New Years Day Judy and I walked to a place I call Judy's Ridge in a section of Hoosier National Forest that borders the Corp of Engineers property along Patoka Lake. We hiked up to a small wooded knoll where an old forgotten homestead lays abandoned. As we stood and talked we caught sight of a group of bucks moving out of a wooded thicket a hundred yards in front of us. We stood motionless and quiet as the four bucks -- two small four pointers, a basket racked six and a big twelve pointer -- worked toward us. The wind was perfect for us and the bucks had no clue we were there. When the bucks were fifty yards out one of the small four pointers turned on the big twelve and we watched them spar for a good thirty seconds. The three smaller bucks moved along a trail off the knoll, but the big twelve gave us quite a show and moved in to about thirty yards before catching our scent and busting away.
We moved through the timber to a hidden cove where a large group of mallards had taken residence and we stopped our winter hike to enjoy the sights and sounds of the migrating waterfowl.
I stopped hunting this section of the Hoosier National years ago. I always plan to go back, but for some reason I always find an excuse not to. Some of the sign we found along our hike makes me wish I had made it back this year though.
The snowy hike was a great way to start the year and we knew we were lucky to be a part of the winter woods. We cut our tracks at the lonesome hemlock and followed our trail through the snow back toward the knoll where we saw the bucks. We soon found we weren't the only ones following our trail on out -- a red fox, too, had cut our trail and we followed him out of the woods.
