OUTDOORS

We’re in the midst of our annual midsummer burnout. A ‘cool’ day this time of year is when the mercury only reaches 95! But fall and cooler weather is not that far away. Whitetail season is less than a scant three months away. The summer hunting shows will soon be underway in several of the major cities across the state. This is a time when we deer hunters make plans for fall hunts and devise strategies to outsmart that wily old buck that eluded us this past season. Is he still out there on our hunting grounds, or did he move on or succumb to a pack of coyotes after the rut before he had a chance to regain his strength and vitality? Why not fast forward a few months and think about cooler weather and deer hunting? I think it will do us all good!

I’ve been a deer hunter since my early years when I would jump off the school bus at the age of ten during deer season, grab my .410 shotgun loaded with a single rifled slug, snatch a cold sweet potato off the stove and head to the woods behind our little farm to sit on a bucket and ‘hunt’ deer. This was way back in the late fifties when deer were precious few in northern Red River County where I grew up. I once saw a big buck cross our hay meadow but never after all those amateurish attempts to kill a buck did I see hide nor hair of one. I knew next to nothing about whitetail deer other than that they fascinated me and I had a burning desire to hunt them. It was several years before I killed my first deer, a goat horned spike, but that little buck was the trophy of a lifetime for me back in the early sixties.

As a young man with a growing family, dollars were tight, but I still managed to get out and hunt the woods of northeast Texas each season. I even managed to take a few deer back in those years, but I was well into my twenties before I had the opportunity to travel down to the Texas Hill Country near Llano with a couple of buddies for a glorious three-day hunt with an outfitter that offered day hunts. I remember to this day that our cost was $180 apiece, and that included transportation to and from the stand and camping rights near the old camp house. We all enjoyed a big barbeque dinner that first evening before opening day. I remember the outfitter kidding me about my little ‘brush gun’, an iron-sighted lever action 30-30. Most of the hunters back then had gravitated to scoped rifles, mostly in 3006 or .243 caliber.

My stand for that opening morning was a few boards nailed to the lower limbs of an old live oak. Some corn had been sprinkled around the area, and just after shooting light, I began to see deer. Several doe approached the area and nibbled on corn, and then on the edge of a distant tree line, I saw a deer with its head down to the ground, trotting along like a hound on a hot trail. By this time, had learned the habits of deer and knew this was a buck on the trail of one of the doe that was approaching my stand. Within 15 minutes of shooting light, I had my first Hill Country buck on the ground. I think I stretched the distance of the shot a bit when Herb Stehling, the outfitter, kidded me about making a lucky shot with that old thutty-thutty, but it was an honest 70 paced yards. My friends and I could not have had a better time had we booked a guided moose hunt in Canada. We hunted, cooked, and sat around the campfire a bit too late on that opening night as my memory serves me.

When I began writing outdoor articles back in the eighties, my deer hunting opportunities increased and I found myself hunting deer over much of Texas but also in North Dakota and several of the mountain states for mule deer. Some of my most fond memories are those early October days I spent hunting with a family that farmed and outfitted deer hunts in the little hamlet of Streeter, North Dakota. I hunted with these fine folks for several years. They owned a big house in downtown Streeter (population around 400) which served as a gathering place and dining room for the hunters. Lodging was provided in several homes around the town.

With more than six decades of ‘opening mornings’ to reflect upon, I feel truly blessed that I have never lost my passion for getting up well before daylight on those cool fall mornings and heading to the deer woods somewhere. I am very thankful that I can still climb a tree into a tree stand and enjoy all elements of deer hunting, everything from practice with my bows and rifles to skinning and quartering the game. I have always enjoyed cooking venison for my family and at camp and put great value on having a good supply of venison in the freezer.

Granted, I’ve obviously learned a good bit about deer and how to hunt them through the years, but I still learn something new each year. Deer are fascinating animals, and there is no formula that always results in venison on the meat pole. This past February, my good friend Larry Weishuhn, aka “Mr. Whitetail”, invited me out to far west Texas for a late-season doe hunt. I still needed a couple more deer to round out my supply of venison, and his managed lease had several unused permits. I had just obtained a new CVA muzzleloader, and I was anxious to put it to use. I honestly thought I would get up in a stand, wait until the feeder went off, and be covered up in deer. I was surprised to learn that bucks were dominating the feeders, and doe were staying back in the brush, feeding on a plant called filaree and cedar berries. I had a good supply of a food attractant called Vineyard Max (www. vineyardmax.net) that I’d heard good things about. It is made from dried, hammer-milled grape skins, rice bran, and corn chops. I’ve known for years that deer love wild grapes, but to my knowledge, there were no wild grapes or vineyards anywhere near my friend’s lease. The attractant has a very strong grape smell, but we were all curious whether these west Texas deer would be attracted to this new smell. We baited several clearings in the brush with Vineyard Max during mid-day and returned to hunt them on the late afternoon hunts. We were able to fill our doe permits thanks to the smell of grapes! There’s always something new to learn about whitetail deer. I can’t wait until the season once again opens and I enjoy my 64th season hunting them. I bet you feel the same way too!

Listen to Luke’s radio show and podcast “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and Friends” everywhere podcasts are heard.