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Smoke School Stories

Finally got a deer Sunday December 5 @ 4PM

This is the first deer that I have taken in at least 10 years. I guess I have been working too hard and just did not have a place to go. I have been buying Hay for my men and beer for my horses from M&M Hay Company near Eros Louisiana for the past few years. He had a deer stand in his pasture and a duck pond and a food plot. He said I could hunt there, so I took him up on it. My other Brother Joe and I had just driven around Winnfield all day looking for a place to camp in Kisatchie Forrest  and hunt without any luck. In 1998 I saw 20 deer having a feeding frenzy in a pin oak flat 100 yards north of mile marker 84 on Louisiana Highway 84 near Winnfield, Louisiana. The land now has posted signs on it and there is now a house there in the woods. The house had a for sale sign on it if you are interested.

We gave up and passed by Eros on the way home. I decided to stop by and ask if we could hunt there at M&M hay farm. M&M was busy working in his shop a hundred yards from the stand. He said we would not see anything, because he said he had sat in there all week and not seen a thing since hunting season started in November. I answered “Beginner’s Luck”. He had painted the stand green to match the color of the alfalfa hay field in the spring. The stand was a 4 ft, by 4 ft, by 6 ft high box about a foot off the ground, with windows and a nice comfortable captain’s chair inside.  The stand was too small for Joe and I to sit in, it was cold and very windy. Joe decided to go back home. I took a thermos of coffee and a novel, my 30-06, & binoculars and walked out to the stand at 3PM. I planned to stay until dark about 5:30PM read a few chapters and go home. Every few pages I would look up, drink some coffee, light a Winston, and peer through the binoculars. I looked at my call phone pocket watch and it was 4PM. Time flies when you are having fun. I looked up from the phone and the doe, Bambi was strutting across the pasture from the woods near the feed plot. I got a case of buck fever, my heart rate raced; I was shaking like a leaf. I raised ole Betsy to the side rail on the window of the stand. I have had the gun 5 years and it was the first time that I ever shot it. Bambi was strutting trotting fast from left to right. I could not hold the scope steady. I kept trying to lead the dear and let her run into the scope. I tried to whistle. Daddy always said if you whistle at a deer they will stop. I could not whistle. Finally Bambi stopped. I was shaking too much to find the crosshairs. I squeezed the trigger. Bambi ran like hell and put the only tree, a white oak tree, in the pasture between us and disappeared from my view. And there she was GONE, showed me this white flag.

T thought well, I may have hit her, so I will wait here to almost dark, get my mule and go see if there is a blood trail. I poured another cup of Community fresh ground coffee into my thermos cup. Picked up the novel and read a few more pages. After about 10 minutes, I took an eye tour of the field. Straight out in front of me about 75 yards I saw the other deer (turned out to be a spike buck) standing frozen at the foot of the forest where it has been feeding on red oak acorns. I assume the buck was standing there frozen since I fired the first shot. He was trying to see me and see where the shot came from. I could not quiet make out that it was a deer because it was the exact same color as the dried hay in the field and the dried leaves under the oak tree forest. I picked up the binoculars and sure enough it was a deer. I could not tell if it was a doe or a buck, but in Louisiana both are legal.

I put down my coffee and the binoculars and raise ole Betsy to the window rail. This time I took the time to reach up and turn off my hearing aids. I remembered what I learned in Air Force marksmanship where I qualified as an expert in the 1960s. I remembered what my daddy (a quick draw police expert, Marine Corp Marksman, and instructor of LSU Law Enforcement Institute taught me). I held my breath, rested Betsy on the window frame, put the crosshairs on the front shoulder, and squeezed the trigger like an orange. To my amazement the spike just toppled over. This is where I have a conscience problem. I love to hunt, but I hate seeing anything die. For this reason I use a 30-06 big grain bullet 180 grain. I sit back, poured another cup of coffee, read a few pages, and waited.

Within a few minutes I saw M&M walking towards me from the shop. He walked up to me and said you missed the first one, she ran off into the woods over there. Then he said lets go get the other one. He walked over to the deer and said you got a spike. He said it looks like the doe was strutting for the spike and the spike was chasing the doe. I guess the rut in Northeast Louisiana has just started. Neither of us has seen many deer this year yet. Deer go crazy during the rut. M&M brought his 4 wheeler over and we loaded the deer. Then he said the work is just beginning. He was absolutely right. We loaded the spike on the trailer behind my mule. It took my other Brother Joe and me 3 hours to dress the spike in the darkness of the freezing cold in the backyard. We have not had much experience lately.

 I love to hunt because I love it. I have been hunting since I was 4 years old. I started with my mother. My first gun shot plastic ping pong balls. I remember the first deer I ever saw. Momma was drinking from a cup of Community coffee from her thermos. We were sitting against a white oak tree by a big blazing pine knot fire in Concordia Parish at my grandfather’s Roddy White old deer camp. Momma was looking to the right and I was looking to the left. A doe walked up. Back then does were illegal. Momma refused to shoot the doe. So I did with my ping pong ball. The doe ran off. I chased the doe into the woods. Momma screamed come back. There are lions and tigers and bears out there.

At this time, we are searching for other pastures to hunt in Northeast Louisiana. Email us smokeschool@yahoo.com if you have any suggestions.