Another Morning Story - by Mickey Lotz

[Terry_Green]

Another Morning Story - by Mickey Lotz

Sneaking in a morning hunt during the week is a privilege for the self employed so on this morning I got dressed, grabbed my Lakota quiver and osage pony bow “Countin’ Coup” and headed down over the hill behind my house to a familiar stand in an old cedar. A deer already under the stand spooked as I approached but it was too dark to see whether it was buck or doe. I quickly climbed up and strapped on my safety belt and pulled the bow up. As the black turned to gray and the gray to shooting light I checked the fine thread wind detector tied to a branch in front of me and it was doing it's usual dance pointing down the hill, up the hill, away from me, towards me all in the span of a minute. Fickle are the winds on a valley hillside. I pulled a cane arrow from the quiver and nocked it. A warm up pull for the shoulder seemed like a good idea. About 3/4 draw and ...POW!!!...What the heck?? Something hit me below the eye and I looked up to see my bow cartwheeling thru the air before coming to rest in the hillside 12 or 13 yards downhill from the stand. It was sticking straight up; stuck in the ground just like the tree it had come from. Looking around I saw the arrow laying crossways in the branches below me. I climbed down and went to the bow fearing the worst, but upon inspection it appeared okay other than the 3 inches of mud on the lower limb tip. Figuring the string broke I looked for it next and found it laying about 5' from the base of the tree. A close inspection showed it to be intact. I climbed up and got the arrow. It was fine too. Wierd! I restrung the bow, gave it a couple of pulls and everything seemed in order so I climbed back into the treestand.

A few minutes later I heard a rifle shot and then a bunch of turkeys clucking. The pessimist in me thinks a poacher down the valley has just got his Thanksgiving dinner while the optimist says a squirrel hunter added a bushytail to his game bag spooking the turkeys in the process. I'll never know which scenario is the right one. After a 15-minute wait I hear him before I see him. A distinct pig like grunt, then the sound of hooves in the leaves followed by a brown body ghosting through the cedars. A small buck is out cruising, checking for hot does. The closest he comes to me is about 60 or 70 yards. He's on a trail down by the creek at the bottom of the hill and continues on his mission never knowing I was there. A half hour goes by while crows, titmice, chickadees and a red tailed hawk circling overhead piercing the morning with his cry entertain me. The gray squirrels start their incessant bark whine warning of the hawk overhead. Suddenly a deer snort from 20 yards behind me and I turn to see two does flagging away. I glance at the wind thread …yep wind got me again, but that’s pretty normal on this hillside. I looked at my watch and it's 8:03. I've got to get on the road and make a living. As I climb up the hill and cross through my back yard I pass my McKenzie deer target at about 15 yards. Removing a practice arrow from the quiver I draw and shoot…a perfect hit. Well, at least a buck woulda been in trouble had he walked by. What a weird and perfectly wonderful morning!