Mossy Oak Cake

Reflections from deer camp

Time spent in the outdoors with family and good friends is special but sometimes it’s good to get out in the woods alone where the only distraction is the cawing of crows, hooting of owls and the most wild sound of all, the serenade of a pack of coyotes assembling for an evening hunt. 

I’ll never forget my first real deer hunt when I was 11. My brother in law invited me to join him and a veteran deer hunter in Red River County in northeast Texas, not far from our home. Earlier that day, we went to a camp that was set up by a group of ‘sure nuff’ deer hunters. It was in the early sixties and I’m sure many of these guys were WWII veterans. They had a couple of big Army surplus wall tents set up and, on the meatpole, hung three whitetail bucks.

This was my first time to be ‘in camp’ and even though the event took place over 40 years ago, I will never forget the excitement I felt looking at those big racked bucks. This was the decisive moment when I became a lifelong deer hunter. Early the next morning, I sat on the limb of a big pine tree with my .410 shotgun loaded with a rifled slug. I was finally deer hunting! After three hours of watching wood peckers and squirrels, I was picked up by my brother-in-law and his friend. There were precious few whitetail deer in east Texas in those years and it took a good hunter to harvest one.

“Just around this bend," the veteran deer hunter said, “I’ve been watching three does and a little forkhorn for several days.”

Sure enough, as the ’56 Crown Victoria Ford sedan rounded the bend in the logging road, we spotted deer, just where he said they would be. I WAS impressed.

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