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| Clark's First Deer Manville, 2011 |
The Whitetail
November of 2011 will go down in my hunting history as one of the best, one for the ages, the season I hope many more will be like in the future. It will be the ruler by which I judge future years. Not only in the terms of animals seen, shot and chased but for the bond to places and deer I have come to love. I didn’t really work very much in November this year and took almost three weeks off for the sole purpose of chasing the whitetail deer with bow and shot gun. I was very fortunate to be able to hunt for whitetails in two states this year, my maternal family’s property in Manville, Indiana and my in-laws hunting haunts in Ozaukee, County, Wisconsin. While both were great hunts they were very different, though there were common threads between the two, such as the camaraderie between family and friends; and the common white-tailed deer (
Odocoileus virginianus) a.k.a. the whitetail.
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| This was the first double I have ever shot with bow and arrow. |
At the Manville farm we archery hunt for whitetail from tree stands, while in Wisconsin it was a shot gun hunt where groups formulate deer drives. At Manville we have about 20 deer stands strategically placed on 480 acres. The stands are in areas where deer pass by frequently, and in November the deer move some times all day. The successful hunter at Manville is patient, quiet and disciplined. In Wisconsin, they also sit on stands, but most of the late morning and afternoons are spent organizing deer drives and pushing deer in small wood lots towards hunters sitting on the opposite side of said woodlot. The successful hunter in Wisconsin formulates and executes a plan in accord with their fellow hunters. The properties we hunted in Wisconsin had smaller woodlots and more agricultural fields than in Manville. The properties are really very different, illustrating the whitetail’s adaptability to diverse habitats. The hunting strategies are also very different, illustrating the adaptability of the human. The struggle between hunter and hunted is what makes predator and prey more alike than different. Fear motivates both, but in different ways. The fear of being someone’s dinner and the fear of taking a life are both fear and in my mind equally powerful. To the outsider looking in these animals couldn’t be more different, but in reality both are motivated by the same things: fear, success, and pleasure. Stripping down the human experience to that of a common animal puts us in the larger biological context, something that is often lost with iPhones, computers, meat covered in plastic and modern day human life in general. Wisconsin and the Manville hunt both reminded me of the basic animal needs and how humans truly are just like the rest of the living creatures on this planet.
The whitetail is my favorite game animal due to its accessibility to the common hunter and its prolific nature in our ever changing man-made environment. It could be argued the whitetail is the most accessible big game animal in North America. Whitetails are a dynamic animal; they adapt to the human rhythms well and profit while many other species have been left by the wayside. Additionally, they taste great and provide a protein source that is sustainable, organic and free range -- the original slow food.
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| Tree stands Clark and I used to film hunts. |
Most everyone can find a place to kill a whitetail. Many Eastern and Midwestern states sell an unlimited number of licenses for whitetail and in many of these states hunting permissions are granted willingly from landowners. I’m lucky in that my family has owned property in Southern Indiana for many years. I have hunted the property since I was 14 years old and have tried to go back to Manville every year. This upcoming season will be my 22nd year hunting deer at Manville. I think I might have it figured out by now, but it keeps me coming back for more.
Manville is little more than a cross roads today, on the banks of the Indiana-Kantuk Creek. The farm is made up of bottom land hardwoods like cotton woods, walnuts, beech and sycamores and agricultural fields that sometimes grow tobacco, corn or soy beans; and hills, which are forested and dominated by ash, maple and cedar. I know the property very well, from individual sticks along path to individual trees that keep getting larger and larger with the passage of time. Due to the soils underlain with limestone, certain areas are thick with cedar trees. Walking the property in the very early morning before light gives the hunter intimate knowledge of every sharp stick, pond, and briar patch on the farm. The kid that grows up hunting is rarely afraid of the dark for long.
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| Shelton's Ash Manor. Great spot for deer camp eh? |
The dark aptly describes the beauty of Manville. Most everything is dark here in the late fall and winter. After the explosion of yellow, and red in October, a crescendo of grays overtake the place. The colors are muted -- lots of grays, blacks and greens. I like to describe it as an original American Gothic. There is a sense of place, in the muted grays, in the wood smoke and the thin layer of ash. It is a place where beauty is found in the color of a well worn ax handle, a broken posthole digger, a derelict gray ford tractor, a pickup truck missing its hood with a tree where the engine should be and the gray winter coat and white breath of a whitetail buck on a cold morning. It can be a harsh place where life is sometimes measured in decades rather than centuries, but a place that has been continuously occupied for thousands of years. The gray and cream chert arrow heads that come from the creek bottom fields are the evidence of previous owners’ occupations. The grays of the lichen covered ash bark and the gray of an ol’ man’s beard. This season was much the same as the previous season’s family and friends, good food, and lots of deer.
Below are a few thoughts I wrote down while in Manville this year:
Deer Camp Hands Manville, November 2011
Hands have been stained with buck’s blood and scared by bramble
That bramble is thicker than evangelists in hell. Crickets make one fleeting attempt to mate in the last days of Indian summer.
Tarsal gland, horse shit and drying tobacco fill the barn's air; dogs lick the dirt floor's blood stains and devour the remains of a buck’s diaphragm.
Sounds of chain saws and cloths permeated with diesel fuel and 2 stroke engine exhaust
I found the teeth to a single row corn picker. This place is where implements go to die.
Coyotes sound like a hooker's last drunkin’ stand
Wind has blow down ash tops and cedar wood smoke clings to you like sweat
November rains cool you and the dampness permeates bones
Nicotine and caffeine greets the gray light; followed up by biscuits and gravy.
To start the tractor you need a screwdriver to jump the solenoid.
The choke on the chain saw is broke; pour some gas in the carb.
Black locus thorns, sharper than a catfish spine, and meaner and than an old raccoon.
Paw-paws and persimmons delight buck tongues.
Soles of your boots worn thin, the happy death of the full yellow moon
The rut is on; bucks acting a fool are powerfully drunk on estrus
In the honey-hole, a murder has found the buck’s gut pile. Burning caul fat covers that top loin over a hickory fire.
A mixture of buck blood, dirt and saw dust under your finger nails, once there is impossible to remove.
Additionally, below are a few links to videos Clark and I made while in Manville. They are a lot of fun, but please realize these are hunting videos
there will be blood. Please excuse the foul language; I was really excited for Clark’s first deer...
