Word: deer
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Last week the Michigan bow-hunting season was in full swing, and Bear was among the 60,000 bowmen stalking the wily whitetail. The deer were in little danger; while one in four gun hunters bags a whitetail each season, only one in 20 bow hunters is successful. Reducing the odds further, Bear chose to hunt on St. Martin Island, an uninhabited, densely wooded patch in Lake Huron that stands as a kind of moated fortress of the whitetail. Associate Editor Ray Kennedy joined Bear. His report...
...already prowling the beach, studying the heart-shaped tracks. "They're here," he whispered. A rangy, rawboned man with the weathered look of a backwoods sage, he was wearing his favorite old camouflage jacket and a battered gray fedora. As he explored the island, half a dozen deer bolted from distant thickets, their upturned tails waving like white flags. Later, sipping black coffee out of a tin can, he smiled: "Looks like this is going to be too easy for the bow. Maybe 1 should have brought my spear...
SEVENTH DAY. The hunt was over. Deer spotted: 17. Arrows shot: 0. "Boy, those whitetail are really something," said Fred as he headed home. "They're just smarter than hell. Reminds me of the time I was hunting mountain goat in Alberta with Bud Gray, the chairman of Whirlpool. After about three hours of panting up those icy mountains, he rested on his bow and said: 'Tell me we're having fun, will...
THIRD DAY. A chill, gusty rain whipped through the trees. "This is good," said Fred. "The deer's vision will be dimmed by raindrops on their eyelashes." Toward nightfall, as the downpour subsided into a fine mist, Fred spied a big buck munching on ground hemlock 80 yards away. Slowly, silently, Fred positioned his razorhead arrow and watched for five, ten, 20 excruciating minutes as the buck worked his way toward the clearing. But suddenly, he jerked his head, wriggled his nose, and was off into the bush. "Damn!" exclaimed Fred as he huddled over the camp stove. "With...
...camp was layered with ice, and the sand was frozen hard as concrete. Bending like a bloodhound over the maze of snow tracks in the clearing, Fred whispered: "They're moving out of that shintangle [thicket] over there just after sundown." At dusk, as he watched a deer 100 yards off through his binoculars, a red squirrel barked behind him. Turning, Fred looked straight into the eyes of the big buck standing 20 yards away. Startled, the deer quickly thumped off into thick cover before Fred had a chance to react...