It was October 6th, 1991, and after five long days of waiting I eagerly grabbed my Darton compound and slid into my blotchy camo hunting suit. The first blazen maple leaves took flight in our front yard, and even more excitement filled the autumn air as I paused with my dad to freeze the moment with a click from the polaroid my mother held. It was my twelfth birthday, and one of the firsts that come as a mile marker in a boy’s journey to manhood. This wasn’t my first trip to the place we called “the woods,” though. I’d been there a few times before, tagging along to help dad scout or dump out some bait. But as I hopped into the mud-brown S10 and watched my dad stick shift the short trek to the square forty he had hunted all through the 80’s, this time was different. This was my first hunt.
Some decent bucks had been pulled from there over the years, and to my young eyes they appeared monstrous and came with stories full of mystery. Now after years of anxiously staring out our front window for my father’s return and bolting to the door to see if he’d gotten anything, I would get my chance. I could release my own arrow and tell my own tale to uncles and cousins instead of just listening with wonder. My first hunt, and in fact the whole first season didn’t end with a hero’s story though. That came the next year, in that same forty’s brushy southeast corner just across the old wire cow fence where I piled up a fat December button. Over the decades to follow, memories made in that place piled up like leaves on the forest floor, and though my hunting would take me to many other parcels and many other states, something always called me back there, to where I’d first begun.
On November 15th, 2022 it called once again. But in the predawn black as I swung my legs down from my brown silverado and planted my feet on that old welcome dirt, something felt different. I uncased the same Remington pump 20 gauge that had barked dozens of opening days in that timber, and slipped around the rusty gate down the worn lane like I had hundreds of times before, but part way something stopped me. Reluctantly walking back, I looked again, as if hoping it had somehow disappeared. The corn stalks and trees seemed to respect the moment with their low rustle as my headlamp reflected off something that didn’t belong with the old familiar markers of that place. There it was though, spelled out as clear as could be in black and white: “SOLD.” The reality smacked hard, but I couldn’t avoid it any longer. This was the last hunt.
With the permanent stands all removed from the woods, a climber was my best option. I’m a realistic man, and between my dad and myself I couldn’t remember taking more than one buck on opening day at the woods in the last thirty years. So with both my tags in my pocket, I thought tying one to a decent buck would be a great end to our run. Circling the east edge of the corn field I cautiously pushed into the woods, hoping to avoid the path of mingling deer. Twenty yards deep by the old cattle pond food plot, however, two snorts greeted me from out of the dark. Stopping to listen, I caught my breath and allowed the unseen deer to stomp. It wasn’t good, but they hadn’t winded me and the fresh scrapes I was running into were a good sign that bucks were there and rutting. I let them meander off into the larger woods a few minutes and then cautiously entered it right down the gut.
The easterly wind was ideal, with buck sign hotter than usual in the southeast corner where shredded rubs had shown early in the fall, and fairly open woods all around that I could cover with the slug gun. Discussing it earlier in the week, dad and I had settled on a big oak that would provide good shooting lanes north through the big timber and toward the neighboring corn field, south toward the cow pond and apple tree food plot I had just skirted, and that would allow picking open shots to the east toward the property line. “Just about 40 yards down the old logging trail and on the east side is that oak. I had a ladder stand in it once, and it should work well for you,” dad said. Finding it easily with my red light the steam started venting out around the neck of my thick wool sweater that dad bought me as a teen. Boy, it was still a warm underlayer and still bad for long walks with lots of gear too. I had a full day’s worth of it on my back, plus the climber, and this made for a heavy load. But reaching my destination, I began unstrapping my gear for the climb up. “Darn,” the tree was too big. With everything unpacked and time ticking toward daylight, I scanned neighboring trees for one slightly skinnier that could do the same job. An elm about ten yards away would do the trick, and I wrestled the undone gear over and scaled it until a crook in the trunk stopped me. This would be my setup until dark, or so I thought.
Daylight snuck into the woods as it usually does, almost unnoticed. Two deer slipped behind me while just dark enough to obscure what they were even through binoculars. As I watched light permeate the forest one last time, the first few shots of opening day pierced the crisp November air. Nothing in this section. With neighbors to the east now gone (where the deer typically bedded in the thick slash), my father not hunting much all fall, and standing corn surrounding the property, the stage was set for uncommonly natural deer movement. Still, the woods was quiet the first hour. “It was good to be here,” I thought, and I attempted to memorize the calm aliveness of that place. My senses seemed heightened, maybe due to the awareness of the day’s mortality, but still seemed inadequate to record the vastness of it. All I could do was sit and be fully present, taking in as much as I could. If my last moments in the woods were the chickadee chirps, and the sound of fox squirrel chatter and giving chase through the patchwork of fallen leaves, that would be enough. Old hunts flooded my mind one after another that all went down within eyesight of my final stand location. Some good days in the woods played out once again, and I quickly saw a boy become a man, and another man grow old among the oaks, beach, and prickly ash. Having a deer to show would be quite an end to this story, but snapping back from my daydreaming I worried, “had bumping the deer at the pond on my way in ruined my last hunt?”
Just before 8 am I got my answer. To my right, emerging from the prickly ash by the cow pond food plot came a lone deer. It walked with purpose and a telltale swagger. Raising the scope revealed just what its gate had given away. “Fork buck, but not a shooter,” I thought. I continued to watch, but as he angled away several more tines appeared, with four clearly visible on his left. His blocky physique revealed he was definitely not a 1.5 year old as I had initially assumed, and suddenly I realized this may be my last chance at a buck on the property. My heart began to pound, and those old hunts still lingering in my mind, seemed to welcome him. With some thick brush between us, and the buck slipping away, my instincts took over. I found a hole in the brush and let out a grunt. The buck snapped to attention, and just as quickly the 20 barked. His mule kick signaled the slug had ripped through his ribcage, and I watched in anticipation as he bolted parallel to me for several bounds and then stood alert, unaware and trying to gather what had just happened. A younger, more impulsive me would have fired again, but the woods was a good school through the years, and taught me when to be patient. After a few seconds that wisdom proved true with a staggering flop to the ground, a few kicks, and then calm silence.
At 8:20 I was jolted to attention by a deer exploding from the woods behind me. Wheeling my head I caught a doe bounding to the west and then stop about seventy yards out. She looked back, ears-up alert she fixed her full attention on a brushy downed tree top. Apparently she was bedded there all morning and I hadn’t a clue. Letting her eyes lead mine I quickly found the burnt, orange-haired perpetrator of the flush. Dog ears poked up as a large coyote nosed around the oak limbs until finding where she had laid in perfect hiding. But now, he was exposed. He turned east and trotted as I swung my barrel northward to meet him with a whistle, exactly as he emerged onto the old logging trail. In the split second he paused, slug number two cut through air and hide. Yelping, he dashed back toward the top but could not escape what stung his flesh. Doing circles, he finally crashed down, nipping at the hole in his side, then giving one last yelp.
Maybe I had acted in haste to echo another jarring bang through the woods, but it felt right on this opening morning to do so, to take what the woods gave and not question it. In an hour or so snow would hit, and I would reunite with the ground to finish my part in the harvest and last gift of the woods. I couldn’t really ask for more, but at 8:40 I began hearing crunching to the east toward the shredded rubs. Scanning the understory, I caught a flicker of movement.
A large, fully-mature doe walked alone and straight toward me. I’d seen this textbook rut scene unfold so many times through the years I immediately looked beyond her to where she then turned her gaze. We both waited, but not long. White tines suddenly materialized through the maze of branches, bobbing through the open timber. The doe, confirming the buck was on a string, continued her path. I raised the scope to see if this buck was one of season-ending caliber. He looked like a tall eight point, and as I strained through the glass for a better look, something on the ground stole his attention and he froze motionless behind a clump maple. “What has got him so preoccupied so long,” I wondered, until it dawned on me – the dead buck, as if a foreshadowing. His investigation done, the buck continued into the open, and it was then I knew this was it, the last buck in the crosshairs or just beyond the pins of my bow sight there. Clicking the safety off, and just as he sidestepped some thin silver maples at 50 yards, my shotgun blast cracked through the calm of opening morning a final time.
Bounding toward the thick prickly ash by the pond, he stopped and stood. Once again behind trees I couldn’t tell of my hit, or even take a follow up if needed. But I had faith in the old 20, and was sure that soon it would prove my confidence. Looking around for what seemed too long, I watched and waited for the slug to finish its work. Slowly wobbling, the buck succumbed and joined the first among the rusty hues of dead autumn leaves. I looked at my watch, 8:45 am, and it was over.
My dad made the short drive from home, through the lane and all the way back to the pond where the field met the woods. This became protocol through the years, after one too many long drags. He met me with a bit of surprise, as my hasty texts hadn’t revealed it was actually two bucks down, not just the first. This was probably one of the best hunts anyone ever had in the woods, and finding the second deer, I lifted his ivory rack – one of the nicest bucks too. Bases crammed with tree shavings and a long hooked eyeguard made the nine point a sure match for the shredded trees in the southeast corner. Dad agreed.
Gut jobs aren’t something I normally memorialize, but as snow drifted down through the gray-barked landscape surrounding us, the little, often overlooked parts of the story all mattered somehow. Time seemed to slow as I watched each one come, then slowly fade. A few pictures, a few heaves up and over the tailgate, a prayer of thanksgiving, they all turned to memories as the towering oaks solemnly watched our procession out of the woods, through the worn lane, and toward the gravel road.
Sometimes life doesn’t allow us to realize when they happen, and it’s only through the lens of time that we see them for what they were. But “lasts” happen, and sometimes we are blessed to know when they do. As we shut and locked the rusty gate for the final time I felt a mix of emotions swell up, and gladness was one. I was glad I had known this was the last hunt.
Dedicated to my dad, and our memories of “the woods.” ~ Adam
