There is a tradition, primarily in the South/Southeast that after missing an animal, the humiliation is increased by having a part of the shirt tail hacked off. The lack of pigs the previous night was blamed on not appeasing these gods so goodbye Universal Studios t-shirt.
The shirt tail is proudly displayed in perpetuity. Obviously, I'm in good company.
We left to feed stands around the house. Since the hogs were not moving on the rice plantation, we were to hunt locally that night.
The morning quickly turned into afternoon and we were into the stands early. I was sitting in the same stand where I had shot a very large, black, burly, stinky boar a few years previous.
This is a large ladder stand and the wind that night was very good for it's location. A short walk from the road leads to a very quiet area. The stand is very easy to stay comfortable in. Rachel and Nathan were following in their car and were able to candidly catch me in one of those rare moments metaphorically very far away from all the cares of work.
After a while in the stand, a few deer walked up. The deer were alert, but not jumpy. They milled around the area for a while browsing on greens and corn.
After they were there for an hour or so, a large murder of crows flew in. The crows were loud, boisterous and obnoxious. With the large group of them, I think they could have been responsible for eating a significant portion of the corn.
The deer did not like the mayhem of the crows and quickly walked away from them, directly toward me. I've always wanted to be able to get a few good pictures of deer in their natural habitat. Much like the previous night, it is comforting to know these animals can unnervously be very close to me.
As it started to get dark, coyotes in the distance sang for a while. Beautiful. More deer joined as the sun set, but there were no hogs to come out tonight.
After it was completely dark, I hoofed back to the rendezvous point to wait to be picked up. Standing in the cool evening in darkness is serene. With little natural light, many stars could be seen until the nearly full moon rose.
As the moon rose, three groups of coyotes began vocalizing - almost a fairy tail end to the evening while watching the bright moon. A while later and much, much closer a couple coyotes began fighting which was a little intimidating while standing there in the darkness.
When Rick picked me up, there were two large sows in the pig tray along with a baby (still striped). Dennis had shot both sows and the baby was hit by a pass-through. While unfortunate, pigs are a feral and introduced species. He had also seen several other pigs, including one that was much larger.
Back at the lodge, the pigs were dressed and put in Dennis and Claude's freezer. Coming from Canada, they travel with a freezer in the bed of their truck, plugging it in when the stop for the night.
Everyone had a good time talking for the evening. We all scheduled time to hunt again with Rick next year.
Since it was the Canadians and Nathan/Rachel's last day, they began packing for their journey home.
No comments:
Post a Comment