The Horseweed Field

The first time I hunted the horseweed field I saw all I needed to know that the place was a good spot.  Early one morning I set out for the field with an improvised deer stand in my pack.  I had drilled a couple of holes in a thick cedar slab and threaded a long nylon rope through them.  I pulled myself up in a mid size box elder tree and tied off to a couple of strong limbs in the early morning darkness.  I had a good clear opening in front of me with a fresh scrape twenty yards from me.  A constant west wind was blowing into my face which is somewhat of a rare occurrence in the bottomlands I like to hunt.  Typically, the winds seem to constantly adjust and blow from one direction for a while and then change up and blow from another.  I try to compensate for this by taking extreme caution with my scent control and climbing a little higher into the trees I hunt.  This morning I felt it was just a matter of time before something good showed up.

After four hours of watching squirrels and birds discomfort and hunger finally won out.  I climbed out, left for lunch, and returned a couple of hours later.  Upon my return I quietly waded through a small stream back to the tree and pulled myself up.  My camouflage BDU's brushed against a lower limb, making a noise I could barely hear, but it was all a pair of big bucks needed to get up and leave.  I watched in dread as two wide, tall-tined bucks stood up in the tall weeds no more than twenty yards from me and strolled away.  The bucks never winded me, but that little bit of unnatural noise was all it took for them to find a safer place to bed.  A little more patience or better preparation would have paid big dividends that day, but it was still an enjoyable hunt.  For a long time I watched the bucks walk away in the tall horseweeds, shredding saplings as they went.  Though most of the pictures I get in the area are night time pictures, I see enough daytime movement here to give the place a couple of sits each year.

The horseweeds are giving way to saplings now, but a good clear trail still runs along the stream bottom.  Hopefully this year I will find time to wade back in and see what walks along.