‘Keep Your Powder Dry' Or, It Is So Sad To See a Grown Man Cry
Now I have this here friend who is one of the best deer hunters and is one more marksman. He shoots skeet and has won several contests and probably a couple of million dollars, more or less, in shooting clay pigeons. He owns a 50 caliber black powder rifle that is an accurate shooting gun. Why, even I shot the thing at a target one hundred yards away and nearly hit in the center of the bulls eye. That surprised my friend and me. A few years ago he killed a buck 140 yards removed from where he was standing on an icy winter morning. He even borrowed a range finder from the company where his lovely wife works to find out the exact distance of that excellent shot that brought the deer down. He has killed his share of deer over many years and has the antlers and mounts to prove it. I just wanted to relate all these facts to you to let you know that I am not talking about a novice in this deer hunting story.

I don’t think it wise for me to tell you the name of my friend that I am talking about in this here tale; but, I will say that his sweet wife’s name is the same as the sister of Mary who is mentioned in the gospel of Luke, chapter 10. The company she works for really has a lot of power behind it.

Well, anyway, this friend of mine was in this here shooting house that was located amongst the pines and shooting lanes wherein there was all this green grass for deer to feast upon when here came a nice 8 point buck a-chasing a cute doe. They would run in and out of the pines a-frolicking and my hardy (strong, healthy, brave?) friend decided that he would just shoot that nice buck the next time he came running out in the open. He began to turn to look at the exact spot where he was going to shoot the poor thing when all of a sudden he saw what looked like an elk right here in Autauga County . Why my friend declares that buck was the largest deer he had ever seen in his life and he has seen a-plenty. He said that he could count at least 6 points on one side of the moose’s rack that protruded out for maybe 3 feet from its head. I am telling you this fellow don’t lie. Now he does get excited sometimes and has a tendency to embellish matters somewhat (I like that word embellish, don’t you?).

Just to show you what a compassionate man my friend is, he even permitted the deer to eat his last supper (do you sense a tinge of religion just here?). Why he would not shoot the creature until he raised his head up from eating the green grass of home (I feel a song coming on). He waited twice on that deer to eat its last morsel of grass. The way he tells it you will have tears swelling up in your eyes when you understand his compassion for God’s creatures. Well, he put the cross hairs right behind the humongous buck’s shoulder and squeezed (now this hunter does not pull) the trigger and smoke from his black powder gun blinded his vision.

When the smoke cleared all he saw was that twelve plus point buck a-high tailing it for the pines. My friend said the deer was standing only 50 yards away and that there was no way he could have missed that deer that close. He got down out of the shooting house and began to look for blood, hair or anything that might tell him he had shot that deer in the boiler room (that is an expression deer hunters use meaning the lung/heart area of the deer). But the more he looked and didn’t find any blood the sicker he got. I don’t remember but he said that he got his son-in-law and maybe the Autaugaville Rescue Squad to help him look for his lost deer but to no avail. Now how could this professional hunter who is a marksman miss a deer that maybe (now I say maybe) weighed between 200 – 400 pounds and standing still only fifty yards away? Now that is a mystery.

My friend later realized that when he fired his trusty gun that it did not kick him as hard as usual and that it did not sound as loud as it usually did in times past; so, here is his theory as to why he missed this trophy deer. He explained to me that he had loaded his black powder gun a year ago for deer season and had not fired it. He said that he had the gun in damp, wet weather last year and this year. His theory is that the powder in his gun had gotten wet and when he fired the gun and the powder being damp, the projectile left his gun at a slower speed and did not therefore have enough gitty up and go to reach its target. Now I buy that theory because my friend is as honest as the day is long (according to Daylight Central Standard Time). I just wish I could have been up a nearby tree and watched that ball roll out the end of the barrel and hit the ground about five feet from the shooting house.

When you see him now, he has a blank expression on his face and a stare in his eyes. All that he can see is that gigantic buck bouncing off into the woods. He doesn’t count sheep any more at night but all he sees are these unbelievable large deer jumping over a fence. The last time I talked to my friend he was still ‘sick as a dog’. Now all you nice people need to do as the good book says and that is, “to weep with those that weep.”

A Man For All Seasons
This story will make you proud that you live in our great state. You will also be able to recognize the quality of education our children are receiving in our schools. Why it will make you proud that our children recognize what is really important and that they are not being influenced by the liberal educators. It is said that a teacher of a third grade class in one of southwestern counties in this great state was giving a comprehensive test to her students. Question number eleven asked the students to list the four seasons of the year in order. Now here is the real kicker. Sixty-seven (67%) answered: 1. DOVE SEASON. 2. DEER SEASON. 3. DUCK SEASON. 4. TURKEY SEASON. Ain’t that just wonderful? It is enough to make grown men (especially us real men who are hunters) cry to know how smart these children are. It’s about time we got back to the real basics of education in our schools.

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”.

Giving a Fallen Deer a Name

It was back in the 1970s when living in Opp that I finally killed my first big deer with respectable antlers. I decided immediately that I would have a shoulder/head mount of it. Sometime later brother Cleon Lyles from the state of Arkansas was with the Opp church in a gospel meeting. One day while visiting in our home he saw the shoulder mount and he called the deer 'Henry'. Why he decided to call the deer 'Henry' is a mystery to me. But from that time on I have called the deer 'Henry' when visitors in our home see the shoulder/head mount of the deer.

The latest deer I killed this season was a nice 10 point buck. On this blog you can see me holding the antlers while the body of the deer rested on the bed of a small 4 wheel vehicle. The question that I had to deal with was what should I call this deer? I searched my mind for the answer. I considered the movements of the planets. I read the horoscopes. I considered calling the Smithsonian Institute. Perhaps the Pope would not be too busy to help me with this decision. Maybe the president could send money to have research done in dealing with such a decision of great magnitude. Then all of suddenly I found the answer. It was there all the time. At first I had not seen it. Was it providential or was it mere coincidental? Was it a sign from my Cherokee ancestry that gave me the answer to my question, 'What shall I name this deer'? The name appeared before my very eyes. I could not believe how plain the answer was. Beneath the deer you also can see the revelation I received. I shall call the deer 'JOHN'. In fact, this deer came with its own name plate written on the side of the vehicle. I am overwhelmed. I am utterly amazed. The Force must surely be with me.

Two Times Five Equals Ten!

With the new law in place regarding the number of buck deer you can harvest in the State of Alabama I must say that I did not do so badly this past season which ended the last day of January. On the first day of the season a friend of mine in Luverne, Alabama invited me to go hunting with him and other friends. He placed me in a shooting house at the end of a green field surrounded by thick woods and a swamp. Incidentally, this area is actually located near to the land that I used to hunt on for wild turkeys back in the 1970s when the family and I lived in Opp.

Late on that Saturday afternoon a young buck came under the shooting house and onto the field feeding on that delicious rye grass. It was not long until another young buck came out and they got acquainted and played together while enjoying their feast. It was just before I couldn’t see my crosshairs that a larger buck came out of the woods and began feeding on the grass. I saw immediately that its antlers were much larger so I made a quick decision to shoot him and this I did. It turned out to be a nice 5 point buck. So I started the season out feeling real good. I did feel uncomfortable (for about 30 seconds) that I was the only hunter to shoot a buck in a group of five men, especially since I was the invited guest.

The rest of the season proved unfruitful until the last week when another friend (and I mean a real friend) invited me to hunt on a choice piece of property east of the town of Luverne . It was a cold and windy Thursday morning when I got into the metal ladder stand. I can stand cold weather. I can stand cold wet weather but when you throw in the element of a 5-10 mile an hour wind, I suffer greatly.

I did not see a thing for the longest and finally when I got enough of the cold blast from Alaska , I got down out of the ladder stand and began walking slowing into the wind and up a small road. It was then that I began to jump does (as in deer). Along this road I found several active scrapes. I knew then I was in a promising area on the property. I moved off the road and down into a beautiful hollow. I caught movement of a buck moving slowly up the side of the hollow and I decided to take a shot at the deer when it stopped momentarily. The rifle I use is a Browning A-Bolt Medallion in a 308 caliber. It is an accurate shooting rifle.
{You can ask my good friend Roger Dill and he will verify the fact. A few years ago we were sighting in our rifles at about 100 yards. He has a Weatherby in a 270 caliber. He shot twice with both bullets hitting the same distance above the center of the target with one slightly off to the left. I then shot my rifle and we walked out to the target and much to our surprise my 30 caliber round went through his first round that was about 2 inches high above the bulls eye. My second shot clipped his round that was off to the left. I said to him, “Roger, you and I have been hanging around one another too much.” My third round hit the first hole that was above the bulls eye. The witnesses were Ray McGough, Roger Dill and me. I have that target in my possession today.}

So if I miss a deer it is definitely my fault and not my Browning rifle. I squeezed the trigger as my cross hairs centered the deer and the rest is history. This buck doubled the count of the first 5 point buck that I killed at the beginning of the season. Here are a couple pictures that show how nice this 10 point buck was. Not bad for an old preacher that is approaching his 74th birthday anniversary in the month of May.

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**