In the course of my quest to find the southern Skunk Ape this winter, I decided to take a few days off and detour away from my secret river island searches. In effect, I wanted to do some deer hunting with my oldest son, Bobby, and my very close friend, Gene. Funny things can happen to those of us that get too close to nature. I find it extremely humorous that the following tale should be somewhat reminiscent of those stories one reads about in the pages of Field & Stream or Outdoor Life magazines, entitled "This Happened To Me". Read on and see what happened to me!
The weather was rather cool and crisp that Wednesday morning, just after daylight, when I backed our big, 21 & 1/2-foot bay boat down the narrow boat ramp with Bobby riding at the helm. Gene was assisting me in backing the big rig as he stood beside the ramp making sure I didn't scrub a trailer tire against the concrete apron. Once the big boat was in the water, Bobby fired up the engine while I took the truck and trailer up into the parking space. I locked things up and walked down to the dock to get into the boat as Bobby kept the bow pushed against the wooden dock. Ice on the boat dock and on the huge forward platform in the boat made stepping into the boat a careful chore.
We all bundled ourselves into various stages of quilted jumpsuits and jackets, along with face masks, gloves, and hooded head gear for the freezing one mile ride up the river to our chosen landing site. Thankfully, the cold river ride was over in about two minutes given the power and speed of that 135-HP Johnson ETech outboard engine! Gene grabbed the front anchor as Bobby ran the bow of the craft against the shoreline and I braced myself for a sharp bumping stop. Once the anchor was deployed around a handy bush ashore, everyone but me disembarked with all their backpacks, rifles, and tree stands.
The plan was for me to wait about 30-minutes, allowing both of them to get set up in their lofty perches, before I quietly sneaked into the area. It was going to be my job to rattle and call in a mature buck whitetail deer for one of them to shoot. Those of you out there that have hunted in this style might agree with me that it can be about the most exciting method invented to hunt the whitetail deer. So, I sat there freezing to pieces for some of the longest 30-minutes I have had in recent memories. Finally, around 8:00 a.m., I stepped out of the boat, shouldered my backpack, rifle, and grabbed the buck deer immitation antlers that I would use to hopefully entice a big buck into position to be harvested. Carefully walking the 100-yards into the woods straight away from the boat, I reached the old logging road and turned left headed into my chosen deer stand area.
The specific area that I had chosen the day before when Bobby and I had laid out this battle plan was secreted amid a thick strand of trees and brush. Essentially, I would be surrounded on all sides by a mixture of large and small plants that, upon close inspection, revealed a bedding area recently used by some deer. Evidence was found in the form of deer droppings and hair samples discovered by carefully searching the pressed down grassy area in the middle of the palmetto bushes. These same protective strands of palmetto bushes also make good bedding areas for the Skunk Ape, too, when they choose to sleep on the ground.
Before I noiselessly sat down with my back against a big pine tree, I stuffed a camouflaged cushion behind me and removed my bulky jacket to place it under my bottom on top of the ground. Then, I sat the backpack down beside me and extracted several "cover scent" wafers of pine and earth formula out of it as well as some selected "Special Golden Esterus" doe in heat attractant solutions. I glanced at my pocket watch and saw that it was 8:15 a.m., which meant I must get busy setting out the scent wafers and solutions.
Taking great pains to be especially soundless as humanly possible, I slipped around the immediate locations building a 50-yard ring of scent cover and attractant solutions that was hung on the various tree limbs at chest level. This would be good practice for future operations when I would use the same techniques to hang P-Chips out in areas to attract the Skunk Apes! The wind was almost non-existent now, but I knew from years of experience that it would begin blowing later on and that could become a major factor to warn any approaching deer of my presence.
With the business of placing out all the scent cover wafers (prepared by placing them on hunter orange clips so you don't lose them later on) and attractant solutions (the bottled scent attractants were dipped in cotton-ball wicks) completed, I settled back against the big pine tree, next to the huge palmetto bush, and began to gather my "musical instruments" that would allow me to play a tune I hoped would create a symphony of delight to the ears and acute senses of that big, old buck whitetail that we knew frequented this area. In fact, Bobby had a close brush with this buck the day before when I had used the "rattle and call" formula on another stand location that was closer to the river.
Basically, our plan was simple. Gene and Bobby were jacked up pine trees at opposing ends near me, about 150-yards away, overlooking travel routes that came out of the deer's bedding areas. These bedding locations was in a direct line going into a pond that we discovered they liked to use for watering purposes. And, surrounding the pond was an acorn flat littered with freshly fallen mast crops scattered on the forest floor. How could we miss? With everything at the ready, I placed a chew of mint-flavored gum into my mouth, doused myself one more time with some oak scented cover spray, and picked up the rattling horns. I put the grunt call, that was affixed to a lanyard, over my neck so it hung down against my chest. Lastly, I positioned my rifle close against the pine tree within easy reach and extracted my 9mm pistol and layed it in my lap (the pistol was insurance against Mr. Murphy making my rifle not fire)!
I opened my pocket watch and set it against a small bush where I could watch the time. It was now 8:30 a.m., and time for me to play some tunes. Now please understand me when I say to you that when I play the part of a horny buck, defending his territory, and the charms of all his beloved does in heat, I really get into the part. There will be no doleful action here in my efforts to attract this "king of the swamp"! So, I led trump with a series of hostile sounding loud, short grunts from the call around my neck and began to furiously bang the antlers together. I immediately bent over against the adjoining palmetto bush and violently smashed the horns against the noisy fans (palmetto stems and leaves) numerous times.
One must make a horrid series of racket when immolating the vicious struggles of two bucks doing battle over the charms of a hot lady! This is not the music for a timid hunter to use in the act of calling in mature buck deer. Yet, the trick is not to over do the fight scene. You have to bang and crash the antlers together as one would envision two desperately embattled bucks would be doing. That means to the uninitiated readers, you don't see deer doing a long duration of touche' horn play. In fact, the battles are more push and shove with some antler crashing than anything else. Having actually observed these grand fight scenes among bucks, I tend to play it just like they do. About 15-20 seconds of horn rattling that turns into a minute of brush (palmetto) smashing tactics. After that, all is quiet for a minute or two, then resume the horn and brush beating. What really turns the bucks on is the use of that grunt call before, during, and after the fight displays.
On this particular morning Bobby assisted me while sitting in his tree stand. About every few minutes during a series of fight play, he would emit a long, loud "growl" with his grunt call. This growl is in actually a "tending buck call" telling all the other bucks around the area that this is his doe and his location - be warned! What happened next beat anything I have ever had happen to me in the woods associated with deer hunting (except to meet Bigfoot). A horny doe attacked me! What? Well, she would have attacked me. Anyway, it sure convinced me to go back to hunting Skunk Apes. Allow me to explain.
I was sitting there enjoying a pull of water from the bottle out of my backpack when I saw the movement of a deer out of my peripheral vision. It was coming in from the ridge above me among a thick strand of oak trees and headed towards my scent line in a big hurry. "Oh boy", I thought, "a buck have broken through the outer defense line of Bobby and is coming in to find out about all the noise". I eased the rifle into my hands and turned towards the approaching deer asking myself "how this deer could have eluded Bobby's watchful eyes". I carefully raised the little Remington Carbine to my shoulder and peered through the scope's lenses looking over the head of this deer rapidly closing the distance between us. "Darn, Darn - no horns", I said under my breath in disgust.
"Good Greedy Grady, this darn deer is not stopping", I said to myself as she closed to within 10-yards of me. Finally, the big doe halted and tilted her head to get a better look at me. Then, of all the things in nature, she stomped her right front foot twice while eying me with an open mouth! "That's it", I thought, "take one more step and I'm going to break your fool neck with a .308 bullet". "Okay, this is not funny anymore", I thought almost out loud. I have seen on film what a deer's front feet can do to a luckless hunter - they raise up on the hind legs and lash out at you with front feet and sharpened hooves that can cut you like a pair of overcharged windmills out of control. It was time for Reggie to get this deer's attention.
"Hey, B@#ch, I ain't your friggin' boyfriend, haul ass", I yelled out at the pesky doe looking over the scope at her. She gave me that "oh sh#@" look, whirled around, and sped off with great haste going towards the pond. "Thank you, Lord", I said out loud. Just to ease my hurt feelings, I yelled out at the departing doe - "and don't come back, you Hussy, I'm a married man". Now that made me feel a lot better right there, you know. "That figures", I muttered to myself, "I set up in the prince of all places and call in a horny doe...where's the buck"? I sat around for a few minutes, then got up and collected all my things into the backpack. With a silly smile on my face, I eased out of the area knowing I scared the hell out of any bucks for hundreds of yards around the area.
As I was leaving out of the area and walking back down the logging road towards the boat, this thought suddenly sprang into my mind and gave me a point to ponder: "What if that doe had been a horny Skunk Ape - I don't want to know? Quack!
