Walking with weapons....looking for.....spring?

[JC]

Chase couldn't help himself as we found one picturesque spot. Surely, the dark rock overhead had been dimmed by a campfire from days of old...

 

Again, the land seemed to open...the trail still was well worn and obvious to our eyes. We eventually made our way through another bottom...the babbling brook still whispered it's song of the hunter's heart..."what's over the next rise?" it crooned in a hushed tone so faint you could not hear it without listening for the heatbeat of game.

 

[JAG]

Just wish I had enough hair for a "hawk"!

[Aeronut]

Mine's a 'sideways-hawk', goes from one ear to the other across the back of my head.   :D

Great story and pictures!  

Dennis

[JC]

And then, what we woud eventually come to find was not 300 yards from where we parked the truck was a part of the draw that simply screamed "game". The trail was wide and well worn, every lead seemed to focus into one 50 yard area. CJ and I picked out the same copse of 4 trees in stereo....."That one!"...would be where we would hang a stand if given the opportunity. Four trees grew from one large base...offering an opening big enough for a hang on but still providing plenty of backround to allow a standing archer the abilty to look like another tree trunk. To paraphrase ol' Bear Claw from the classic mountain man movie Jermiah Johnson, "Deer can't count, pilgrim!"

For a bowhunter, this was the place. The spot that after many acres of wandering, you would go no further to hang a stand or draw the brush together for a blind.

 

[JC]

Though hard to see from the picture, this place was thick with the traffic of big game travel. I found my mouth suddenly dry as I often do when close to game. My heart quicked it's pace ever so slightly. It had not been long since deer season, only two months since it's end....but I longed for the opportunity of a crisp fall morning...and the promise of a freshly hung stand over heavy sign.

Chase stood on a particularly well worn trail that ambled up out of the open "death valley" as CJ spontaneously pronounced it....the pines up one side and blackberry bramble up the other seemed to provide an obvious funnel for anything larger than a squirrel.

 

[el cazador]

As always... a great read JC.  Thanks for taking the time to share.  I'll be back for more!  

[JC]

Still....we found no hog sign. It seemed as if there were plenty of game around...but none we could legally pursue. The hogs were gone. The old farmers tales of "pigs so thick I was afraid the horses would break a leg in their rooting" was possibly exaggerated at best....and at least 6 months old at worst. But maybe he would trade some fencing help or strong backs that would load some of his junk pile into a truck for a trip to the scrap yard for permission to return in the fall? What we had seen did not speak to us of smoked pork loin and dry rubbed hams....but of backstraps and simmering bear steaks. Maybe...the trip was not in vain?

Then....not long before our journey ended....we saw something we did not expect...but in seeing it, knew it was what we had been unknowingly searching for all along. A whisper...a warm breath across our cheek...a reminder that even through the cold rain and cutting wind, God still provides....and a sign that "all things have a season"...

 

Thank you brother CJ, and my dear son for sharing this day with me. It was indeed just a "walk with weapons"...but oh, the joy it brought my soul.

Yes, yet another story without game on the pole in the end. Lately, I seem to be telling many of those. But as I grow older, they don't seem nearly as bitter as they do sweet. They make me appreciate the times when my hands smell strongly of the coppery odor of fresh blood....and they remind me that most times, "being there, is good enough".

Thank you all for sharing it with me.

[Matt Stuckey]

Thanks for taking me along as well.. you tell a great story.

matt

[Benny Nganabbarru]

Very nice country indeed, there, JC. Thanks for the pictures and story.

[vermonster13]

Very nice JC and a kind respite from the remorseless snow we've been getting here.

[Bob Walker]

Great narrative of the day Joe! All I got from CJ was "Naw, didn't see no hogs", LOL! Tell Chase I said he looked at home in them woods. Just needs a pair of Moccs and a loin cloth.  

[Shaun]

Thanks Joe. The trout lillys at the end sure look like spring. We still have snow and have had it all winter for a change. Good deal that you are finally getting a break in the drought. Walk on bro

[Whip]

What a nice walk in the woods!  And all that green stuff poking out all over gives us folks up here hope that southern winds send some our way before too long now.  We're probably a good month or more behind, but you remind us that it will come!

[Greyfox54]

Great story JC , Was that a picture of a creek there , I thought all the water was gone from Georgia . Hope you have been getting some rain .My son is finally starting to bowhunt with me , he's 24 and seems to be hooked big time . Thanks for sharing and on another note see if you can sweet talk Miss Kim into giving me the recipe for that world famous " Breakfast Casserole " . I kinda have a craving for it . Hope all is well with you and yours , Fred

[tippit]

JC, Nice to see a father & son enjoying the outdoors together...Doc

[IB]

Must say "GREAT JOB BRUDDER" HONOR them Younguns      

[Nakohe]

JC, all I can say is "Aho" (thank you) brother for the story. I too find just the time in the woods anymore more fullfilling even if I take no game. As our ancestors said. " A ha lani cha" (till we meet again.)

Donald

[4runr]

Very well written Joe! Thanks for warming our hearts as well as our souls with your prose.

[JC]

Thanks for your kind words guys.

Fred, yep, praise the Lord we've had a little rain lately. The creek in the front of the house and the springs in my woods are all flowing now. Glad to hear your son is sharing our passion with you...I know how it warms a father's heart. I'll have Kim email you the recipe, she'll be flattered.

Vance, your words ring true. At one point yesterday we walked up a steep hill and Chase was in the lead. For the first time in his life, he truly set the pace. All the wrestling and conditioning he has done pushed his ol' man a bit...if I had not given it an honest go, he would have walked away from me. It was a joyful revelation that my son was growing into a man...and also realizing I will soon have my own "drag unit"  

[Killdeer]

Trout lilies! Ah! And the spring beauties and bluebells and the skunk cabbage rising! Fiddleheads and mayapples, and the mysterious call of the veery and the hermit thrush..thanks for the hope, the reminder, the re-emergence of the greenings in the woods.

Killdeer