The old man had just settled into the makeshift wooden ground blind from which he had hunted since the early sixties. Oh, he had ‘doctored’ up the blind many times with sheet metal and plywood but a blind has been in place since he first began hunting the spot many years ago. He’s only missed a couple of opening mornings hunting here, way back in the late sixties when Uncle Sam needed his assistance.

The blind was situated on the back forty, behind the farm house where the old man grew up. Years ago, he was able to purchase the farm from his sisters, after his dad passed away. 

The old man was hunting ‘old school’ the way he had as a boy, no fancy feeders with timers or scent dispensers, he had urinated in a buck scrape on the edge of the field he was hunting well before first light, most younger hunters would never understand the concept of urinating in a buck scrape but the old man learned years ago that the technique was one of the best ways of keeping a rutting buck in the area long enough for a shot. He had learned the trick from his grandfather who was also a lifelong deer hunter.

The white oaks had produced a bumper crop of acorns this year and the persimmon trees in the field were loaded with fruit. With a light frost on the ground and no wind, the stage was set for a great morning hunt. The conditions were perfect, the kind of opening days deer hunters dream of!

But things felt a bit different to the old man this opening day. He didn’t have that burning desire of years past to put his tag on a big buck. Oh, he planned to settle the sights of his old lever action thirty-thirty if a big one showed up at the scrape but this morning, he was content to just ‘be there’.

The night before he had stayed up a little late visiting with one of his grandsons who was also hunting on the far side of the property. The two had enjoyed an early morning breakfast of venison and wild pork sausage, biscuits and gravy. Now the old man was getting a little sleepy. The sun was just beginning to top the oaks on the far side of the field and he was getting sleepy, he nodded and dozed off. He was dreaming about a day way back to 1962 when he was a 12-year-old kid sitting in the exact same spot armed with the same rifle.

In his dream, he could see a young lad sitting in the newly built blind, leaning forward with eagle eyes scanning every inch of the field and nearby wood line for a buck. The boy had never killed a deer but he felt hopeful this morning, after all he had hit the center of a metal 5 gallon bucket 5 times with his new rifle. He was ready.

Then out of the early morning mist, right on the edge of the woodline came a deer and upon close inspection he could tell it was a buck, a spike buck! With shaking hands, partly from the chilly early morning air and partly adrenaline, he eased his rifle up to the window and settled the sights in the crease behind the buck’s front shoulder.

His dream then fast forwarded him to his early twenties; he was in the same blind with his grandfather who he had carefully helped walk from the truck to the blind. The grandfather’s eyesight was not sharp but with the help of a quality 6 power scope, he could shoot accurately the distance across the field, about 75 yards.

The old man’s dream kept bouncing him through the years, as dreams often do, with snippets of things that have remained hidden in the mind’s memory bank. Next he saw an older, more mature version of himself in his late thirties. The man in the blind was in his prime, clad in a checkered black and red Woolrich jacket, high leather boots and blue jeans. He had driven his brand new Honda Big Red three wheeler to a patch of brush and concealed it and walked to the blind. If he was lucky enough to shoot a buck, he would use the ATV to haul the meat out.  The old man had a job that paid good money and he spent some of it on the latest hunting gear, which included the ATV as well as a brand new rifle and top of the line scope. He was hunting with a 300 Winchester magnum now; the old thirty-thirty was back at the house hanging above the fireplace which was its home since he was a boy. He had ‘read up’ on the advantages of the new caliber and finally could afford a new rifle. 

The old man’s dream was interrupted by the chattering of a fox squirrel in a hickory tree just behind the blind. He was not fully awake nor was he fully asleep when he heard the report of a rifle coming from the far side of his property. Since there were no other hunters in the area, he felt confident that the shot came from his grandson’s rifle, one of those new fangled calibers, something called a Creedmoor or some name like that.  Grandson was a crack shot with the rifle topped with a scope that cost more than the old Man’s first pickup. It was a good bet the youngster had a buck on the ground.

The old man cut his hunt short. He just had to know what his grandson had killed; besides, the boy might need some advice when field dressing the animal. When the old man finally arrived at his grandson’s blind, he saw him with skinning knife in hand field dressing a fine 10 point buck. The boy was smiling ear to ear and although the old man noticed a few errors the boy was doing with the field dressing process, he remained quiet, giving only praise and congratulations to the young hunter.

Back at camp the two skinned and quartered the buck which weighed a whopping 160 pounds field dressed, by far the heaviest deer taken on the property. The old man could not have been happier had he taken the buck himself. He did ask the boy to place half of one backstrap in a freezer bag. This would be for a celebratory dinner after the evening hunt. The old man had a special way of cooking thickly cut backstrap in a cast iron skillet with butter and fresh garlic that he had perfected through the years.

After another late night visiting with his grandson and enjoying a very fine venison dinner, the old man’s alarm clock jingled at the appointed 5 a.m. He turned it off and asked the boy in the next room if he wanted to hunt for a doe that morning. The boy replied with a resounding yes and he and his grandfather settled into the old blind just before the break of day.

As the old man watched his grandson’s keen eyes scan the area for deer, he thought back many, many years when he was about the boy’s age, sitting in the exact spot watching for his first buck. A good memory is said to be one of the biggest blessings of old age and this morning, the old man’s was reliving his past hunts as though he was actually there again, in that same old blind.    

Email outdoors writer Luke Clayton through his website www.catfishradio.org