine. Taken a few does and a solid 7pt over the years, but I knew a big buck worked that area. People had reported seeing a 150-class ten on several occasions near here; with all the trails between the two pine thickets and the corresponding doe traffic it’d only be a matter of time.

This would be the first time I’d hunted “One Hitter” this year, and I’d like to tell you this buck was the beast, but he wasn’t. At first glance I knew he was a decent buck, but no monster. More important to me than antlers though, is when a plan comes together, especially as forces beyond your control battle against you. I’d saved this stand for just this trip and broke many speeding laws to ensure I’d be sitting here in time for this guy to pass by. With weather and moon limiting future opportunities, the crosshairs followed the buck down the ridge until he paused in a thin gap between two pines.

The buck did not move at the first crack of the rifle. Confused I’d missed on what felt like an excellent shot, I re-chambered and sent another .30 cal. his direction. This time he popped up in the air and ran to the creek bottom, calling it quits under a large gum. Both shots were an inch apart behind the shoulder, the first killing him before he knew he was dead. If a 2x4 won’t cure love sickness, a .300 sure will.

Just a hair under 15 inches wide, his 140 pounds held gaunt on his large frame, no doubt from spending the last few weeks speed dating. He’s not the biggest buck in the woods by any means, but I was right proud to have him.

This whole hunt ended in 30 minutes – after all that hurry, I still had a couple of hours of daylight left. Some may have stayed in the stand, but I know how rare it is to get a win like this. I hauled him back to camp to snap pictures as the waxing moon rose in the east.

As I was about to leave the local game processor, the man cleaning deer asked, “You headin’ back out to the stand?”

“No, sir, I think I’m just gonna pour a toddy, count my blessings, and enjoy the rest of the evening; it’s been a long day.”

“Well, it’ll be raining the next few days”.

“Good, let it rain.”

Your Lease Options

Six years ago, responding to an ad in the Lakeland Ledger, I hit pay-dirt. Hunt club in SW Georgia needed new members. 2500 acres, lots of deer and turkey. I called the guys, asked a few questions and sent them the money, sight unseen. I got extremely lucky.

The hunt club folded the next year as the timber property that owned the land sold it. But, some of the guys I met proved to be excellent hunters, and better, easy people to get along with. They invited me onto another lease that I hunted another four seasons, collecting my best two bucks and a smattering of other game. Better still, I learned a ton about deer hunting from these guys.

Year 3 was tough, though. A couple of the originals moved on, and we needed some warm bodies in order to afford the lease. The newbies were nice enough, but there were some serious personality conflicts, to say nothing of a gap in hunting experience and methods.

Case in point, Georgia law says you can run corn feeders on your property, but must hunt 200 yards away and without a view of the feeder. Of course, we did use corn to attract deer to the lease. These guys did not want feeders at all, in the off chance they might happen to wander within 200 yards of corn at the same time a game officer would be in the area – the odds of this occurring was miniscule, especially when the gates were locked and one lawman was spread throughout four counties. They were rock-steady in their objections, and one meeting with them turned hostile. We eventually conceded – well, some of us did – and went about the season.

That wasn’t the only issue that tested my patience. All of us who had hunted this land used tree stands, placed them early in the season, and they didn’t move until January. The deer in these parts were extremely spooky and the less movement and human interference, the better. The new guys came and placed their stands in the middle of the rut and moved them constantly. When they failed to see deer from the stand, they wandered throughout the property. The results were predictable. A couple of them shot yearling does and jumped deer and hogs without getting a shot. As a result, by early December the lease was a ghost town.

By season’s end, I was frustrated and angry. The Others moved along to a different lease and that was that. Again, they weren’t horrible people; it’s just important to see eye to eye, or at least compromise, with others when you invest in a lease.

Lease and hunt club memberships should become available in the coming months. Here are a few tips to help you if you decide to fork out the cash.

1. Game Selection – My biggest irritation with the lease in Georgia was not being allowed to hunt turkey, which was very disappointing. I stayed on the lease because I enjoyed the company of the other hunters in camp, plus there was a legitimate chance of a Boone & Crockett buck walking out any minute. Also, I had a great wood duck hole that I hunted close to the end of season, and if I felt spunky enough, I could hunt coyote year-round. Turkey notwithstanding, the hunting opportunity return on my dollar was pretty high. If all you care about is deer, fine. But if you like some variety, ask fellow lease-members if they do any other kinds of hunting on the property, and whether it would be a problem if you did.

2. Doe Management – Seemingly everyone is moving towards some version of Quality Deer Management (QDM), and doe harvest is a key component of this practice. Georgia allows a hunter to take 10 does a year, which would’ve been excessive on our property. My first year in the club, we tried to establish a reasonable limit per person on does, with weight requirements and fines for shooting button bucks. No one was happy. I wanted a higher limit – which in hindsight was dumb because I only took one anyhow. One guy popped a button buck and balked at having to pay a fine because it was almost dark, and everyone’s made this mistake before, excuse, excuse. Think about this when you sign up; you’re more likely to have a chance at capping a few does than a huge buck anyhow.

3. Antler Restrictions – Speaking of QDM, this could be the biggest sticking point with lease and club members. The whole point of our original club was to let young deer walk, and I let a couple really nice bucks slip on by - ones that’d been deader than fried chicken in Florida - to achieve this goal. But that’s what I wanted. One guy in camp shot a young 8 with a spread that was close to, but not quite, the 15-inch minimum, or whatever we had established. He hadn’t shot many deer, and I didn’t want to take away his joy by imposing a fine, but those were the rules; let one person break them and it’s all over. If you decide to join a lease these days, you better know for certain whether or not you can live under such guidelines. I fully realize it’s hard to plop down cold hard-earned cash, hunt days on end without seeing anything only to let a nice deer that is so close to meeting the qualifications just walk away. Trust me, I do.

4. Food Plots – I didn’t start deer hunting to become a farmer. I personally don’t deal much with food plots. Don’t plan on it. Some guys on our lease did. Some enjoy planting community plots, and I don’t mind pitching in a few dollars for this. I know some properties require members to visit the land during the summer to work on brush clearing, planting food plots, and other such chores. Personally, I’m not spending any more on gas than I must for trips to till the land. I know adding food plots provides the deer with supplemental nutrition, contributes to antler growth, and makes for an easy stand location, but financially, my choices have always boiled down to either spending the money raising peas or spending the money to hunt without them. Easy for me.

5. Other Hunters – As I opened with, I got extremely lucky just tossing money at someone I’d never met, to hunt land I’d never seen. But, I didn’t do it completely stupid. I spoke with a couple different members of the club, asked about the land and game and expectations. This painted a fairly clear picture of who I’d be dealing with. None the less, it had the potential to be the worst blind date of all time. (As it turned out, I was the rube - a majority of the people very experienced hunters.) Still, it’s tough to judge personalities over the phone, and in that original group of fifteen, a couple guys rubbed others wrong. I’m easygoing to a fault at times and get along with most everyone. But in a hunting camp, you often have the issue of “I’ve spent my money, I can do what I want,” or “you’re hunting too close to me or walking around too much,” and just other alpha male nonsense that ruins the levity. Running with the wrong crowd will kill your season in a hurry. My advice is, get to know the other hunters in advance of paying the money – this is probably more important than seeing the land.

My experience with leases and clubs has been roundly successful. Due to financial concerns, I’ve been off that Georgia property for over year, though I missed it like the dickens this past fall. I got everything out of it I could’ve possibly wanted: big deer, new friends, and an escape in the fall. Sleep is hard when I think of it.

If you decide to join a lease or hunt club this spring or summer, make sure you do your due diligence - I got lucky this once. Not banking on that happening again

TWL Classics - To the Hunt

Two years ago I started my volunteer outdoor writing service through a local newspaper's public blogging site. Unfortunately, through powers beyond my control, my archives from that source are gone and lost forever. Luckily, I saved rough drafts of my work on my computer, and once or twice a week I'll re-introduce a past column back into the wild of the World Wide Web. Enjoy!

Originally Published January 2008

My truck is four thousand miles past its last oil change. My knees and back are shot from miles of traipsing through palmetto flats and swamp bottoms. Worse still, my dog barely recognizes me, and I am all but broke from traveling so often.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

For me, hunting season is not just an opportunity to escape the house or work for a weekend - it is a passion, a way of life born from being raised in the outdoors of Polk County and Central Florida. I am one of the lucky ones. From September to April, I actively hunt throughout the Southeast for just about anything that has a sanctioned season. When not actually hunting, I’m actively researching new ways to spend more time in the woods.

Already this year I’ve hunted deer in three different states, and ducks in two. Chased hogs in South Florida with rifles and dogs. I’m catching gobbler fever and close to donning the vest, laying out the decoys in the front yard, and calling to the neighbor’s cat. I dream of Africa and constantly check prices for hunts on the Dark Continent as if I could afford it right now. If an outfitter offered hunts for a giant slug on some tropical Pacific island that runs hunters a merry chase and tastes good wrapped in bacon and grilled, I’d be scheming on how to get there and what rifle I should bring.

As I said, I am one of the lucky ones; however, writing about hunting – or fishing for that matter – is a unique task. One can write about football or baseball without ever taking a snap or swinging a bat in a meaningful way. Come to think about it, there are numerous major television networks, publications, and radio stations geared around this very model. To write about the outdoor life, an author must actively engage in these activities or the reader will color them a fraud.

This, of course, leads to some challenges when dispensing advice. Let’s suppose I write an article about how to harvest a deer in a particular place during a specific time of the year with a certain firearm I feel is the most adequate for the situation. Some will take it as the suggestion it was made to be, and others will read it as gospel and go out of their way to tell me I’m wrong. If you need proof of this, read the “Letters” section of any outdoor magazine. Or check online blogs and forums.

Another trouble with writing about hunting or fishing is within the game itself. Hunters and anglers go to great pains to try and predict what their quarry will do under certain conditions. Much ink has been spilled trying to explain the many wrinkles in deciphering game activity. I use this example all the time – I once read that a gobbler will never cross water to come to your calls, and that was true until one old boss tom did.

My point, if I am forced to make one, is that the best way to become a better hunter is to be in the woods and learn for your self. The ultimate goal of this blog is to help discover ways you can enjoy your pastime – to be active and enjoy the tradition and adventure of sport hunting. At the very least, hopefully I can help you slack off a few minutes of work discussing what you love to do.

Living in Polk County, this should not be too difficult of a task. We are fortunate to be surrounded by plentiful public land, and opportunities for private land access for a wide spectrum of game animals. The central Florida hunter is also blessed to be within a tank of gas or so away from some excellent hunting prospects to the north in states such as Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolina's.

Of course, there will be some advice-related topics as this is the nature of the outdoor writing business. Certainly, some people enjoy discussing different hunting strategies and equipment, and I hope to keep readers updated on dates of applications, special hunting opportunities, and any legislation involving our sport. But most of all, I want to use this forum to broaden the scope and bring into focus the multitude of hunting possibilities available to the Polk County outdoors person at a time when the sport seems to be at its least accessible point.

As we prepare to put another fall hunting season - hopefully a successful one - in the books and ready ourselves for the doldrums of February and the blissful return of spring gobbler, I’d like to propose a toast to our fortune in the woods and on the water. This naturally would be better around an oak campfire and with an actual drink in hand, but still - to the hunt, the memories of years past and the promise of the future!