"Trick or Treat"

There's a small hilltop located in Clear Creek wma I call Chris's hill. We began hunting there four years ago and it has never disappointed us. During archery season I managed to resist every temptation to hunt the hill, wanting to leave it undisturbed for Chris on opening day. Saturday was opening day.



I saw Chris safely settled into his climbing tree stand an hour before the first break of daylight before leaving to climb a tree on the next hill over. It was darker than sin and I became a little disoriented to where I was, while trying to cross through a dense thicket to reach the other hill. I did manage however, to keep Chris's location fixed in my mind with every twist and turn. Crossing the thicket with a large stand on my back wasn't easy, to say the least. The thing managed to grab a hold of every vine and limb attempting to block my blind passage. And it created a lot of unwelcomed noise in the process and disrupted the peaceful harmony of the quite woods. So it came as no surprise to me when a flashlight urgently flashed from the direction of my son and my half deafened ears heard a jumble of broken word-like sounds issue forthwith, from the darkness. My broken ears couldn't decipher their meaning, but I could reasonably guess what they were saying so I responded.



"Oh, hush up. I'm doing the best I can," I said in, and he did.



I finally made it to the top of the second hill, chose a tree and began climbing. The new dawn was minutes away from awakening when I finally managed to settle in my seat.



The sun was begining to break over the far horizon and slowly rising into the gorgeous clear-blue sky. It was really quite a sight to behold. A sense of well being overcame me and put me at ease to properly enjoy God's gift of the great outdoors. But I knew the sun would be bright and blinding if I continued to sit facing east. So I stood up on the stand's bottom platform, faced the trunk of the pine tree, grabbed the upper portion of the stand and inched my way around intending to face westward.

Once confident the problem presented by the blinding sun was fixed, I turned my body to face away from the trunk and to sit down to continue enjoying the morning's hunt. And my eyes saw something out of place . . . and sort of odd looking. It took a few seconds for my shocked brain to decipher what they were focused on.



If you can believe it, I was looking at an indian teepee or tee-pee or, whatever! And it was painted camoflauge with a hunter orange tarp covering the top and only a very short fory yards away. And if that wasn't enough of a jolting shock for me, there was a hunter sitting inside with his head stuck outside of an uncovered window, gazing upward and his line of sight drilling into mine!



Needless to say, I was so embarrassed, especially when I realized it was he and not my son Chris, shining the flashlight and saying something to me earlier, in the darkness. And to think I told him to "Hush up," too.

"Oh boy, I'm in trouble!" I thought to myself.



I had the clear advantage of height on him, as far as deer hunting was concerned. Sitting in my perch far above ground exposed the entire hilltop to my searching eyes. Any deer which made the mistake of exposing itself in the clearing would be quickly put to rest before the other hunter knew what was going on. But you know I couldn't do that and I couldn't climb down during "prime time either. I would frighten all of the game away." There was no easy way out and it took me a few minutes to find it.

I attached my rifle to the pull-rope and gently lowered it to the ground and pantomined to the fellow hunter to keep his eyes on me. I would alert him to any approaching deer ahead of time, so he could prepare himself to shoot.



I remained sitting and observing during the next three and a half hours before getting down to apologize. I was happy to make a new friend named John Boudreaux of Sulphur, La. No deer showed itself that morning, but I believe we both ended up having a good time.

p.s. I found a different place to hunt for the remainder of the weekend.



John, if you read this, thanks again for being so gracious by accepting my most humble apologies!

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