Opening day awash in sounds, but scarce in deer

I sure wish those crows would shut up.

It’s Saturday, opening day of muzzleloader deer season, and I’m hunting a new spot that came available this summer when loggers thinned a pine thicket. They removed every third row of pines, creating wide, straight lanes that extend long distances like giant cornrows. Taking those pines opened the forest floor to sunlight, so greenery abounds.

To a deer, the entire thicket — several hundred acres — is a giant salad bar.

My friends Mike Romine and Zack Smith moved my stand from an old place across the highway that had become unhuntable. In a stellar example of Arkie ingenuity, they moved the tall box several miles on a trailer after toting it several hundred yards from the edge of a field on the front bucket of Romine’s tractor.

Everybody who witnessed the spectacle succumbed to an uncontrollable bout of laughter, but it worked. It now sits in a beautiful new place at the point where two rows of pines meet three open rows. A brushy draw runs in front of the stand. On the other side of the draw, a hill rises gently to the east but rolls north and south against its folds. An un- touched section of the thicket lies a couple of hundred yards to the north. When the wind blows, there isn’t a finer place to be. The pines whisper and sway, and it’s hard to stave off a nap.

The night is still and starlit when I arrive at the lease, but a large cloud bank is creeping in from the northeast. I pull my orange vest over my camo overalls, and then put on my orange cap as I chat with one of my camp mates. He says nobody had seen many deer lately, but wild hogs appear to be taking over the place.

We wish each other luck as I threw my pack over my shoulders, and I make the long, dark walk down the broken trail to my entrance into the pines.

I extract a rope from the pack and loop it around the pack and gun case handles. After I climb into the stand, I hoist my gear up with the rope and wait for daybreak. Official sunrise is 7:18 a.m., which means 6:48 a.m. is legal shooting time. Very funny. Unless one walks right under the stand, there is no way I could tell at 6:48 whether a deer was a buck or a doe. And if I could distinguish a buck, I wouldn’t be able to tell how many points it had.

Here is where we go through mental checklist. If a slick-headed deer shows up alone, there is a good chance it’s a button buck that’s been cast off by its mama. We don’t want to shoot button bucks, so look close to make sure it’s a doe. That is one reason why I always bring binoculars.

It’s all academic anyway because there is no sign of deer anywhere. The woods are still and quiet, except for all those blasted crows. Surely they are fussing at something. Maybe it’s a deer.

I didn’t bring coffee this morning. I’m trying to break myself of that habit. I hate the way the stopper on my thermos squeaks when I loosen it. In the pre-dawn, it sounds as loud as a siren.

Not only that, but deer surely smell the aroma from a steaming cup of joe. And then there is the little problem of what to do when a quart of coffee works its way through. I love it, but coffee is not a friend to the deer hunter.

At least, not in October. I’ll have a change of heart in November and December, when it becomes a treasured ally against piercing cold.

Wild turkeys yelp and cackle in the distance. It’s the prettiest sound in any woods, and it makes me smile. I treasure this place for turkey hunting much more than for deer hunting.

What? Could it be? It’s the assembly call of the bobwhite quail where the thicket meets a vast cutover. I love to hunt quail, but not here. I wouldn’t harm these little guys for anything.

Mike Romine is hunting about a mile away. He sends a text: “Enjoying a turkey symphony. This place is so therapeutic.”

At 7:21 a.m., I hear the lone gunshot of the morning from our club. It sounds like a hit. If it’s a buck, I hope it’s a good one.

These crows are really annoying.

Man, I wish they’d shut up.