The Ozarks Deer Hunt - A Curious Rite Of Passage

From My Stand - Opening Morning - 2016 Deer Season

In the Ozarks, a young man's (or lady's) passage into acceptance as an equal, usually is the traditional firearms deer hunt. When you have spent your first morning, ALONE, in the dark woods, shivering (although you had more clothing insulation than a polar bear), and hearing noises that could only be the hoofsteps of a thirty-point buck or... BigFoot!; then you can stand with the rest of the grownups and recount your experience (whether deer blood was spilt or not).

The November Deer Hunt is the honeysuckle vine that grows in almost every Ozark Family Tree. When schools have to dismiss during deer season because so many kids are going deer hunting... It's serious! If you think about, Is the November Ozark greeting a "Hello!" or "Howdy!" or even "How's it Goin'?" Nope... It is the time honored "Git chee a deer?"

Now when I was growing up, there weren't no Youth Season. And, if I remember correctly, it lasted from Saturday to Sunday. Eight days instead of our present ten days.

Also, there weren't no Hunter Safety Course requirements. For the Riggs boys, it wasn't necessary. We had LRCAIOMAYIDDD... the "Leamon Riggs, Comprehensive, All Inclusive, One Mistake And You're In Deep DooDoo" hunting and firearm safety course!

I distinctly remember those first early mornings going out to the deer woods. While I was enrolled in the LRCAIOMAYIDDD, I sat with Dad and he "showed me the ropes". He (almost) always hunted from the ground. (I say "almost" because there was that one time....) We would arrive at the selected spot in the dark and pick out a nice big tree to back up against. He would instruct me to clear an area where we were going to sit so we wouldn't be rustling around in the leaves and scaring off all the deer. We would dig out little depressions for our heineys... OK...we would dig out big depressions for our heineys, sit in them and then get up and dig out any protruding rocks that could make sitting even more uncomfortable. After Dad got all settled in, he would jack a shell into his trusty, gold-trigger, 30-30 Marlin and we were set for the next couple of hours.

The season finally came when Dad deemed my training to be complete enough for me to "go solo". The step from a protègè to pursuer, from sidekick to slayer, from apostle to assassin... Well...You get the picture!

I got up way before daylight that morning to begin the process of dressing. I would start layering on the clothes. Insulated underwear, thick socks, blue jeans, flannel shirt, another flannel shirt, a winter coat, insulated coveralls... And then I had to put my boots on. By then, I had so many layers on, I couldn't bend down and Pull my boots on, let alone tie them! This was very frustrating... I remember my dear sweet Mother coming into the bedroom and helping me with my boots... And by the time we were finished, she was chuckling, cackling and even out-right laughing at my predicament! I wasn't amused...

Dad, Ralph, and I loaded up in the old 1976 white Ford truck and headed east to Roy Merritt's place, just west of the Howell-Oregon county line. We turned off 160 Highway at Rountree Corner and drove north to the cross road. Then, we went east from the cross road to the trail that led north to the old Forest Dell School. We parked the truck on the county road, piled out and gathered up all our equipment... Which (unlike today) consisted of gloves, orange hat and vest and our rifles.

Ralph took off walking to his stand farther east across another county road and Dad and I started walking north toward the old schoolhouse. It was still awhile before daylight so even though there was some light from the east, the woods were dark and kinda spooky as we soft-footed along to our stands. We passed up the old Forest Dell school building, which was dilapidated and actually just creepy looking in the half-light. The trail kept going past the schoolhouse and when we had walked a few hundred feet farther, Dad said "This looks pretty good".  He pointed out a big tree, right beside the trail and told me "I'd set right there." He informed me that he was going on to his stand, he would be back in a couple of hours, if I shot one, just sit tight, and be watching and listening for him when he came back. And he walked off with his slow, easy walk.

I cleaned out beneath the tree, fixed a place for my Gluteus Maximus, thumbed some slugs into Dad's old double-barrel shotgun and settled down to wait for "The Big One".

For those of you that have been there; How do you describe those first few minutes of darkness, quietness, and complete aloneness? After a few minutes, your ears start adjusting to the "quiet" and then things get loud. There is probably some nitwit poet that has described the woods as "quiet" or "silent" or "hushed" or "still". It ain't so!! Leaves rustle (for no apparent reason), twigs or leaves fall from trees and sound like a sack of potatoes hitting the ground, the footsteps of three-hundred pound squirrels are heard everywhere, cows bawling in the distance and sometimes a old donkey braying his thanks to the morning. And then there are the birds... Blue Jays, Juncos, Tufted Titmouses, Woodpeckers, Flickers, Pileated Woodpeckers, all with their own distinct calls and sounds. The Crows deserve a sentence all to themselves...It is no wonder that Noah got rid of the one on the Ark! He couldn't stand the noise another second! And then, a whole flock of sparrows will fly over at mach speed - they are making no bird sounds but the best way to describe it is the wing-noise of 150 miniature jets, flying over you at 500 MPH! The woods may be "Lovely, Dark, and Deep" but they are not Quiet!

And then the day starts to break... Now, you can't really describe those first shafts of sunlight, coming over the horizon as romantic (Cause by then you're freezing and scared spitless, For Crying Out Loud!) but they are... elegant, graceful, and even pulchritudinous.

Dad had trained me well to be listening, watching and making no sudden moves. I watched in what I call "Cow Fashion." Have you ever watched a cow, watching you walk or drive across a field. They follow you with their eyes, without turning their heads, until you go out of their range of view. Then they turn their heads to look directly at you and start the process again. And I listened... Did you know if you listen hard enough, you can hear the Ghost Deer walking in the leaves? At least that's how it seemed to me. I would hear a deer walking up behind me. I was positive of it. So positive in fact, that I began shivering and shaking with the "Buck Aggers"... Only to be disappointed by a big-footed chipmunk or squirrel that came bounding by my stand!

When it was good daylight, and I had been sitting for an hour or so, something magical happened. To my right, up the trail toward the old schoolhouse, and not over a hundred feet away, two does just appeared. How do they do that? I was watching and listening but they still snuck up on me!

They started ambling down the trail toward me. They would stop, look around, nibble buds from limbs, flip their tails and continue on toward me. Now, in this era of time, the only time you could shoot does (or antlerless deer) was the last day of the season, which was a Sunday. Shooting an illegal deer would have violated LRCAIOMAYIDDD so ALL I could do was was sit as still as I could and watch! They kept getting closer and closer... Finally, they were right in front of me! Within ten feet! To this day, I do not know HOW they didn't see me or smell me! They passed by and continued slowly feeding their way down the old trail and out of sight.

Within a few minutes, after they went out of sight, the adrenaline rush was over and the sweat began to cool in the morning cold and I started shivering and shaking! This continued for quite awhile until the sun began to shine full on me... then I got warm and sleepy. I watched, dozed, listened until I caught sight of Dad working his way up through the timber toward me.

Of course, his first question was; "See anything?" And that's when I stepped into that mysterious position of being (somewhat) an equal with my old Dad. I had my own "Deer Story" to tell!