placed close to camp and a rifle shot would discourage any poacher - human or animal. A carcass was hung with the head and hide still on. Hanging the deer served a number of purposes. Bears, coyotes, and other animals could not make off with the catch or chew away at it. More importantly, the meat had a chance to start aging so it would be more tender and easier to prepare.
In Norwood a number of families would come home from the hunt to hang deer carcasses on a tree in the front yard or on the eave of a tall shed. Rusaws, La Brashes, and the Shoups always had the largest line of hanging game. One year, in the big elm on the La Brashes’ front lawn, hung a bull moose. It made deer carcasses look tiny.
Highway # 7 was filled with cars heading back to the city with deer on their front and back fenders. Half-ton trucks were not as common in the sixties as they are today. Anyone with the luxury of time to sit and watch, would have counted over one hundred deer per hour going from hunt camps back to the city. This traffic would continue for a week to ten days from morning to night. People who watched this parade were often envious, wishing they themselves had been fortunate enough to have such success in the hunt.
Back To The Norwood Camp.
On the second day of the hunt, it rained and rained and the dogs were not able to rouse anything. The third day would be perfect. Overnight, a cold north wind dried up the ground and a dusting of snow painted the landscape completely white. The sun was out and the temperature down, and with no wind, snow stayed on the trees, shrubs, and tall grass. Short hawthorn trees, dusted in white, gave a glimpse of what hot African plains might look like if it ever snowed there. This would be a good day and the camp quota would probably be filled, so it could mean one more night in camp, ending a short year, as the deer in this neck of the woods were plentiful once again.
Each man was assigned a run. Every hunter knew how to get to his run and how to return to camp safely. Rifle shots carry a long way and no one wants to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hunting camps, even if they were right beside each other, were safe because experienced hunters never crossed their own camp’s boundaries. When trailing a wounded deer or bear, you stopped at your camp line. If a wounded animal came into your area, it was yours to shoot. An unwritten rule, when any animal crossed camp lines, was to split the meat with the camp that started the kill. That was the only time a doe or fawn would be shot in this camp.
The first year Jake was part of the hunt, his dad, Clint went over and over with Jake all the runs and boundaries pointing out where everyone would be. There had never been a mistake in the past. They all hoped there would be none in the future. Jake knew their camp area well, as he had been in these woods since age eight helping the family cut and split firewood for the year. Feeding his parents’ kitchen wood stove and wood furnace, plus doing the same for his grandparents, meant that every spare Saturday afternoon was spent in the woods.
Wednesday morning, everyone dressed warmly, packed a fried egg sandwich in a coat pocket and headed out to his assigned run. Jerry was in charge of the dogs. He would wait until he was sure everyone was in place, and then he would release them.
Jake filled up the wood stove with three large blocks of sugar maple wood, topped up the side water reservoir, and put enough beech wood into the wood box stove to hold the fire until he returned. He knew that the cabin would be warm and the cook stove ready for cooking breakfast. He would add six or seven small pieces of maple, and the frying pans would be hot and ready to cook.
Jake stepped out of the camp door with both of his sandwiches. Being the cook and having a young hollow leg to fill, there would be lots of room for two sandwiches. Jake realized he was not dressed warmly enough. He went back in, took off his overalls, and put on his fleece-lined pullover, his high school sweater. Jake had just purchased a NDHS sweater at school a couple of months beforehand during “September Spirit Week.” He was sure that it would be thick enough to keep him warm on the run.
Jake’s run was the farthest away from camp as young legs were given the longest distance to travel. The night’s dusting of snow showed every track, like those of rabbits bouncing from place to place. Fox tracks were the most interesting. You could follow these tracks to the end before realizing that the sly fox had doubled back moving left or right with a large jump. A weasel track with its sprocket-like appearance went across Jake’s trail. The prints most hunters did not want to see were a wolf’s or coyote’s. These populations were increasing and many deer hunters would give up a shot at a deer if a coyote was present. The rule for coyotes was SSS: shoot, shovel, and shut up. Beef farmers were losing young calves to smart and nimble coyotes and dead beef represented lost income. Cows have one calf a year, unless they have twins, so a cow’s yearly production could disappear in one meal for coyotes. The quickest way to reduce the coyote population was to watch for a cow ready to calve and scoop up the afterbirth with a shovel before the other cows or farm dogs could eat it. Farmers took the afterbirth, placed it near the edge of the woods and waited to the left or right of a downwind for the coyotes.
Jake was anxious to bag his second deer and make it two years in a row. Last year for his first hunt, Jake was partnered with his Uncle Ken. This was standard procedure in training new hunters, teaching them the rules and procedures of working, hunting, and having fun at camp. Uncle Ken told Jake about an old buck that had been sighted for a number of years but never shot. Each year a buck grows more points on the rack, and as it gets older, each new rack gets another point. Many hunters count the points, which they believe gives the age of the buck. To survive, a buck has to be wise and skittish and avoid being shot or eaten. This old buck, that everyone talked about, would have a record rack for magazines to write about.
Jake, at thirteen, and his Uncle Ken were on their run when the buck appeared. They looked in wonder as this thin old deer stared back at them. Growing out of its head appeared to be a full-grown staghorn sumac tree. Before Jake could take aim, the buck bounded over the hill and was gone. Jake, not knowing that you can never catch a deer, made a snap decision to run after the buck up the rise to see where it had gone. Uncle Ken could not keep up to the young lad and followed behind. At the top of the hill he saw Jake lift his rifle. He heard a shot. The buck had stopped and looked back, as Jake broke over the hill. This fine old buck stayed in perfect formation for a clean shot.
Its head was very old and had a record-breaking rack. The carcass, though, dressed out with less meat than a year-old doe, as the animal was probably in its last year of life. The meat was turned into sausage. Everyone knew that you could not chew that old buck.
A number of hunting magazines picked up the story. Jake, in his first year at camp, had that trophy rack many hunters waited for all their lives. Having the head mounted was an option, but it would be expensive and the head was looking old. Saving just the rack was the best thing in this case. What do you do to follow that record?
Jake, although only fourteen, knew that his success last year had no bearing on this year’s hunt. He was just hoping to get a shot at a buck, and be able to tell the story back in camp. Jake walked to his run and brushed off the snow on an old oak stump. He put a couple of cedar branches under his butt to keep the cold from penetrating. He was prepared to sit there motionless for two hours, waiting, listening, and hoping a buck would head down his run. He heard dogs barking, but they were off his trail, and he could only imagine his dad on the west run getting a good shot. A few moments later he heard a shot that came from his dad’s run, and given the single shot fired, it was either a clean kill or a miss.
Time crawled by and all he could hear were dogs in the distance. It seemed that the deer had decided to go north in the direction of the night’s wind and not to move south. Clearly, the hunt would not end today as one kill would not fill their licence quota. It was time to eat the second sandwich and be patient.
After two hours of waiting, he decided to walk back to camp. He had fun thinking about what would be served for breakfast today. A small breeze
