Bear Creek Swamp Tales #4

The Sun Shining Through Angel Hair~
I didn’t particularly like hunting in the Swamp in late afternoon by myself but my love for hunting often found me up in a ladder stand when darkness fell in that lonely but lovely place. I never felt comfortable after dark walking back to my truck because I just did not know what I might encounter along the way. One afternoon while sitting about 14 feet up and looking west and enjoying the view of the Cypress trees in the Swamp, the sun rays were beaming through the Swamp and shinning through the Spanish Moss hanging from the trees and the scene looked like bright lights beaming through ‘angel hair’. It was one of the most beautiful pictures of nature that I had ever seen. In the quietness and stillness of the Swamp, the Creator of the universe was putting on a floorshow that could not be manufactured by man’s imagination. I thought to myself, where is a camera when you really need one.

Seeing Is Believing~
I must preface this tale by an experience I had several years ago when I first became addicted to turkey hunting. I was living in Greenville at the time. I was in a place of business when a young friend and son of the owner of the store said to me that he could take me to a place where he would guarantee me that I could kill a gobbler if I would pay him five dollars. In my eagerness and ignorance I quickly agreed to his proposal. I then asked him where the place was that I would be certain of killing a gobbler. With a twinkle in his eyes and a smile on his lips he replied, “Bates Turkey Farm.” Yeah, me killing a turkey that was as white as snow. No way.

It was in the fall of the year during deer season when I was hunting in the Swamp and slowing walking up the hill when I heard noise in the hollow to my right. I moved to the side of the road and stood very still. I thought that I might be hearing a buck walking but the noise was too great for one creature to make. I stood still in my camouflage attire and waited patiently as the noise became louder then suddenly I caught movement and lo and behold it was a drove of wild turkeys feeding toward me. That was not unusually to encounter wild turkeys while deer hunting but what I saw was. In a drove of about twelve turkeys, three of them were white. I had heard of albino turkeys being in the area but I had never seen them before now. I had seen black turkeys and I had seen bronze turkeys but never white wild turkeys. And had it been spring turkey season there would have been no way that I would have shot one of those white ones because my friends would have accused me of shooting one of Bates’ tame turkeys.

A ‘Southern Living' Style Dove Shoot~
Now I have shot doves over corn fields, cotton fields and peanut fields, especially while living in southeast Alabama . In fact I had taken my three sons and some friends to shoot doves over a peanut field that was owned by a friend, Mr. Davis. Another group of young men had also obtained permission to shoot doves at the same field. One unwritten but plainly understood law while dove shooting is that you do not shoot at a low flying bird. But on this occasion, the son of our local game warden shot at one that was flying between his group and mine. I saw what he was about to do and I shouted at him but it was too late. Two of the number 8 shots hit me in my left hand as I was shielding my face.

But such never happened at the annual dove shoot near Bear Creek Swamp when James Pearson would invite about 40 shooters to participate in it. My good friend David secured me an invitation to this shoot. We first met at the beautiful home of James and Sybil just north of Autaugaville and James would give us instructions and then the caravan would drive to his property where Bear Creek empties into the Alabama River . The Brown Top Millet field had been bushed hogged and all the shooters would surround it and then we would all wait for the doves to fly over. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t. But usually most everyone got shots at the sky and sometimes we would even kill a few birds. When we got our limit or when we got tired, we could go down to the trailer where Sybil had prepared everything from smoked Salmon to various kinds of cheese and ham. I had never been to such a fancy dove shoot in all my life. It was a most enjoyable time each year when strangers and friends mingled together and traded hunting stories. It is memories like these that can be cherished as long as we have minds that still function.

POSTSCRIPT~
The one thing that would make me sick in my heart was to return the next year to a beautiful hunting area and find that the land had been clear-cut. This is what happened to the area of Bear Creek Swamp where I had enjoyed hunting for several years. The property had been sold to Alabama Power Company and the trees had been cut down with the exception of the trees in the Swamp. When my friend David told me that the land had been ‘scalped’ and that you would not even recognize the place I refused to even go and look. I had rather remember the way it was. As Bob Hope would sing, “Thanks for the Memories”.

Bear Creek Swamp Tales #3

FOG GETS IN MY EYES
One wonders what makes a man get out of a warm bed at 4:00 a.m. and head out for the woods in freezing weather to look for deer that are so smart that they can smell a person at 200 yards. I am a man of habit. I have got to have something on my stomach before I hit the woods. So I would stop at the Big Bass store on the way out highway 14 to get me a honey bun and a cup of hot coffee. There is nothing as good as a hot cup of coffee on a frosty morn before you hit the coldness of the hunting woods where most likely you will think that you will freeze half to death up a tree. Leroy Jones was owner of this establishment and was a friend of mine. In fact he loaned me his four wheel drive truck so I could travel down a muddy road to retrieve a deer I had killed at the Swamp. This particular morning when I was sitting in a ladder stand some 14 feet up I could see the swamp about 100 yards down the way. I was sitting there and looking hard for one of those ole swamp bucks when I noticed to my left and south toward the Alabama River that a fog bank was rolling steadily toward me and up the swamp. The sight was something to behold. The fog looked like something straight out of the Science Fiction TV channel as it crept closer and closer toward me. There was not a sound as this mass of fog was coming right toward me. A strange sight it was! Eventually the fog engulfed me on its way northward and up the swamp. I am sure that a 10 point buck came within a few feet of me and I could not see one thing. Was this a planned action by the creatures of the wild to keep hunters from detecting their escape? My mind is still foggy as to whether or not that was the case.

I COULDN’T HEAR A THING FOR THE NOISE
Now I have still got my hearing. One smart friend asked me if I saw that fly a hundred yards away. I told him no but I could hear its wings a-flapping. This particular morning I was up in the stand just before dawn. I did hear the breaking of dawn that day. I had often wondered what it sounded like but no one had ever been able to describe it to me. When deer hunting I watch for every movement whether it is a bird or a squirrel. I also listen to the various sounds as creatures of the bottom on the forest are moving about. One morning along side Double Branch in Crenshaw County I mistook the sound, thinking it was a deer and low and behold it was an Armadillo. Say, do you know what an Armadillo is? It is a possum on the half shell. Well, anyway, that creature almost got a 308 caliber 150 grain bullet a-headed its way. When you hunt near Bear Creek Swamp you are going to hear some more noise in the early morning time. For about 10 minutes I could not have heard a deer walking near me for the noise of the ducks quacking on the water, the birds of every variety chirping their songs, the turkeys talking in the trees and the squirrels barking and a-running around on the dry leaves. I heard about this ole timer saying that the first thing that you will hear when it gets light in the morning will be the fowl kingdom and that I believe. But then I thought to myself. My, I could not have heard such beautiful noise in downtown Prattville that early in the morning. You had to be out in God’s nature to be blessed to hear such beautiful music!!

MR. BLUE BIRD ON MY SHOULDER
Only the older folk will recognize that statement coming from a song in the movie ‘SONG OF THE SOUTH’. One morning I had sat in a stand for a long time along side the Swamp but I had not seen any action so I decided to walk further up the ridge to an area that was just beautiful. Lo, and behold, someone had placed a stand a-way up a tree near to where the clouds are found. But I did accept the challenge and I got up in that stand a long way from the earth beneath. I should have gone home instead since I had been in the woods for most of the morning. There I sat a-swaying with the breeze then suddenly A Gold Finch came flying by and began feeding around the briars about 40 feet from me. Then there came two Blue Birds that began flitting around the same bunch of briars. You might not believe me but a few minutes later here came a Cardinal and his Red Bird mate. I couldn’t believe that I was looking at yellow, blue and red birds. I watched those birds for several minutes and if my blood pressure had been high that morning I know it fell way down. A peace came over me with such calm. I was being entertained with God’s creatures and had I not been up half way to the moon, I could have fallen asleep. It was so quiet and I was so relaxed, that is, until I heard a ‘crack’ behind me and then I turned around and there stood a buck. Let me put it this way, I disturbed Walt Disney’s World of the Bird Kingdom when I squeezed the trigger of that slug shooting shotgun. That was the end of my bird watching for the day.

FOR THE MUSIC LOVERS
Do you really know what you would get if you drop a piano down a mine shaft? Why that is easy. You would get an A flat minor.

**Photograph courtesy of B. Raymond Elliott**

Bear Creek Swamp Tales #2

FILLING AN ORDER & KEEPING A PROMISE
That year had been a good one for me while hunting along side the Swamp. I had been able to harvest several during the season. In fact, from the same ladder stand that my friend David Hardy had built I killed a 5-point buck on a Monday morning and then I shot another one on Wednesday morning. I made the decision that I was not going to shoot another 5-point buck but wait until I could get a shot at one of those ‘swamp monsters’ that I heard some hunters talk about.

One afternoon I decided to go hunting at the Swamp the next morning. I called my good friend Chuck Frederick and while we were talking I asked him if he and Debbie had any venison. He replied that they did not and that they would really like to have some so I told him I would get him some the next morning. Now that might sound like a braggart but I assured him that my luck had really been good that year and that I would try my best to keep my word. Well, there I sat the next morning along side a trail not very far from the Swamp. In time I heard a faint grunt in the distance and down the ridge to my left. I just knew that a humongous buck was on his way to my stand.

It was but a short time that here came a nervous acting doe moving hurriedly along the well worn trail. She must have caught my movement because she stopped and looked right up at me but she did not seem alarmed, and so she moved on and soon was out of sight. I kept hearing the grunting and the sound became louder. I readied my slug shooting shotgun and was ready for the beast that would probably require a wench on the front of caterpillar to drag its dead carcass up the ridge for a dump truck to carry it to have it process. I waited impatiently with my heart beating a bit faster than normal for that 12-point buck to make its appearance. All of a sudden I saw movement and I raised my gun and then I saw it – another 5-point buck.

My feelings fell downward in a moment of time. Talk about being disappointed, I was. I simply put the crosshairs just behind its front shoulder and said to myself “bang you’re dead”. I then lowered the gun and all of a sudden I remembered what I had promised the night before and I said to myself (lone deer hunters have a habit on talking to oneself), “Chuck wants you”. And with that I sent a 20-gauge slug toward that poor thing and he did go very far until he fell dead as a door nail (I use that phrase because I thought it emphasized how dead a deer can be). I then went up to the Twin Valley Farm to call for someone to help me drag the critter up the ridge.

I went in this beautiful barn and ask the gentleman if I could use a telephone. He said I could and he led me down to the office that was in the barn and when I went in the office I thought I had, in some way, been transferred in some miraculous manner to a lawyer’s office in downtown Manhattan . Now I have been in many a barn in my young life and especially at Uncle Sam’s farm on Sand Mountain but I guarantee you I had never seen a barn like this one. I have played in the loft; hid in a box under the oats; stepped in cow manure and even tried to fly like Superman from the loft but I had never seen an office in any kind of a barn. Period. Anyway, I called my good friend Gurvis Lawson to come over and help me with the deer. I also asked him to call Chuck to meet us at his house on Highway 82 in the Booth Community in order for him to pick up his deer that he had ordered.

My friend Gurvis has helped me over the years to drag unfortunate deer that walked in the line of fire when I would be shooting occasionally in the woods. One morning he said in a dead-pan manner, “Raymond, do you realize that you always kill deer down hill?” I assured him that his assumption was not correct but that I always shot them on high ground and that they simply ran down the ridge or into a deep hollow to die. When we returned to Gurvis’ house Chuck was waiting on his deer. Now that brings on another story.

FROM CUSSING TO CONVERSION???
Well there we stood, the three of us. We did look like a motley group. I had my hunting camouflage on; Gurvis and Chuck had work clothes on. Chuck looked like a Swedish night club bouncer because of his size and blonde hair and me and Gurvis, well, we looked like Gurvis and Raymond. Enough said. Suddenly a pickup truck pulled into the yard and off of Highway 82.

The moment the man got out of the truck, he started cussing and a-swearing. Looking at the three of us he must have thought that he was in good (bad) company. He was talking about the deer and instead of blessing he was a-cussing. I said, “Fellow, I know we must look like a rough group but I am a preacher and this here big fellow is a deacon and this other man is Christian” and would you know with that said, a conversion took place in a twinkling of an eye. He began to back track and declared that he too was a Christian. He did not tarry long and in a short time he was in his truck on his way. We all looked at one another and wondered who in the world the stranger was who stopped for a short visit for a cussing spell and left converted (?).

In the defense of the three of us I can say that we usually don’t draw such a crowd. To this day I don’t know if it was our untidy appearance or what I said made that man go on his way rejoicing – that he could leave such a strange bunch of deer hunters that did not cuss.

A FAITHFUL BIRD DOG
This story has nothing to do with Bear Creek Swamp but I am moved (for whatever reason) to tell you about this fellow who had a bird dog that was always, without failing, faithful in keeping his stance when he pointed a bird. This particular time the dog got so far ahead of the hunter and pointed a bird but the problem was the hunter failed to find the dog. After hours of looking for his favorite and faithful bird dog and failing to find him, the hunter went home. Now don’t ask me for the validity of this here story but it goes something like this. The following year the hunter and friends were bird hunting in the same area as the year before when they came upon the skeleton remains of his favorite bird dog that he never found the year before. The story is that the dog was still in a pointing stance. Now that is what I call dependable and faithful bird dog!! What say you?

Bear Creek Swamp #1

My family and I moved to Prattville , Alabama the first of February, 1983 from Opp where I had served the church of Christ as its preacher for twelve years. My reputation as a hunter had preceded me. So my soon to be good friend David Hardy of Autaugaville invited me to go hunting with him on the Pearson property along side Bear Creek Swamp. David had been employed by James and Rufus Pearson who were owners of the Crystal Lake Manufacturing Company for many years and he had the privilege to hunt on their properties. In fact he was the official guide for the business’ clientele when they would go hunting on the hundreds of acres own by these brothers. David could take me hunting with him as his guest. In the spring of that year he asked me to go turkey hunting with him and this was my first time to hunt in the Bear Creek Swamp area. He killed a turkey and I enjoyed the scenery.

Bear Creek Swamp is located in Autauga County, Alabama approximately seven miles west of the city of Prattville. It begins south of U.S. Highway 82 and it is fed by several branches that flow from the bottom of the various ridges in the area. It crosses Highway 14 and eventually empties into the Alabama River. There are many stores that have been told and written about people seeing ghosts in this swamp. There were times when I was alone up a tree when darkness fell and the owls were hooting, that I thought I heard and saw some things that were enough to startle a grown man with a slug shooting shotgun in his hand. If someone would have said ‘boo’ I probably would have gone back up the tree without the aid of a tree climber. But my stories are not about ghosts and goblins but about elusive deer and gobblers.

While I had hunted in swampy areas in years past, I had never hunted in a genuine swamp before my experiences in Bear Creek. The area of the Pearson’s property I hunted on for several years was at the end of the road that went by the Twin Valley Farm on County Road 41. Back then there were only a few houses on the part of the dirt road that led to the Pearson property. There were trees that were so large the limbs would almost touch as they made a canopy as we drove near to the gate that we had to enter in order to get on the property.

There were two pieces of advice that David gave me about hunting near the swamp. First of all he said that there were plenty of rattlesnakes that lived in the area. He related how that he had actually stepped on one and while standing on the snake he shot it in the head with his shotgun. He also warned about getting caught after dark in the swamp. He told the story of an area experienced hunter who had killed a deer and had gone into the swamp to retrieve it and day became night and he had difficulty finding his way out of the swamp. While hunting with David one day I heard a motor boat that sounded very near and I could not imagine how that could be until he informed that we were not far from the Alabama River.

The first time I went deer hunting with my friend David I returned to his vehicle at late evening as darkness had fallen. I began unloading my gun and then it was at that time I found out coyotes were in abundance in Autauga County . A pack of those critters began to howl in a hollow not far from I was standing. I guarantee you that sound caught my attention. Would you believe I re-loaded my shotgun with childish thoughts that those wild animals might be considering me as their next meal?

I eventually was given a written permit to hunt on the land by myself. I remember the first morning I drove to the lower end of the swamp that I saw what looked like a city filled with lights. I couldn’t imagine any town out that way and across the river that would be so ‘lit up’. When I left later that day I looked across the Alabama River and in the distance I discovered that I had been looking at the GE plant in Lowndes County . I should also mention that you could only use shotguns while hunting on the property owned by James Pearson. I put a scope on my Remington 1100 12 gauge and tried my best to make that gun accurate but I never did. I was just thankful that the slug would hit somewhere on the body of the deer when I shot at the poor creature. I finally bought a used Remington 870 20 gauge with a slug barrel and put a scope on it and it performed some better. I did killed several deer with the gun over the years.

I remember well the first deer I killed in the swamp area. I walked northward and would stop, listen and look very carefully before proceeding. I found a tree that had fallen and I got up on it and waited a long time hoping that I would see some deer. Eventually a small buck came right toward me and I was able to harvest it. The only problem was that I was so far removed from my truck that there was no way that I could drag the deer back to it. So I had to drive some distance to find a telephone to call my good friend James Watkins who was the preacher for the Landmark church in east Montgomery.

The calls I made to him during deer seasons over the years went something like this: “Hello James, could you do some personal work today and make a visit? He would reply: “Of course I can. Where are you?” I would then say, “I am here in the Bear Creek Swamp .” In a gleeful voice he would reply, “I’ll be out there in a few minutes.” You see he would always carry his camouflage coveralls with him to work so he could slip them over his dress clothes. When he was away hunting deer the church secretary would always tell callers that he was ‘painting his house’. Of course the truth was well known by the church members.

**Photograph courtesy of B. Raymond Elliott**

These two pictures are the last I suppose that I will post of the fall colors since the wind and the rain will get most of the leaves off the trees.

Bear Creek Swamp is a well known area in the history of Autauga County. Many ghost stories have orginated from the Swamp. It is located on the west side of Autauga Ridge as you travel from Prattville to Autaugaville on Highway 14. County Rd #3 is a dirt road that runs from H'way 82 to H'way 14 and along side Bear Creek Swamp.

**Photographs courtesy of B. Raymond Elliot**

These two snapshots were taken in Bear Creek Swamp last Friday while we were having some rain in the area. The following is what I wrote to the children.

"I made this picture on Friday of last week while we were having some rain in the area. I thought for a moment that I saw something (like Big Foot) moving when I took the picture. If you look closely you will note that it had just gotten out of the scope and range of my camera. Or, perhaps it was just the moving of the leaves when a breeze blew softly through the bushes. Being part Cherokee I tracked what I thought was something that I might not have seen for some 5 miles but found nothing. So goes the effort of a luckless part-time photographer of wild life and the wilderness as found along side the mighty Alabama River located between Prattville and Autaugaville."
BRE (Bear Run Elliott)
Would you say 'nonesense'?

**Photographs courtesy of B. Raymond Elliott**