BACKYARD BOWHUNT PROVIDES ADVENTURE

Bill Cooper

10/06




Bowhunting has been a favorite outdoor pursuit of mine for 40 years. However, as I have grown older, or rather, matured, I have lost the desire, or rather, the ability to chase whitetails with stick and string in the far from home places.

In the last decade, I have been slowly developing a one-acre food plot 100 yards behind my home in the woods. The plot attracts a myriad of wildlife including deer, turkey, rabbits, squirrels, geese, doves, opossums, and skunks. Deer, however, are the main reason I created the food plot.

Clover is the main ingredient of the plot, but additions of winter wheat, brassica, and turnips offer wildlife visitors a smorgasbord of palatable foods.

The food plot is surrounded by oak-hickory forest. Acorns, hickory nuts, and an assortment of other plants, fruits, and berries make my acreage attractive to wildlife.

The acorn crop in the Ozarks during the fall of 2005 proved to be the heaviest most people can remember. The large white oaks on my place produced acorns by the bushel. You could literally kneel in one spot and rake them up into piles with your hands. The bountiful crop not only made it very easy for deer to feed, but also made them difficult to hunt, because they did not have to travel far to find food.

Even though acorns covered the forest floor, deer fed in my food plot late every afternoon. My years of hard work cutting firewood, pulling stumps, discing, liming and fertilizing, and seeding had paid off.

Most often, I wait for the weather to cool considerably before I begin bowhunting. Last fall that philosophy cost me an easy shot at a buck.

I was on my way to the woods just beyond the food plot to check on a ladder stand. The bow season had been in for a good week, but the warm temperatures were still uncomfortable.

Two does stood in the food plot sizing me up as I approached. They quickly bounded away with their white flags swinging from side to side like a pair of Grandfather clocks whose chimes swung in unison. The sight is a familiar one to many hunters during deer season.

I walked through the leaf litter, as bone dry leaves crunched under foot, making enough noise to alert the closest neighbors that I was walking the woods again. As I approached the stand, I heard other leaves rustling behind me

A fat 6-point buck, with its nose to the ground, had just cleared the woodline across the food plot. I watched intently as the buck steadily walked across the food plot and entered the woods in my direction. It turned slightly to the west, obviously following the scent trail of the two does I had seen just minutes before.

As the buck passed within 15 yards, I uttered a low grunt. The buck froze in place, unaware of my presence. It would have been an easy quartering away shot, but my bow still hung on the rack in the mudroom back at the house. I grinned as the buck continued its search for the does.

A few days later I decided to make my first bow hunt of 2005 in spite of the heat. Dian wanted to tag along to watch. Within minutes I had a ladder stand tied securely to a white oak 10 feet from the white oak I would climb with my stand.

Dian climbed cautiously to the seat of the stand 15-feet up. “This is spooky”, she whispered. She had never been in an elevated deer stand.

Within 30 minutes of settling into our stands, I began to hear the sounds of deer crunching acorns in the woods west of my stand. Dian could hear deer to the east

We sat patiently on the north side of the food plot. A soft breeze blew from the south. The setup was perfect. We expected to see deer entering the food plot at any moment.

Forty-five minutes into the hunt I could still hear deer eating acorns. The crunchy sound added much anticipation to the hunt. My imagination ran wild as I strained to hear if any of the deer were coming closer to my position.

Surprise brought my heart to my throat when I looked straight down from my stand and saw a yearling standing directly under my stand. My hearing is not what it used to be.

The doe slowly fed 15-yards into the plot, giving the perfect shot. I prepared for the shot, but paused to make sure Dian was watching.

When I turned my head in her direction, I gasped. Bored from the lack of excitement, she had stood up on her stand and was in the middle of the biggest stretch I had ever seen anyone perform while on a deer stand.

I whispered, “Dian, Dian, Diaaaan”. She looked in my direction, saw the deer, and slapped her hand over her mouth, as if to say.” Ooooooooooooooh, I’m sorry!”
The doe had moved out to 25-yards, I thought. After settling the 25-yard pin behind her shoulder and touching my release, I watched in disbelief as my arrow sailed 3-inches over her back. I chuckled as I watched another tick-tock white flag waving as the doe bounded through the woods.

“I am sorry I messed it up”, Dian apologized.

“Just happy you got to see a deer your first time on a stand “, I replied.

Within 30-minutes the sun began to slip low into the western sky. Dian had indicated earlier that she was still hearing deer eating acorns to the east. A grove of magnificent white oaks lay in the drainage in that direction. Deer could eat their fill of sweet, white oak acorns in a short time.

Light faded quickly. A deer would have had to be within 30-yards to make a clean shot. I seldom take a shot over 20-yards. As I began letting my bow down from my stand I heard Dian whispering that a deer was close. Almost simultaneously, a buck stepped into the food plot, snorted, and spun to gain the cover of the woods. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

“I told you there was a deer right out there” Dian retorted.

“Well, we have had a great afternoon”, I responded.

The food plot had worked its magic. There would be many more wonderful afternoons to enjoy sitting on a deer stand at the edge of my food plot within sight of my home.