OUTDOORS

WITH LUKE CLAYTON

While studying to become a Texas Master Naturalist several years ago, I remember asking our arborist (tree expert) exactly why the leaves of some trees (deciduous or broad leaf trees) change colors in the fall. Shorter days resulting in less sunlight was the easy answer. Regardless why the leaves change colors, my spirits always pick up a bit in early fall when I see those elm leaves begin to turn yellow, and then a few weeks later the hickories and sweetgum add their golden and red hues to the fall woods.

There’s just something about fall that I look forward to each year. Oh, there’s the beginning of all the hunting seasons when we have the opportunity to again spend time in the woods when they are aglow with colors, in pursuit of venison or squirrel meat. But you know, I am positive I would be ‘out there’ even if I wasn’t hunting. Maybe it’s the ‘smell’ of fall, the sweet musky smell of dying leaves touched by a light frost, or possibly it’s a combination of the many falls I’ve been fortunate to experience over more than seventy years, at least sixtyfive of them in active pursuit of fish or game.

As a boy, I was all about bagging game. A hunt was not successful unless I put meat on the game pole and ultimately in the skillet. But these days, just being there would be enough, although I still get as excited about an upcoming deer hunt or fall fishing trip as I did when I was seventeen. I’m told this mindset keeps one young. Well, after seventy years, my knees and endurance tell me I’m no longer young. But I can still climb into a tree stand or throw a top water plug for stripers, and for that I am extremely thankful.

When I sit in a bow stand waiting for a buck or doe, my mind often back tracks to some of my hunts as a teenager, often in the woods north of Clarksville in Red River County where I spent my youth or sometimes down to southeast Texas when I hunted with Poppa Dinkins, who was 85 years old when I was 14. I still remember sitting around his homeplace in the woods in Waller County and listening to his stories of the ‘old days’. Doing a bit of ‘cyphering’, I calculated Poppa was born around 1885 and he spent his life in the outdoors as a rancher/hunter. He had an old double gauge tengauge shotgun with Damascus barrels hanging over his fireplace that he used to hunt deer in 1900 when he was just a boy. What I would give to have possession of that old shotgun today, not for monetary reasons but just to admire and reflect upon.

Looking back is great and provides a quiet and peaceful respite from the fast pace of today’s world. It’s easy to get caught up in today’s ‘rat race’, and sometimes unavoidable. But those of us that are a bit long in the tooth lived in much simpler times, a period way before today’s instant communication and knowledge of everything good and bad that occurs in the world almost the instant it happens. I’m not sure the human psyche is designed to digest all that information.

I believe that once one learns to become part of the outdoors, nature if you will, the need for couch sessions with counselors would probably drop drastically. On many occasions, I’ve spent a couple days and nights by myself on hunting or fishing trips and always feel renewed and refreshed after the experience. I used to hunt a big ranch on the Brazos River below Possum Kingdom Lake. I would set up a couple little ‘pop up’ tents about this time of year, one for sleeping and one for my supplies, and fish and hunt solo a couple days. During the morning and late afternoon hours, I hunted deer and fished during midday for catfish. A couple nights camped beside the gurgling waters of the Brazos does wonders to relax both the body and mind.

It’s getting about time for me to begin bowhunting for deer now. I usually wait until mid October when the nights are cool to begin hunting. The Hunter’s Moon which occurred last week has become my unofficial ‘opener’. My goal is to take a fat doe, or possibly a buck if the opportunity presents itself, butcher the animal and have plenty of venison for camp meals throughout the season. I think I enjoy processing meat and turning the venison into tasty meals almost as much as the hunt itself.

This coming week I will head to one of my tree stands for the first time this fall. I will once again listen to the sound of squirrels dropping acorn caps from the tree tops and probably hear the first migrating white front or Canada geese whistling down from the far north. Barred owls will be talking in the deep woods and, about dark, I’ll probably again listen to the sound of one or more packs of coyotes as they assemble for the night hunt. These are sights and sounds I have come to love during the past sixty-five or so years. Yes, I’m in my golden years as a s p o r t s m a n , but that’s just fine with me. I’ve reached a stage when just being there is far more important than bragging rights on a big buck. But don’t get me wrong, I am planning to shoot straight and hopefully put the biggest whitetail buck of my career on the meat pole this week! But if I don’t, I will still consider my time outdoors as a huge success!

SPRING RON DE VOUX in Greenville, Texas. I finalized plans with my friends at the Top Rail Cowboy Church to again have our Celebration of the Great Outdoors on the beautiful property there at the church. Mark your calendar for the first Saturday of March, and make plans to join us. Much more on this later!

Email outdoors writer Luke Clayton through his website www.catfishradio. org. Here you can also listen to his weekly radio show online.