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Hunting
By Michael Layfield On Oct. 27, 1997 I hunted a pine grove on Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany, Georgia. The wind was out of the northwest at 15 mph and the temperature was dropping into the low 40s. Earlier in the day while working I saw a buck bedding with a doe in this…
Mid-November, peak of the rut, and I was in hot pursuit of a trophy whitetail buck. Perched high in a pine tree at the edge of field, I waited eagerly for a buck to approach down the trail and provide a bow shot. As it neared dusk, I looked across the field and spotted a…
I was hunting in Gwinnett County on Sept. 28, 1997 at 7:10 p.m. when I finally got a shot. It was the first time I had been able to hunt this season. There is a small tract of land, about 40 to 50 acres in size, where I’ve seen a few deer and yearlings for…
Opening day of any season is always a learning experience, and none more so than the first morning out trekking around attempting to run down a few rabbits. There are new dogs to break in, others to whip into shape, weather obstacles to overcome — and we haven’t even started yet. So you never quite…
I couldn’t tell if the roar came from the creek or the rain pelting trees and leaves around me. It was raining that hard. Saturday, Nov. 11: A sky as soft gray as my son’s stuffed dog rained without mercy on Dukes Creek Woods Conservation Area and the rest of northeast Georgia. The downpour raised…
Dry leaves, the cold, dead husks of another summer, were twirling down in sheets over the swamp, blanketing the dry ground, dotting the surface of the black creek water, piling up against limbs that hung in the current. Sweet gum leaves cracked under the hooves of the Cemetery Buck as it plodded slowly beside a…
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye just as I pulled my rattling antlers apart. I slowly turned for a better look; but whatever it was that had made the movement was no longer visible. I softly blew a grunt tube, and at the sound of the grunt the buck jerked his…
Darkness was beginning to lift when the deer that Jay called the Bay Buck came creeping through a list mist to the sheltered side of the Hornets Nest. The buck made no noise except for the droplet-sounds of icy water falling from its hoofs. It passed through the flooded tupelo and black gum on the…
When the Cemetery Buck finished rubbing the oak, the tree was already dying. The straight, slender trunk of the turkey oak sapling had drawn the buck across a hundred yards of wiregrass prairie. It stood among other young trees and sapling stalks, but something about the one tree pulled at an instinctive cord, and the…
The Cemetery Buck drifted through the early morning September fog like a specter. It walked in smooth, silent strides and seemed to float over the dim trail without touching the earth. On its flanks and throat were the scabbed-over wounds left by the wild dogs more than a month ago, but otherwise its thickening coat…
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