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.