I spent 3 days and nights at a posh hunting resort scouting spring gobblers on the southern WV mountain farm that has been in my family for four generations. I consider it a privilege to relate to you a tale of my first 24 hours hammock camping.
The following occurred between 5:00 and 8:30 p.m. Arrived Sun evening, readied camp and collected water. 8:30, west side of tarp open to a clear sky and east side down to temper the light of the ¾ moon as it passed from east to southwest. I turned in and begin to read a dime store novel entitled “Outback” about the life and times of this nubile Aborigine Amazon that was sold by her family into an arranged marriage with an Austrailian sheep herder as non-natives first begin to invade Australia.
10:00 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. 10:00 p.m. A Barred Owl announced that (s)he was the ruler of the night woods. I took that as a sign it was time to water the trees, crawl back in me hammock and go to sleep. 3:20 a.m., the coyotes nightly hunt began as they passed on the ridge 300 yards above me raising quite the ruckus. I had visions of a large male sitting on his haunches in the moonlit goat trail of a road with his ears perked and his head cocked sideways peering at my rig and asking himself “Just what the Sam Hades is THAT configuration?”… enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up I tell ya.
5:00 a.m. Awoke with a jerk as the barred owls decided to have a hoot as a prelude to what undoubtedly, from the sounds, was an owl orgy. They went on for a good 15 minutes. I rolled out and stumbled into the hunting cabin and try as I might to convince myself that my Trangia was the way to go, I caved and cranked the cabin’s propane burner knob and the blue flame sprang forth with the familiar whoosh. Two cups of tea, 3 triscuits with peanut butter and a morning constitutional later, I was on my way back to the hammock to listen to the spring woods greet the day, hoping to hear turkey gobbles…being as how I had heard every other sound on the mountain from there all night, I figured what the heck.
6:40 a.m. As the early morning symphony passed from prelude to crescendo, a gobbler erupted right on cue. He followed up his first with a half dozen more gaarrraabbles for good measure. He was roosted near the top of the hill near the property access gate. Hmmmn, what to do?
As turkey hunting is a game of patience and finesse, I took my good ol’ time, partook of more tea and then dressed in full battle field regalia (sans a weapon as the season is not yet in) and eased up the ridge. It is early and the woods are wide open, so as I approached to within a couple hundred yards of where I estimated the bird had sounded off, I slipped into a hide and parked my tookus.
I fully intended to “take Mr. Tom’s temperature” by offering him some sweet yelps, cuts and purrs, imitating a sweet young hen ready for action. I slipped a well conditioned slate and peg out of my vest and began to call in earnest softness and then waited. No response. I waited 15 minutes and tried another sequence…nothing. I circled to the far side of the knob I thought the gobbler had called from and repeated calling. Nadda. I broadened the search grid and did so three more times. Either he had all the hens he could ever want…or my calling insulted his intelligence!
11:00 a.m. After striking out, I hiked a circle passing likely turkey hangouts looking for sign. Sparse would be an apt description. As I made my way back past the knob, I called again just in case he had had his way with his hens and was growing lonesome, but alas just more practice on my part. The wind began to kick up and I could hear thunder rolling to the west. Muttering a few unkind words about the ancestors of the local weather forecasters (nary a word of rain, only summer-like heat), I found a new gear and scampered back to camp to lower my tarp and tuck in my kit.
12:30 p.m. After securing sector??? (say Shug, what sector is WV anyways?), let’s say sector 35 because WV was the 35th state to join the union; I played with a sharp pointy thing for a while whittling on my newly acquired walking stick. A fine reach of air seasoned Yellow Poplar…stout and light, whose grip was now fully dressed with 25 ft of 550.
I returned to read of my hot Aborigine chick as the rain rolled through and the heat index kicked up a few notches. It was definitely NAP TIME! Since it was a full 10 degrees cooler inside the cabin, I crawled into a bunk and snoozed away the afternoon.
After recharging with a thermos mug supper, I hiked to a point in the opposite direction of the morning’s scout to look for sign and hopefully hear a bird sound off in the distance as it roosted. No such luck.
Well into the dark side of dusk (read pitch black), I slipped back in my hammock to read as a new round of thunderstorms rolled in. The tarp rattled and the hammock swayed and bumped in the wind gusts as the upper atmosphere lightning put on quite the light show and I read of Australia until the wee hours.
Thus concludes the tale.
Miscellaneous observations…
Did I mention that weather(wo)men are bloody sods? (sorry, too much Aussie literature as of late)
Let me assure you that 5:00 a.m. is NOT the time to discover the bat roosted in the privy; neither from the bat’s nor my perspective. Sure did hasten my movement!!
Ma Nature puts on a fantastic light show.
Cheap tarps sag a lot when drenched (but no leaks!).
Life as a pollen filter SUCKS!
Deer snorting around camp half the night the third night is a good thing…no coyotes about.
I’m fairly certain I aurally witnessed the prelude to a Barred Owl orgy.
Hammock camping makes a most excellent spring tonic.
If you’ve lasted through this drivel (my condolences) yet still haven’t had enough, an accompanying pictorial can be found here.
AND, it you are truly masochistic, Shadow (sweet thing in my avatar) relates an illustrated tale of her first night camping on Freezeland here (pic heavy). [LINK to Shadow's tale REMOVED, have to be a forum member to view, my apologies. Thanks for the heads up waddy.]
Thanks for listening and
Y’all please say a prayer for the Montcoal miners and their families.
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