I was hunting with my flintlock one morning last week, way up high on the side of a mountain. As I leaned against a tree, I was watching a family of robins. I should probably say community, not family. Ok, let's just call it a flock.
Scouting around the week before I had found what I assumed was a bucks bedroom. It was on an old overgrown logging road tucked up tight against a rock cliff, way up high on the side of a mountain. A big deer bed with lots of fresh droppings all around said that someone was spending lots of time there. It didn't look like a great place to hunt because it was mostly open timber below and there are hardly any acorns this year. Because the bed was on the side of a small and thick patch of green briar, grass and grapevines, I just assumed that a buck was spending his lazy days there in safety and then traveling a mile or two to feed every night. He could lay up there, smell everything that was behind him and see everything that was climbing up towards him and if he sensed any danger he could run out the logging road and up and over the ridge and be out of sight. Most deer stay closer to their food source but some of the older and more cautious ones try to play it safe and travel after dark, and I'm usually dumb enough to think that I might be able to outsmart them.
And that's what I was doing that morning. I had climbed up and over from the side way before daybreak, trying to get there before he did with the hope of seeing the buck sneak into his bedroom right at the crack of dawn.
It didn't happen and I didn't see a deer, which brings me back to the birds. As the sun rose, the robins were everywhere, probably a hundred or more. I see them every fall and every spring. I'm not sure if they are gathering to migrate or what, but it's always fun to watch them chip and chirp around, eating whatever they are eating, and flitting back and forth.
I'm not a bird fanatic like some of you, but I do like birds, and because of the beautiful weather, it seemed like I saw lots of them. Just the normal blue jays, robins, chickadees, crows, and a couple of wrens, finding the last of the little bugs and critters before the winter snow comes.
My favorites were the ones that I heard but didn't see. Two owls were giving each other the business, hooting back and forth. To me it sounded like they were saying who-whoo, but maybe it's just their way of saying hey, hi. Whatever they were saying, I loved hearing it in the darkest hour just before dawn. And another morning, as the sun was warming the earth, I heard a Sandhill Crane giving off its rattling honky type of call. Probably not a good description, but when you hear it, you know what it is. And then there was a hawk, not exactly sure what kind, but the morning of the robins, it landed in a tree about 30 yds from me and did what I was doing. It waited for its breakfast. The robins scattered and scolded but the hawk just sat there and held still. After about twenty minutes, it swooped into the weedy thicket, sat there a minute and then flew off. I didn't see if it caught anything or what happened but I assumed that a little mouse was lunch.
I was hoping to have a deer story to tell when I sat down to write my blog, but it didn't quite work like that. I hunted a good bit last week . I started the week by camping and bowhunting a couple of days with my friend Bobby, out in West Virginia. And then the rest of the week, mornings and evenings, I hunted close by home for our early muzzleloader season. I saw very few deer all week. It must have gone a lot better for everyone else. So many big bucks were posted on Facebook from our area this year. I'm guessing that because of all the acorns last winter and the exceptionally wet and green summer that we've had this year, the deer are really healthy and they grew some big racks.
I started to complain to myself and even to God. I found myself grumbling and complaining about all of the advantages all the other people have, like farms and feeders and wondering why I couldn't get a big buck myself.
He reminded me of the birds that I saw, and thinking about them I remembered a lot of other things. I remembered that I choose to hunt where I do because I love the challenge of hunting in the big woods and mountains, figuring out where deer go and what they do. I remembered that I have thousands of acres of state land to tromp around in and that I'm not stuck, only being able to hunt a couple of acres. Sometimes where I hunt, the hunting is down right hard, but I really enjoy climbing the mountains and seeing the different wildlife. Last week I saw a bobcat, three bears, a couple of deer, and every day had a beautiful sunrise. And I got to camp with a friend.
I don't know about you, but for me, it's so easy to get caught up in what I want and don't have, that I forget about what I do have.
Maybe not getting what I want is sometimes a good thing. Feeling grumpy and then looking back at the finer details of the past week was kinda like a swift kick in the pants. It really reminded me of all of the good things that I do have. God has blessed me with so much, and I wouldn't trade it for the biggest buck in the world.
And just maybe, for whatever reason, he wanted me to share my story with you.
Have a great week!
