.jpg)
He has a habit of shooting very quiet whitetails. More often than not, he is in the bow of my canoe, bow across his lap, in a slow drift, me keeping us mid-stream, lazily floating downstream where we ditched a pickup for the pick-up late this afternoon.
Later still if he gets one with all the processing required on sometimes, but not too often I assure you, warm fall afternoons.
We don’t hear many birds chirping, they’re mostly gone, sometimes some bugs about, that we can never properly identify, but no pesky mosquitoes, and every so often that high flying skein of fluting geese, going south and on this river, so are we, just very slowly.
He has been successful early morn, mid-day and my least favorite time of the watery day, just before sundown, which on the river happens fast. Then we’re working by flashlight, the coolness of the evening sets in mighty quick, and depending on how far we have yet to go, I paddle hard, to get to the truck’s heater.
It’s not at all like sitting in a deer stand, there’s the occasional mink, many times around a bend, the ducks hurtle themselves skyward, the ever changing forest, piney woods, leafless ash in a soggy wetland, meadowy swaying grassy mews. Floating at the same speed is a single big red yellow-orange maple leaf and to me, some of the best driftwood snags you could ever lay eyes on. I always find at least one I want to take home, but the lack of space if he gets his deer unfortunately does not allow during the calmness of the most peaceful way to hunt whitetail deer I know.
- The Trout Whisperer
