Hunting Deer

Shawnee State Forest

© by Abraham Lincoln

I used to be a pretty good shot with a bow and arrow. I bought a new bow in Greenville and this gently recurved bow sent many an arrow into the bullseye on targets. I didn’t go for the much-hyped “Bear”archery branded bows but I did buy a new “Root”bow and it was my choice when I hunted deer. I am proud to say that my arrows never killed anything but just getting ready was part of my life experience — going to the forest and finding deer and their trails and leaving without being detected.

Long before I had any hope of killing a deer with my bow and arrow I spent lots of Saturday mornings driving to Shawnee State Forest looking for deer and was finally successful in finding the saddle where a small herd crossed over each morning. My idea was to be there on that ridge when the deer came up and crossed over to the other side. I did it because of visions in my head of killing a deer that would be fresh meat for the family.

Once I had learned where I had to be to be able to shoot at a deer, I would leave home very early in the morning and arrive at the forest, park my car, and be on the ridge, waiting on deer by 5:00 AM. If it happened to be raining that was so much better as it is a lot easier to move through a wet woods without making any sounds than it is when it has been dry for a spell.

I had visions of a deer tied on my car before I left that day. It was those visions that kept me going to Shawnee State Forest to hunt deer. I always imagined myself coming back home, in Gordon, Ohio with a deer strapped on the car. I wondered what the people back home would say? Seeing me with a smile on my face, coming back into town; my car loaded with fresh meat — and a new skin to work into leather.

Life was different getting ready for the hunt — no sex, no smoking and no perfumes. Instead, I wore apple-stained clothes; and had no sex and quit smoking for a week before the hunt. None of this is made-up by me to tell here; it was old-timer's advice from long ago.

Smearing rotten apples on your clothes and abstaining from sex and smoking is what you learned to do if you didn’t want the deer to smell you in the woods. Deer are also attracted to the smell of rotten apples on the ground and that smell will attract them to the tree where they can eat apples. So smearing yourself with apples was a smart thing to do.

I notched the arrow that would do the deed and drew the string and left it go. But, just the sound of that arrow as it slid over the wood spooked my deer. It jumped up and came down and was gone without a trace and without a sound. I stood there in defeated silence and heard the birds start singing again. I smelled like rotten apples all the way back home.