An Outdoorsman's Journal

The Love of the Hunt

Hello friends,

   This week and last, I write to you about my annual deer and hog hunt in the Delta National Forest in west central Mississippi. Each January I meet with my brother Tom Walters who is from Denham Springs, Louisiana for this adventure. To be honest we do not harvest much, but we try hard, go on big daily adventures that start at 5:00 am and we always have high hopes.

   Wednesday, January 6th
   High 65, low 46

   This week I will try to describe how we hunt, how most Mississippian’s in this neck of the woods hunt and how much I love it here. Yesterday I missed a beautiful buck. They have to have an 18-inch main beam or a 15-inch inside spread. This buck had the main beam, and my blame goes to dense brush but oo well, like I taught Selina since she was a baby, when you miss a good fish with the net, an easy shot at a greenhead, or a good buck that critter gets to live another day.
   Tom and Mark's Day! Both of us are awake by 4:30 and up no later than 5:00. In most cases we are going separate ways from camp. I would use my truck, drive a couple of miles, unload my atv, drive about 2 miles, which is really enjoyable as it is warm, dark out and I always have high hopes. I park my atv and then hike in and in a lot of cases I use OnX to find my stand.
   I use climbing sticks and a portable stand which you can legally leave in the tree here. Tom uses a climbing tree stand but this morning after doing some exploring yesterday Tom was going to sit on the ground to start his day. This morning legal shooting started at 6:40, at that same time, Tom had a shooter buck appear literally 15-feet directly in front of him and it was unaware of Tom's presence. As Tom was attempting to turn around, aim his rifle and harvest a dandy, the buck saw him, snorted and said goodbye in a hurry.
   Those two experiences would be our only two chances at shooters over 7 days of hunting.
   We both explore after our morning hunt, come back to camp, eat something, take a snooze, do our afternoon hunt. The evenings, which seem like April in Wisconsin are spent cooking our best meal of the day, and in typical Walters fashion, staying up rather late, which this week was averaging about 1:00 am.
   Here is our very real conundrum. Delta National Forest is 63,000 acres of hardwood forest and swamp and it is hunted by what I would consider hunter for hunter the best I have ever seen. In Mississippi the deer and hogs start getting pressured pretty hard in early October and it goes until the end of January. Hunting with dogs and horses is legal and I support these sports with great enthusiasm.
   Today I watched a group of horse/dog hunters saddle up and start their journey through the forest near our camp and later one of their group came to camp and I was honored to have a long talk with a man who several times told me of his love for horses and dogs. In the end this group harvested 2 hogs, several squirrels, which are highly respected in the south, and no deer.
   Several times this week I spoke with hunters that use dogs and let me tell you there is nothing easy about this sport. You have to be highly technological, accept that at times your hounds might get beat up by a wild boar and most of all be able to travel large chunks of forest and swamp while pursuing your hounds.
   Generally the head honcho follows the hounds, which tell all hunters where they are and with their vast knowledge of the lay of the land, other hunters cover up to a couple of square miles as they pick the spots that the deer and hogs might travel. FYI, the deer and hogs are not running for their life, they simply stay ahead of the hounds, I witnessed this last year and often the mature bucks hide while the hounds stay on the one deer whose scent they are on.
   For the Tom and Mark hunt, we are learning that seeing whitetail deer and hogs while sitting in a tree in the early morning or late afternoon it is a challenge, simply because they are pushed so often that they become nocturnal.
   So what do we do is a very good question. For me I would like to stay here or if Tom can find a better place move to it, but for me to travel 2000 miles round trip, I have to like the camping as that is just as important as the hunt.
   One year ago while I was here a storm came up, a tree fell on my truck and did $19.000 worth of damage and I drove home with a lot of smashed up stuff as in windows, cab etc.. When I arrived home and was shutting the lights off, I discovered that my golden retriever Ruby had what turned out to be breast cancer. Ruby passed away, the truck was repaired and the sun still comes up in the morning.
   Life is all about making the most of the present situation and Tom and I did that on this hunt!

   Sunset