The Last Weekend

Noah left the woods Wednesday and returned to catch up on his hugs and kisses from his precious three daughters and wife, Krystal. I was a little envious. If you won't share this with anyone else, I'll admit to you that by this time, I was homesick and looking forward to do a little catching up myself. But, I knew if I returned home earlier than I said I would, I would suffer ridicule and embarrassment. Sure, Nancy would be happy to see me, the boys too, but they would kid and rib me for being too weak willed to stay the duration. I couldn't do it. I had to toughen up and stand my ground. I became determined to do what a man had to do. And I was glad I had reinforcements arriving later that night.

Loren, one of my old hunting buddies from Weastlake appeared around midnight with his camper and two strangers towing a second trailer. He almost seemed a little too gleeful to wake me from a sound sleep.

Troy was still awake when they arrived and I'm glad. He uncorked his bottle of energy and spent the next two hours pulling Loren and his new buddies out of of one mudhole after the other. They had managed to get stuck five times, trying to park their trailers.

The two new guys were Chad and Shannon. I must confess I was hesitant at first, to show them one of my favorite places to hunt, but after learning Chad had just began hunting at the young age of forty-one and had not yet harvested his first whitetail, I couldn't resist being involved in a special memory, in a positive way. And besides that, the two men impressed me as stand up guys, I felt I could trust. But just in case they both took an oath, not to reveal the place to their wives, family friends or anyone else that they feel may be inclined to climb my tree without me.

Loren took Shannon a different route to set him up in another one of our favorite areas. After leaving Shannon, Loren was to hike back to withinn four hundred yards of where Chad and I would be located. He ended up getting lost on the way.

Chad and I hiked and sloshed through the calf-deep, flooded timber, for the next one and a half miles. I set Chad up in the prime location and informed him to resist Loren's urges to place him elsewhere. Loren can be pretty persuasive at times and I was planning on leaving the area to hunt elsewhere, four people in these neck of the woods, were just one too many.

I climbed my tree to hunt and saw Loren. Lost and confused as to where he was in the woods, he had stopped wandering in the predawn darkness and climbed the nearest tree to make the most out of a bad situation. The only problem with his idea was he was so close to me, I could literally see him, pick his nose.

To make a long story short, we didn't see anything and the next morning, Loren succeeded in dislodging Chad from my favorite tree (remember, he was brand new at this stuff and had not yet harvested his first deer) and replaced him with the Lacassine big buck contest champion, Shannon. It's true, according to "No Primer Shannon", he had recently won a truckload of hunting gear in the contest by entering a small, short, forked horn, four-point buck earlier this year. What a hoot.

I never quite understood how "No Primer" Shannon who had already shot at and missed a hog on the first morning. The worst thing about the miss was this, if he would have brought along more than one primer for his blackpowder firearm, he would have (he assured me he wouldn't have missed the second time around, but who really knows) shot and killed one of the two fat does which suddenly appeared in front, minutes after the hog. The two deer hung around the area and camped out fifteen steps in front of him, for the next half hour or so. We gave him the pet nickname of "No Primer" after hearing of his misery.

Shannon snuck into my tree on the second morning and listened to the maddening choir of literally, thousands of frogs croaking in disjointed harmony. They were all around him. Given enough time, the frogs, I do believe, could drive anyone insane. They carry a tune as awfully as I do. Something toward the right moved and distracted No Primer's attention to the music. It was Noah's buck returning, the one I had intended for Chad. No primer, true to his word, seized the opportunity and didn't miss the second time. Now don't get the wrong impression here, I was and still am, very happy for No Primer. He had the presence of mind to harvest the buck. It's just kinda funny to me. I had advised Chad to remain in the tree and resist all of Loren's good will intentions to move him, as I knew he would. I can only guess, but Shannon must have been listening. No small wonder to me then, how he won the contest. Loren's motive in moving Chad was in good spirit and he really thought that he could pattern the deer after only one short hunt, without seeing it. It's nearly impossible. I on the other hand, after spending the last few days there, knew where and when the buck would reappear. Chad give me another chance and meet me again, next year, in the woods, we'll get it right.