Wheels within Wheels: Success and the Lack Thereof

[Zach Matthews]

I started hunting public land in Georgia in 2008 or so. I’d moved down here from Tennessee, where I did not have time to hunt, after spending my youth in Arkansas. I didn’t pick up a gun for the first time until age 18 and hunted with my ex-wife’s family through college. They taught me to hunt, but it was limited in the sense that there were already stands hung in the right spots, and the people I hunted with understood the seasons and the deer. In a way, I was simply being guided.

Coming to Georgia and being out of school meant I actually had a chance to hunt on my own, but that also required me to get familiar with the land. I hunted Allatoona WMA in Cherokee County for several seasons and did kill a couple deer there. Most notably, I killed one using my Gheenoe to access an out of the way area. I felt good about that and I still think rightly so, but I was missing a lot of the aspects of hunting that are so crucial to actually understanding the game: I didn’t have the equipment (stands, clothing suitable for a full day sit), and I was too remote to do the legwork.

A few years ago I started turkey hunting, initially with a friend who showed me how it worked, then on my own. Last season I really worked on my calling and was able to kill my first called bird. It was just a jake, but I also called several gobblers into near range. I am getting there with the turkeys, but it will probably be another season or two before I start to hit reasonable proficiency (i.e. being able to limit out).

During turkey season last year I had the opportunity to scout some new territory near to my wife’s family’s place at Big Canoe. Finally, I had a real base to work out of which was proximate enough to the deer woods to give me some of the scouting advantages that people who live in rural areas take to be a matter of course. During turkey season I had noted a certain place, an old logging road thick with young white oaks, dropping tons of acorns, near a food plot but not on top of it, and most notably surrounded by very steep slopes and hemmed in by a river. I didn’t think other hunters would want to bother with such a strenuous climb in the dark.

In September I made the climb on two successive days, seeing deer on both. The first morning I blew it, getting lost in the dark and making my way up the wrong slope, humping my tree stand and bow. I didn’t get onto the spot I wanted to be on until after full sunup, but I blew a deer on my way up the hill, so I knew it had potential. I bright-eyed my way back out on a safe trail that I knew I could find in the dark, and the next day I returned, following my tack trail with my headlight, and hung my stand on the tree I had selected. That morning I was rewarded with a doe, walking on the exact spot I hoped to see a deer. I let her walk, reasoning that does in the area would mean bucks later.

This Saturday was my return to the woods. It has been almost two months and as best I can tell, no one has hunted my spot. Excellent; as I hoped, it posed too much of a challenge for other hunters to care about. Unfortunately the Powers that Be had dictated both that this weekend would only be a “quality buck” hunt (4 on a side) and that the open hunt would end in this spot on Saturday.

So I hung my stand as before, and proceeded to have one of my coolest days ever in the woods. I saw ten deer at four different times. My camo (now a Sitka array of proper equipment) kept me warm. My scent preparations obviously worked, as no less than four deer walked directly under my stand. One button buck actually crossed beneath my very feet on two occasions. He never saw me. I saw an enormous coyote (which did pick me out, probably because I was wearing orange).

Nothing in the nature of a 4 on a side buck came through but just the simple feeling of successfully scouting a remote mountain location was enough to make me happy. Hopefully this spot will remain obscure for years to come. I’ve seen enough deer now to know I can go ahead and drop a legal doe next season, and there’s always the chance of that quality buck coming through.\

Success in the outdoors is so often measured by what you bring home, when in terms of the application of learned skills and good-decision making, I feel we can be successful without actually sealing the deal with a kill.

[Clay Smith]

For me success is getting away from our hectic reality and enjoying time in the relaxing setting of nature. Combine that with learning about the behavior of animals in nature and it multiples my fulfillment.

Much like catch and release, the end result doesn’t have to be meat on the table to measure a hunting or fishing experience as a success.

[Author]

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