Quest of the January deer hunter
By By Otha Barham / outdoors editor
Jan. 17, 2003
Hunter peers out across the flat stream basin, drab tree trunks forming endless vertical lines in stark contrast to a horizontal swamp floor, the trees having completed their annual dying by shedding every last frostbitten leaf. Except for the gray, sunless sky, the only other highlights of the scene are the scattered frozen puddles, their surfaces hardened to glistening mosaics of white and silver. Hunter's orange hat and vest stand out in shocking contrast, but his eyes only see the colorless landscape.
The elevated metal ladder stand stations Hunter well above the ground, the moisture of which having spewed up in clumps of dirty ice crystals. His vigil is on one of the coldest days of the coldest month of the year. Heavy boots, layers of wool and down, thick gloves and a pullover stocking cap are losing the battle against the cold. A cushion spares Hunter the sting of his seat's frigid metal. He dare not let an ungloved finger touch a steel arm rest lest flesh be frozen in place.
Tips of fingers and toes sting in pain. Instead of nitrogen and oxygen, inhalations feel like hundreds of invisible coals of fire searing his throat. Exhalations appear as smoke from smoldering lungs.
Hunter will wait here in nature's merciless cold, as long as body and mind can forbear. For now is his best chance of the year to see and have a chance to bring to bag one of nature's most cherished trophies a mature whitetail buck.
The oldest and smartest and biggest of the bucks is now, in January's last harsh days, the most vulnerable of any time during deer season. A few does remain unbred now, and something inside the big bucks placed there at the Creation urges them forth in frantic search for the matings that ensure succession.
These great stags, that have spent their winter nights whipping the lesser bucks to win affection of the does, now finally will run both night and day in pursuit of the last of the unwon females. Hunter has seen only their hand-size tracks heretofore, evidence of nighttime romps. But he knows their January compulsions, and today he waits in the punishing cold to see one in the flesh.
Hunter's vigil is as innate as the buck's reckless chase. He will suffer the weather, paying a big price as have his ancestors before him, with a small hope of bringing to ground the grandest animal in the forest. The high price raises the value of the trophy. He will bear the pain of the elements no pain; no gain, his adage.
His quest may bring him the trophy that measures up to his dreams, but the odds are against him and he knows it. Still he must try. Something within compels him to endure the elements and try.
And so Hunter waits in the cold. Maybe today; maybe tomorrow; maybe never.
