Familiar Woods

Long-time friend Bob Buske who splits his time between Illinois and Minnesota and I recently took a long loop through some big woods we hunt each year. This is a herd reduction hunt on State Park land managed by biologists. About nine years ago they determined that at a population level of 100 deer per square mile, the area was badly overpopulated with whitetails.

People who do not hunt may fail to realize that if a deer herd is too large for a particular area, they browse the woods so heavily that the habitat for many other species is ruined. Deer even strip bark from trees during the winter, which kills the tree and allows faster-growing non-native species to take over.

Bob and I do our part each year to help control the herd and bring things into balance. On many occasions, Bob has gone out on opening day and filled his tag within the first hour. We stopped at some old spots we have hunted, recalling good shots, great deer sightings, and the tough challenges we have faced having to drag deer about a mile out of the hunting area.

I stopped at the remains of a fallen oak, recalling the first year it toppled. The tree fell in a spot overlooking a saddle (low spot) on a ridge, a place where we knew deer crossed frequently. Bob – as usual – got a deer early that morning. After helping him get it out of the woods, I returned to the oak. Leaves still on the upper limbs concealed me effectively as I sat among them.

I had a strong hunch I would see deer from that spot if I just waited long enough. After many hours, a group of four does approached from an unexpected direction. I took the lead doe as she crossed only twenty-five feet from my spot.

In another spot, Bob pointed out a flood plain that he has watched deer cross many times as they head for a high ridge bedding area west of his favorite place. Last year, seven deer crossed there thirty minutes after legal shooting time arrived, and he tagged a prime two and one-half year old doe from the group (this has always been an antlerless only hunt).

In another place we paced off a ninety-yard shot I made at a deer crossing another saddle on one of the many ridges found in the area. Before the season, I practiced shooting saboted slugs out to one hundred yards with my rifled-barrel Winchester model 1300 pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun, and was confident when the shot opportunity came up. The deer jumped once and went only ten feet after being hit.

When we left the woods, a very large owl silently flew low overhead, and we took this as a sign that this year’s hunt would be good. Owls are hunters too.