Hunters persevere after early excitement fades

Early December at deer camp is a lot like the last week of summer vacation at the beach.

The crowds have gone home, and the excitement of the early vacation system has faded. Restaurants are deserted, and many of the tourist attractions have closed or have scaled back their hours.

The only people left are the die-hards, or the few who took vacation late in hopes of scoring an offpeak special. It has a bit of a lonely feel, like you arrived a little too late at the party.

The first week of modern gun season was almost like a festival. It always is. We’re all like kids at school waiting for the last bell to ring to start Christmas vacation.

One of our traditions is to meet at camp at noon on opening day and wolf down a bowl of Mike Romine’s venison stew. He cooks it on a butane stove that a former member left in a stand. It gets so hot that the bottom of the pot almost always burns, but nobody minds. It is the hunter’s feast.

All the better if someone shows up a buck strapped to a four-wheeler or in the back of a truck. That means it’s story time, and if 15 people show up at different times, you’d better be prepared to tell the story 15 times.

For the past couple of years, the first two weeks of modern gun season generally coincided with the whitetailed deer’s rutting season in central Arkansas.

Members of the Old Belfast Hunting Club killed a lot of bucks, and some better than average bucks for northern Grant County. Romine and his son Zack Smith both killed two bucks. Darrell Williams, who went years without pulling the trigger, killed a big one. One of our female guests killed her first deer this year, and it was a big buck.

Weather in the Arkansas deer woods was every bit as nice last week as it was during muzzleloader season in October, and for the first few days of modern gun season in early November, but it had a desolate, windswept feel. Tower stands dot the edges of thickets and cutovers like high-rise condos and hotels at Daytona, but they’re all empty. I have most of the 4,000-plus acre lease to myself.

I stayed overnight at our camp last week for the first time this season. I arrived about noon Thursday, checked my stands and picked the one that I thought would be most likely to show me a deer. I picked wrong, but I didn’t mind. The day was clear, still and bright, perfect for meditating and reflecting on a great year that is nearly behind us. There were so many great fishing trips in 2015, some epic duck hunts, and an exciting if unrewarding turkey season.

I relive them all as I hover over a fire in the old metal drum. A stack of big pine logs stands ready, but they are green and waterlogged from sitting in the rain for a month. Using a hatchet as a wedge, I hammer it with a second hatchet and convert the logs to sticks that burn fast and hot.

We have a communal pine knot that we use to start our fires. It is very aromatic because it contains so much pine sap. We chisel off a few chips, and they flame at the touch of a match. Add a few oak and hickory splinters to make it flare, and then add the pine.

There is no moon, but a billion stars glitter like keyholes to the universe. The lights of Benton, Bryant and Little Rock wash out the sky to the northeast, and the lights on the towers at Shinall Mountain flash far in the distance.

We Little Rock lifers recognize that community. Visionaries changed the spelling to Chenal to add a faux air of noveau riche pretention to west Little Rock, but it was originally spelled Shinall. We hold tight to the original spelling as an act of civil disobedience.

I was on a stand at sunrise Friday overlooking a three-year-old cutover that stretches about 500 yards to a distant treeline. There is a gate about 300 yards to the north. I scan the field so intently that it makes my eyes water, and a frigid breeze doesn’t help.

Sweeping the cutover for the 150th time, my eyes brake at the sight of movement. I spy a brown shape in the brush. It’s a doe, and where she came from I don’t know. She probably bedded nearby and simply stood up.

As I watch her through my scope, two trucks thunder down the gravel road behind me. The doe sinks to the ground like a submarine, and she stays down as the trucks drive through the gate. The drivers exit their vehicles for a conference while the diesel pickup chugs. Only after they leave does the doe rise again.

Shortly after, at the extreme far edge of the cutover, a tall, gray shape shines in the morning sunlight. It’s far brighter than anything else in the field, the telltale shape of a deer head, as tall and erect as a periscope. It’s another doe, and even at 500 yards she is staring at the stand. I am convinced it is the same doe that the owner of this stand shot at and missed two days ago.

Unlike the deer in the middle of the cutover, this one is very nervous. It begins running the cutover’s perimeter and stays close to the edge of the woods. It crosses the road in front of the gate and stops only when I make a loud bleat.

Yet another doe appears about 200 yards away, but I have already put two does in the freezer. With that many does running about, there has to be a buck nearby. He does not show himself this morning.

Mike Romine, Jay Raber and I enjoyed a long chat by the fire at camp for lunch. We talked about the high points and low points of the season until 3 p.m.

On an unspoken cue we excused ourselves. It was time for the evening hunt.

We wished each other the best, and we meant it.

We are the diehards, about the only ones still in the game.