Bays Mountain Emerges from foggy Holston River Bottoms



Thanksgiving Morn - 2006

IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO EAT IT, DON’T KILL IT
By Mike Faulk


Dad was a simple man. He had a few mottos by which he lived. Those mottos were repeated regularly in his daily life. But, his lecturing was minimal – unless you consider the silently-delivered lectures – the ones delivered by his deeds.

Harvesting any animal, fish or fowl, with the sole purpose of displaying a trophy was out of the question in his mind. If, on the other hand, there was a trophy and a good meal – so be it. Hence the motto: “if you’re not going to eat it, don’t kill it.”

At holidays I miss Dad the most. He’s been gone 24 years now. The remarkable impact he had on my life is manifest during these times when we long to have family and friends close at hand. His presence is always with me in the hunting fields – the places were we were the closest – the places where we were both the happiest.

After the traditional Thanksgiving family meal, Brother Loy and I adjourned to the cabin for a long weekend of deer hunting during Tennessee’s first segment of rifle season. We often invoke Dad’s name when we’re here. One of us ends that segment of conversation with something along the lines of: “Dad sure would have liked it here” or “Dad would never leave here if he were alive today.”

We expect company at the cabin over this long weekend – family and good friends each and everyone. Number one son, Andy, is expected one night during Thanksgiving break from his teaching first graders. Chuckles, my partner in Strum Island Hunting Club, will hunt a couple of days. And our resident used car salesman, Rick, will join us a couple of times to hunt. [I mention “used car salesman” simply to denote one amongst us with lower standing in the eyes of the public than the lawyer author.]

We’ll consume a substantial amount of food – not just leftovers – during these three days. Our evening meals are always special. Not only will they taste great; but they’ll also uphold and reaffirm Dad’s motto.

Friday night faire includes North Dakota walleye, baked turnips [claimed from the food plots planted for the deer], hush puppies, and Mom’s coleslaw. Saturday evening we’ll have venison stroganoff, mashed red potatoes, and green beans from Paul and Peggy Morrison’s garden. Our lunches come from a cast iron pot of duck stew with some of Shirley’s homemade bread toasted with butter and garlic salt. Desserts include what’s left from Thanksgiving’s meal – Sister Kathy’s pecan pie, Shirley’s butterscotch delight, and Maggie Christian’s blueberry cheese cake.

This holiday I have some understanding how truly blessed I am. Thankful am I for the abundant bounty of all God’s creation which I enjoy daily. Thankful am I for the earthly father who taught me so very much in both word and deed without every hearing me say, “thank you, Dad, for the lecture you live”.

BB’s ARE FOR BIG BOYS

By Mike Faulk


A few weeks from now hundreds if not thousands of boys will gleefully unwrap a new BB gun for Christmas. While considering whether Santa really should bring junior a BB gun for Christmas, Dads everywhere will in the coming days inspect these guns on the nearest superstore shelf. Some will thoughtfully review performance statistics like magazine capacity and velocity. Unfortunately, few will read on the shipping box that the BB gun is “Not a toy. Ten years of age and up with adult supervision only.”

That warning - “Not a toy. Ten years of age and up with adult supervision only” - is there for a reason. According to an article published by the Center for Disease Control: “Each year in the United States, approximately 30,000 persons with BB and pellet gun-related injuries are treated in hospital emergency rooms. Most (95%) injuries are BB or pellet gunshot wounds. And most (81%) persons treated for BB and pellet gun shot wounds are children.”

It is estimated that 3.2 million air guns are sold in the United States each year. Four-fifths of these have muzzle velocities greater than 350 feet per second (fps) and half have velocities from 500 fps to 930 fps.

Ammunition from many BB and pellet guns at close range can cause tissue damage similar to that inflicted by powder-charged projectiles fired from low-velocity powder-fired arms. Injuries associated with use of air guns can result in permanent disability or death. Injuries from BBs or pellets projected from air guns involving the eye are particularly severe.

Data from the National Eye Trauma System and the United States Eye Injury Registry -- a system of voluntary reporting by ophthalmologists – shows that projectiles from air guns account for 63% of reported perforating eye injuries that occur in recreational settings.

I suspect the Boy Scouts of America has about as much information as anyone about the developmental characteristics of young boys. Here are some of the developmental characteristics of ten year old boys: increasing body strength, improving coordination, hand dexterity and reaction time, developing special interest in hobbies and collections, daydreaming about future and careers, understanding most concepts, enjoying being in clubs, and demonstrating interest in competitive sports.

Shooting activities and shooting merit badges are not available to the youngest scouts – the tiger cubs. It’s not until a young man reaches the Cub Scout or Webelos level of scouting that boys are introduced to BB guns and then only in a highly structured, adult-supervised setting.

A boy needs the coordination, hand dexterity and reaction time for shooting skills. More importantly he needs the maturity to understand the responsibilities that come with using a firearm – any firearm.

The National Rifle Association has a terrific gun safety program for children. The Eddie Eagle GunSafe® Program teaches elementary school children four important steps to take if they find a gun – any gun. According to the NRA, “the purpose of The Eddie Eagle GunSafe® Program isn't to teach whether guns are good or bad, but rather to promote the protection and safety of children. Eddie Eagle neither offers nor asks for any value judgment concerning firearms. Like swimming pools, electrical outlets, matchbooks and household poison, they're treated simply as a fact of life. With firearms found in about half of all American households, it's a stance that makes sense.”

This program is specifically designed for young children from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. It was developed through the combined efforts of such qualified professionals as law enforcement personnel, teachers, curriculum specialists, urban housing safety officials, clinical psychologists, and reading specialists. A sixth grader is generally eleven years old.

Attorneys receive reports of newly decided court cases every month. Hardly a month passes when there isn’t a lawsuit filed by the parents of an injured child against other parents who failed to properly supervise their own child using a BB gun.

Frankly, I think it is negligent per se to allow a child under ten to have a BB gun. If you read between the lines, it says so right there on the box. The Boys Scouts say so. Even the NRA says so.

A BB gun is not a toy. Children play with toys. To be sure they also learn from using toys. But toys don’t demand adult supervision. BB guns do. A child can play with and learn from using a BB gun; but both play and learning must come with adult supervision.

Most would agree that a car, when used carelessly, can be a deadly device. Few would argue that a car is less dangerous in the hands of an inexperienced driver; in fact, it’s more dangerous. Our laws reflect these basic truths about the operation of motor vehicles. States have some type of graduated licensing law. Almost all require a year or two of driving with an adult present in the car before getting a regular operator’s license.

If we wouldn’t trust a fourteen year old unsupervised with a car, why would you trust a ten year old with the unsupervised use of a BB gun? Consider how much more supervision a ten year old needs than a fourteen year old. Air gun manufacturers mean it when they say “Ten years old and up only with adult supervision.”

I treasure my Daisy Red Rider BB Gun. My father taught me the bulk of what I know about gun safety using that little gun. I, too, learned first hand many of the emotions associated with hunting – the thrill of stalking, the bitter sweet feeling that comes from harvesting that first animal, and the humbling feeling from knowing you hold in your hand an instrument of awesome power – even if it is just a BB gun. If you’re going to teach a child how to hunt, by all means start with a BB gun. I’m all for giving our sons and daughters BB guns – when they’re developmentally ready and not before.

As a dad, I wanted my son – my own little Mini-me - to be my hunting buddy long before he was ready to handle a BB gun. Thank goodness I had a strong-willed, opinionated wife who put her foot down and said, “no BB gun until he’s old enough.”

There is a world of literature out there, written by authors much smarter than me and better educated than me on the subject of child development that says “Not a toy. Ten and up with adult supervision only.” Listen to them. BBs are for big boys.

- First published December 2002
Tennessee Valley Outdoors

BACK TO WAR VALLEY
By Mike Faulk

From the duck blind on this frosty morn, I was on my way back to the cabin when – about a hundred yards north of my destination – the smoke from the dwindling wood fire hit me like a ton of bricks. Some how, in an instant, the smell of that fire transported me fifty years across time to Mamaw and Papaw’s old farm house in War Valley.

Rural electrification came to Hawkins County in the late forties and early fifties. “Juice” was then added to the old house – but just barely.

A single wire dangled from the center of the room that was furnished with their old bed and a half-dozen ladder-back chairs in a half-moon configuration ringing the fireplace area. A lone bulb with no shade or fixture lighted the room. The light was turned off and on by a switch activated by a string attached to the footboard of the bed.

Mamaw cooked on a woodstove which doubled as the kitchen heat source. There was no running water. The well shaft was just outside the kitchen porch. The black cast-iron kettle insured a ready supply of hot, unfrozen water.

The outhouse was about 40 yards from the front door on the side of a bank across the farm road from the corn crib. I hated the rooster that seemed to stand guard over the corn crib. The privy was a “two-holer” with ample quantities of old newspapers and pages from the last year’s Sears catalog. The cold and that old rooster made winter trips to the facility of short duration.

Growing up in the fifties meant Sunday socializing – mostly with family. The trek from Silver Lake Road in Church Hill to the Dykes’ farm in War Valley seemed to take hours. It was really only about fifteen miles across the old McPheeter’s Bend bridge, down Goshen Valley Road to Mowl’s mill, and then up War Valley Road to the old well house where the daily milking pales were emptied into those big milk cans.

Mowl’s mill dam is a historic site in my book. From there, I caught my first bluegill. The burning of the old mill predates my memory. But I recall the jump from the bank across the millrace to the dam - a quantum leap for a six year old. But I digress.

Winter visits to Mamaw and Papaw’s involved the adults sitting in the chairs surrounding the fireplace and the youngsters pushing and shoving for position on the hearth nearest the fire. We were allowed to remain in front of the fire long enough to warm the seat of our britches and then, after rotating 180 degrees - our faces. Then it was someone else’s turn.

It was that smell when I faced Carson and Lurlie’s fireplace that somehow, maybe through time travel, or a worm hole, or some other cosmic dimension, transcended fifty years and found its way to my olfactory senses on this cold November morning. I don’t know where those memories had been. But they’re mighty powerful now – more powerful than the TVA “juice” that first lit the old Dykes farm house five decades before.

MESSIN’ UP – Vol. I(2006), No. 8
November 4, 2006

“Over Too Soon”
By Mike Faulk

Muzzleloader season is my favorite deer hunting time. The leaves are gone aiding visibility. Temperatures are cool but not painfully cold. The boys are thinking about chasing the girls rather than watching for hunters like me. Days are short and nights are long encouraging an early bedtime. And I love the smell of burned gun powder and that veil of blue smoke that must clear before knowing the results of my shot. Saturday began Tennessee’s week-long muzzleloader season.

5:00 a.m. – The wrist watch alarm confirmed what my well-regulated body clock already knew – it was time to arise. Even though we had a good fire throughout the night thanks to brother Loy, the air temperature told me to first don my Scentlok Classic long handles. Loy normally sleeps on the couch near the fireplace – where it’s the warmest. With that perk comes the duty of keeping the fire going throughout the night.

5:30 a.m. – Bacon, eggs and biscuits were ready and served with orange juice and piping hot black coffee. Temperature was 26 degrees. A near-full moon illuminated the yard overnight leaving me with some amount of pessimism about the prospects for the day; but, the rut should have begun improving our odds.

6:00 a.m. – Having completed my morning ritual and suiting up with hunting pants and insulated bibs, my outfit was completed with waders, orange cap and orange vest. The seven minute walk was invigorating in the dim early morning light. Descending the bank of the Holston River, wading across the thirty yard channel to Mallard Island, and climbing its bank to enter the Holston Hilton had me breathing hard. This inevitably leads to “venting” by unbuttoning and unzipping most of my hunting apparel in an attempt to avoid perspiration. The trick is to re-button and re-zip before getting too cool thus avoiding the morning chills.

6:45 a.m. – I heard the morning’s first muzzleloader blast on the ordinance. The Holston Army Ammunition Plant is the site this weekend of a permit-by-drawing hunt. The 5500 acre facility is home to some of the biggest, least hunted bucks in east Tennessee. With approximately 80 hunters filling the tree stands permanently erected on this property, some of which are on the ridgeline overlooking the sluice surrounding Strum Island, the likelihood of traffic to, along, and across the sluice was good – thus my choice of venue – the Hilton.

7:00 a.m. – Canada geese trade along the airways above the river bottoms interrupting the silence that had replaced the echoes from four shots heard over the last fifteen minutes.

7:30 a.m. – After having finished my first cup of coffee from the thermos, I sprayed “Doe-in-heat” scent on the camouflaged burlap that overhangs the roof of the Hilton to disguise any lingering smell from the coffee.

Two wood ducks landed in the “hole” directly in front of the blind where, in duck season, they would have been easy marks directly in the line of fire.

I watched a raccoon make his way along the edge of the shoreline stopping to dig mussel shells from the nooks and crannies that underscore the banks of this river that sees nearly daily fluctuations in the three foot range due to Tennessee Valley Authority’s generation of electricity from the upstream Ft. Patrick Henry dam. Watch a raccoon handle mussel shells and you’ll know the origins of the expression: “coon-fingering”.

8:00 a.m. – Another blast less than a quarter-mile away – the thirteenth this morning – rang out from the ordinance. The sun was up over Bays Mountain behind me to the east of the Hilton and the fog that has traded back and forth across the mouth of the sluice will be short-lived with the arrival of those warming rays.

With the sunlight, movement in the flat to my north will be detected more readily. I now begin to glass the 12 acre flat that gives way to the oak-lined ridge lying above me. Beyond that is a plateau of sorts – probably 300 - 400 acres – full of thickets and draws perfectly surreptitious for wary old bucks. And finally beyond the plateau is the spine of Bays Mountain with an elevation of about 2400 feet – a 1200 foot rise above the river.

8:30 a.m. - A coot swam past the Hilton – fishing as he passed downstream. Other fish-eating waterfowl, cormorants, worked their way up and down the main channel of the river searching for their morning meal. I wondered, since the first appearance of these birds and the appearance of an abundance of river otter came at about the same time, whether it is more than coincidence that small mouth bass populations have also declined. I suspect what we know about the complexity of the fine balance maintained by Mother Nature is very little.

My second cup of Joe hit the spot knocking the last of the morning chill out of my body.

9:00 a.m. - That was the eighteenth round fired this morning heard by me. Many of the tree stands on the ordinance are in an area upstream and around a bend of the river in a position where I couldn’t hear a muzzleloader discharge. I wondered just how many hunters have taken a shot.

I wondered if someone has taken “Bubba” - the gargantuan 12 plus pointer I saw for only a few seconds from nearly this same location three seasons ago. I then glassed the flat more intensely studying each and every feature of each object that shows any sign of movement.

9:10 a.m. – While standing with my back to Strum Island and facing the flat across the other side of the sluice to my north, I heard the noise of something coming down the bank behind me. Whatever it was, it was directly behind me. Turning around to see what it was would most likely spook the intruder. I might be shielded by the box elder tree that grows on the front of Mallard Island – I might not. So I froze and waited. Within seconds the normal sound of the river babbling over the gravel bars around the Hilton was modified. “It” was coming toward me.

At a turtle’s pace, I rotated by head to the left and caught movement. I could tell it was a deer because it was tall enough to have entered my peripheral vision with no effort other than turning my head. Squatting so the front wall of the duck blind would hide my movement, I grasped my CVA fifty caliber muzzleloader. It was armed with 100 grams of Pirodex pellets and a 180 grain Powerbilt round.

Easing the rifle over the wall and finding the deer in a hurry was important because an alarmed deer would be about 4 leaping strides from the opposite bank and another lost opportunity. I looked through the 3 X 9 X 40 Simmons scope and immediately found the deer that was only 12 yards away. Just as I located the head to see if this was a shooter, he looked up at me. There was no time.

Seeing it was a buck, I moved the cross-hairs down the neck about a foot and squeezed. The deer dropped in its tracks.

I dismounted the duck blind, moved the deer to a gravel bar some 70 yards away, and field dressed the substantial five-pointer. The deer’s neck was swollen indicating his recent interest in the girls. His embarkation into the Jon boat was awkward. He was all I could handle by myself.

10:00 a.m. - The boat pulled up to the ramp at 10:02 a.m. There was a line at the checking station with five hunters ahead of me checking four does and a spike.

11:15 a.m. - The deer was in the hands of the butcher at 11:15 a.m. I ordered steaks, chops and roasts from the animal that field-dressed at 130 pounds. The Faulk house will enjoy venison for the next year. I was down to two packs of ground venison and one pack of stew meat.

Tennessee Wildlife allows only one deer in Unit B during muzzleloader season. In six short hours, my season was done - much too soon. If the freezer occupancy wasn’t so low, I would probably have waited for a bigger deer. Now I can change my concentration during rifle season. Who knows? Maybe “Bubba” will show himself again.