LIKE CHILDREN PLAYING JACKS
By Mike Faulk



Onezies, twozies, threezies, and four. That’s the way the woodies came throughout the course of the afternoon. On this hunt, we had as much fun as children playing jacks.

It occurred to me that success in the game of jacks requires the child to concentrate on but a few of many jacks strewn about the table or floor. And it was just that way duck hunting.

My usually hunting companion, Art Swann, and I have an annoying knack for shooting at the same bird more often than not. This is so even though we go to the added length of designating shooting lanes.

Those shooting lanes have a way of overlapping if many birds are decoying at the same time. But if they come in small groups – onezies, twozies, threezies and fours – the shooting lanes seem more clearly defined. We tend to shoot more ducks even though the total number of birds we’re seeing may be fewer.

So it was on this January afternoon on a frozen pond near the White River Refuge in St. Charles, Arkansas. They came over and over again. Never more than six at a time did the wood ducks fly.


With six gunners hunting the honey hole, rarely did a crested king of the early migration escape. As the well-known novel begins, “It was the best of times.”



First published in Waterfowler.com - Spring 2003

SANTA MAY BE LATE ON NORTHWEST TENNESSEE DELIVERIES: REELFOOT LAKE DECLARED NO-FLY ZONE
By Mike Faulk

NORTH POLE, ARCTIC - St. Nicholas announced yesterday a temporary disruption in his delivery schedule in the Reelfoot Lake region of northwest Tennessee. Declaring the area around the earthquake-made lake a "No-fly" zone, Santa Claus cited fear for the safety of his crew as the basis for the glitch in holiday deliveries.

"I've seen those east Tennessee boys and their shooting. You're usually safe if they aim for you but there's always that chance of an errant sky-busting shot especially since they started using bismuth and other steel-alternatives."

In recent years Claus and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency have been at odds since the heavy delivery schedule that comes only once a year overlaps both duck and some area deer seasons in Tennessee.

Defending his decision to delay deliveries to good little boys and girls in the lake area, St. Nicholas offered these reconnaissance photographs.

When contacted by Strum Island Journal, east Tennessee waterfowler Art Swann was unapologetic. "If it flys it dies", he said.

Faulk's Favorite Christmas Goose Recipe
"You're Going to Cook Your Goose"
by Mike Faulk

Thoroughly wash the whole dressed goose - inside and out;

Pat dry with paper towels;

In equal proportions of salt, pepper & sage, use a handful of seasonings and rigorously rub the seasoning all over the outside and on the inside of the cavity of the bird;

Quarter unions and small potatoes, section carrots and celery, and, after coring, slice apples with peels removed;

Stuff the goose and suture closed the cavity;

Pin bacon strips across the breasts of the goose;

Place the goose in baking bag, breasts up, and bag into a sufficiently large baking pan;

Preheat oven to 350°;

Add two cups of apple cider or apple juice to baking bag and tightly close the bag;

Cook for about two hours or until internal temperature is 140°.

Warning: the smell of this feast while cooking will make you mad!

RUNNING LIGHTS, HUNTER’S ORANGE AND A LITTLE COMMON SENSE
By Mike Faulk

TWRA Officer Bill Robbins issued me a citation a few years back that displeased me so. It was duck season. The ramp where I launch my jon boat is 500 yards from my duck blind. There would be 3 – 6 boats launching upstream at the VFW boat ramp with hunters bushwhacking ducks. It should have been a good morning to do a little decoying.

Those bushwhackers hug the banks working around log falls to jump shoot ducks from their boats. In order to succeed, a good oarsman must jag the boat in and out around obstacles in silence. Any movement other than the natural drift of the boat sends a warning to wary ducks hearing shotgun blasts up and down the river. Such boats travel at two to four miles per hour.

I was a little late arriving. It was already legal shooting hours (30 minutes before sunrise to sunset). I motored rather than oared across the river to the blind and pitched half a dozen decoys out. It never occurred to me that I should rig my running lights.

About mid-morning TWRA officers came through on patrol to check the hunters up and down the Holston. This was routine. I had come to expect a couple of inspections per season.

The usual drill involves checking the weapons to make sure the plug prevents the use of more than three shells in the shotgun, checking licenses for both state and federal duck stamps, inventoring the ducks harvested to make sure the types and quantities are within limits, and verifying no lead shot shells were being used. Sometimes boat registrations were reviewed and the sufficiency of life preservers confirmed.

This morning, I was asked an unusual question: “what time did you come in this morning”? After my answer, I was informed I was being written a citation for failure to use running lights before sunrise.

I pled my case: it was legal hunting hours, if you can see enough to identify and shoot a duck you can see well enough to avoid a boat without running lights, no one in his right mind would motor up or down the river in such low water – let alone in the early morning during duck season, running lights would spook any ducks, I was legal in all respects, etc. etc. etc. My arguments failed.

Disgusted, I considered fighting the citation. I try really hard to hunt legally and ethically. I make sure my guests in the boat or blind do the same. I follow Dad’s admonition: “there is no substitute for and there may never be a lapse in safety.” This was a technicality that made no sense in that 30 minute period before official sunrise when it was already light enough to shoot at ducks.

After a debate within myself, I decided to just pay the fine and be done with it. Since I’m a lawyer in my day job, I knew the judge would have to recuse himself. I knew the District Attorney’s office could do the same and a special prosecutor and special judge would have to be brought in just so I could make my point. It wasn’t worth it to fight this rule that seemed silly at the time.

On this cold, foggy December morn, I was reminded of that rule. On this day, duck season and deer season overlap. There are numerous hunters along the banks of the Holston – some seeking deer, some ducks.

Several volleys of shotgun blasts rang out as soon as the legal shooting hour arrived. It was too foggy to see more than 60 yards. The duck hunters in boats were able to get up on the birds within range because of the fog. I startled the occupants of two boats as they passed through the sluice just beneath my duck blind by wishing them good luck. Until I spoke, my presence was not detected.

Then, from downstream, the unmistakable drone of a jet-propelled motor broke the morning silence the way shotgun blasts had earlier. At near full speed, the boat roared upstream passing the mouth of the sluice without my ever seeing the boat.

I knew it was there from the noise. I knew it was close to the south side of the main channel of the river because of the waves its wake sent down the sluice. I knew it was a disaster waiting to happen. I knew a fool was at the throttle.

The logs that lodge on the bottom up and down the stream are a constant danger. Sometimes they are visible – sometimes not. The ones just below the waterline are every bit as dangerous as the ones that can be seen. Because of TVA power generation schedule, upstream releases continually change the location of those logs. The same is true for ever migrating gravel bars.

The crash could be heard all up and down the river. The jet motor stopped at the same instant. I listened for any sounds from upstream expecting shouts for help. Within a couple of minutes, a boat of duck hunters entered the sluice and pulled their boat up onto one of the gravel bars. They exited the boat and used the bottom of a bleach bottle to bail water from the boat. Exiting the blind to assist, they told me how the wake of the boat passing them had nearly swamped their boat. They were wet.

After confirming they were alright, I knew it was up to me to check on the other boat. These duck hunters were drifting with only oars for propulsion. They couldn’t get upstream to where we had heard the crash. The water level was too low for me to get my boat out of the front of the sluice and too low for me to motor out the length of the sluice – about a mile – to the main channel. I floated out and then motored slowly up the river in the dense fog.

I reached the area were I thought the crash had occurred. I called and called but heard no one. I ran a grid pattern back and forth over a section of at least half a mile and found nothing – nobody and no boat.

The fog cleared about 10:30 a.m. I checked the river all the way from the VFW boat ramp to my blind and again found nothing. Not knowing what else I could do, I called the Sheriff’s Department to fill them in should someone file a missing persons report on a boater or boaters.

As I conducted this fruitless search, I remembered the frustration over that citation years ago. Many of our laws make little sense. Running lights this morning would have done nothing to keep the careless soul from roaring up the Holston in a dense fog. Running lights aren’t required on boats that are not under propulsion. But they might have kept the operator of the jet boat from swamping the duck hunters.

Making my way back to the cabin, I thought I’d try to have a safe hunt the rest of my day. I had a sickening feeling about the jet boater and his occupants, if any. I’d just break out the bow and pick a ground blind close by the cabin.

As I put away the rifle and took off my orange cap and vest, another less-than-ideal law came to mind. I was not required to wear hunter’s orange since I was going to bow hunt. But I was going to be in the deer woods with hunters wielding high powered rifles anxious to take home a year’s worth of venison and a trophy for their wall – hunters who had to wear hunter’s orange.

The rule requiring only the hunters with firearms to wear blaze orange doesn't seem to me to address the issue. Anyone in the woods during rifle or muzzleloader season would benefit from wearing hunter’s orange – not just the ones with firearms. I make no claim on having all the answers. But I sometimes wonder what the regulators were thinking when some of our laws were devised.

On this day, I decided to stay at the cabin, out of the woods, and off the water were I could safely write this story.

AGAINST CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
By Mike Faulk

Conventional wisdom calls for placement of an arrow or bullet in the “vital” zone of big game animals. Impact and penetration in the lungs or heart lead to "clean, quick kills" so the logic goes. True enough, a broadside shot, accurately placed, does the job.

As a high schooler, I worked in a grocery store usually as a bag boy or stock boy; but, occasionally, as the butcher’s assistant. What, at the time seemed one of the worst jobs, in reality turned out to be one of those “illuminating” experiences I'm glad I had. In those days, health department regulations weren’t so stringent. At this time of year, we processed deer, too.

Rarely, if ever, does a bullet or arrow take a consistently straight course through an animal. The result, more often than not, is the loss of some of the prime cuts of meat from the harvested game.

Secondly, one must ask how often is the exact, intended point of impact actually hit. I believe the answer is “rarely”. Of course there is a multitude of good, near-perfect shots. There are even more effective shots in the sense of successfully harvesting the animal. What I’m talking about is that precise, marksman-like shot.

Since our effectiveness doesn’t require precision, many of us - me included -take shots based on the old adage: “close counts.” In our conscience, we each know how much success we’ve had taking marginal shots. But the lack of success of marginal shots is my point here. There’s no telling how many times this attitude has resulted in either a clean miss or, worse, a wounded animal which we are unable to retrieve.

Over the years, I’ve come to prefer a neck shot. Miss too high and it’s a clean miss. Miss a little high and the spine shot is still deadly. Miss too low and it’s a clean miss. Miss a little low and it’s a deadly jugular shot.

A successful neck shot will at worst cost you a neck roast. What you preserve in the prime cuts of meat by a successful neck shot more than make up for that lost neck roast. Bon appetite!

THE BEAST OF BAYS MOUNTAIN
By Mike Faulk

The rain began Wednesday night.

It was one of those bone-chilling drizzles that sets-in for days in the winter of the southern Appalachians. Temperatures don’t quite go below freezing; but, might as well. Those with arthritis know the type rain I describe and the aching it triggers.

Clouds delivering this weather seem to cling to the ground. Other than the precipitation they bring, these clouds could easily be confused with fog. And they make it dark – even in the middle of the day.

The boat ride to the cabin Friday evening was miserable. With temperatures hovering just at 32 degrees, it should have been snowing; but, it wasn’t. Instead we had freezing rain – the stuff that falls as liquid but becomes solid ice when making contact with cold objects – like the jon boat.

Weather forecasters predicted an end to these hostilities in the wee hours of the morning.

It would take most of the night for the fireplace and propane space heaters to get the cabin comfortable. Were the rain to let up, wildlife of all types would be on the move at first light. They, too, had been locked down since Wednesday. If the rain didn’t let up, it was going to be a fine morning to sleep in.

I consider it a treat to spend time at the cabin even in nasty weather. The cozy factor is especially high in inclement weather. Since there was some chance the rain would turn to snow overnight, my excitement level was also high. I love to hunt in a fresh skiff of snow. It takes me back to those Faulk-boy rabbit hunts of my youth.

There was no pressure to kill a deer this weekend. Brother Loy took the largest deer any of the regulars had ever harvested on Strum Island two weeks ago during muzzleloader season. The perfectly shaped rack of the 8 point buck was so very, very wide. Ones thumb and forefinger could not touch in trying to hold the main beam of the antlers. The gross weight of the animal far exceeded two hundred pounds. He was a hoss. There would be plenty of shared venison for months to come.

Answering the 4:45 a.m. alarm, I arose to immediately check the weather and temperature. The sound from the tin roof told me it was either raining lightly or something was dripping off the main roof down onto the porch roof. The flashlight illuminated a thermometer outside the kitchen window that beaconed a balmy 34 degrees. There was no snow on the ground.

A good friend gave me a Garmin handheld weather station for Christmas a few years back. It showed the barometer had steadied. I ventured onto the porch and learned the noise from the roof was run-off. The cloud cover or the fog was right on the ground. The woods’ edge was not visible and certainly the lights from distant farm houses were obscured.

Having made the decision to hunt rather than sleep, I donned my hip waders and backpack, clipped on my cap-bill light, and made the seven minute walk from the cabin to the sluice duck blind.

River fog seems to have no compass of its own. It moves first in one direction then the other. Aided on this morning by the transient fog, the darkness seemed to hang on well past daybreak. At times I was able to glass the flat to the north of my perch in the blind.

Most likely I was going to have to depend on my hearing for success. Subtle changes in the sound of running water would be the only clue I would have in advance of a deer wondering out into the river and into range.

Leupold’s Wind River binoculars are superb. The wide field of vision seems to let all available light into the recticle – evening my odds on days like this. However, the best optics can’t pierce Holston River-bottom fog. Scanning the flat and ridges was clearly a hit-and-miss proposition.

On one of my binocular sweeps across the river bottom hardwoods, I saw a bit of white in an out-of-place place. The harder I concentrated on looking to see what this aberration was, the thicker the fog became until I could no longer see. Finding the same spot a second time was not guaranteed.

When the flat was again revealed by the ever-mobile fog, I searched the area and saw the hind quarter of a deer – a huge deer. The head and front half of the animal was obscured by weeds. In the dimmest of light I could tell it was oblivious to my presence as it grazed on some greens.

By sheer will-power I tried to keep the fog at bay long enough to get a look at the rest of this animal. I was fighting a losing battle; or so I thought.

Canting every so slightly to its left I saw the girth of this creature. It was a third again as big as the deer Loy killed only days before. I helped carry that deer out of the woods to a point where it could be field dressed. Having a recent basis for comparison, I knew I was staring at a monster.

The body mass foreshadowed the antlers. Twisting his head to the left and pulling some plant out of the ground, the buck revealed the left main beam. It was milky white. At the point where the first tine above the brow tine branches off, the antler beam was not cylindrical but was instead oval shaped and wide.

In awe, I could hear a voice in my head: “brow tine – that’s one, 12 to 14 inch T-2 – that’s two, 9-10 inch T-3 – that’s three, 7-8 inch T-4– that’s four, 6 inch T-5 – that’s five, 4 inch T-6 – that’s six . . . “ And then with an eerie clarity I’ll never for the rest of my life forget, that same inner-voice that was doing the counting of antler points said, “You might want to look at all those points through your scope instead of your binoculars!”

In a panic and in obeyance to the inner-voice, I eased the binoculars down. With abundant caution I took the one step from my seat to get my rifle. I remained low using the side of the blind to shield me from the deer. I securely gripped the rifle and reversed course. Gently I reclaimed my seat. Before shouldering the rifle, I took the obligatory deep breath. This would be the deer of a lifetime. It would most surely make Boone and Crockett. I shouldered the weapon and opened my right eye to see the Beast of Bays Mountain through my scope.

No more than thirty seconds had elapsed from the time the inner voice admonished me to get my gun and the time I looked through the scope rather than the binoculars. In those thirty seconds, the fog had returned. I steadied the rifle in the general direction of the deer. I reconfirmed the magnification power was at its lowest so I’d have the broadest field of vision when the fog cleared.

Seemingly like an eternity, the fog did, indeed, clear in only a minute. The beast had disappeared. I scoured that flat for half an hour. There was nothing where moments before there had been the biggest whitetail deer I had ever seen in my lifetime – either on television or in the field. Even the fog was now gone.

That deer profoundly affected me. I have so many wonderful memories from my days in the field. I cherish them all. I enjoy recalling them – even writing about them helps me relive and re-enjoy those good times. But I’ve never had one five-minute segment of my hunting life replayed so many times in my mind.

The Beast of Bays Mountain has gotten inside my head. I have debates with my inner voice demanding to know why it didn’t speak up sooner.

I’m convinced the beast had become completely nocturnal. In those five minutes on that dreary, fog-bound, night-like November morning, when all seemed safe and dark to him, his inner voice - the one that had gotten him to the size and stature of a true giant - said “you are not alone; move on.”

Maybe we’ll see one another again someday – some rainy, cold, miserable black day. Oh what a day that will be! There will be no debate with the inner voice. I’ll be looking at the Beast of Bays Mountain through my scope – not my binoculars.