Whitetail Nation by Pete Bodo

Author:Pete Bodo [Bodo, Pete]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Hunting alone reminds you that solitude is a different state of being, in which you have a much denser specific gravity. We're both meant for it and lucky to be rid of it when we return home to see the porch light on, and shadows moving across the curtains beyond the door.

One morning when the Aagesons were otherwise occupied, I took the truck and went to hunt in a coulee that begins as a shallow ditch at the corner of a vast wheat field and ends up widening into a spectacular steep-walled canyon. I was out early and saw a few deer filtering back into the coulee after an evening of feeding on the CRP land above. But it was still too dark to identify them by sex. Once the sun hit the field, I threw a sandwich and a bottle of water into my pack and set out. The sharp breeze made me pull up the hood of my sweatshirt. My ears wouldn't be much use on this hunt anyway.

This draw runs south, with a stock reservoir twice the length of a football field at the upper, north end. Below the reservoir, the coulee gets deep, dramatic, and rugged, with tributary draws. I enjoyed walking and glassing the broken terrain just over the lip of the prairie. Now and then, I'd find a good spot to sit and carefully glass the walls of the coulee and the flat at the bottom. I came across some bitterroot, Montana's lovely state flower, and many patches of my own favorite, the prickly pear cactus. In the fall, the pale green discs of this small cactus are rimmed with delicate shades of orange, red, and blue. It looks more like an exotic fish you might find twenty leagues under the sea than a desert plant.

About half a mile from where I left the truck, another major coulee comes in from the northeast, just below the reservoir. Movement caught my eye; four deer were running down the steep opposite bank. One of them was a fine five-by-five buck, a definite trophy of Boone and Crockett quality.

The deer ran into the big tributary draw, vanishing around the corner of a tawny bluff. I decided to track them, knowing that the draw ended in a cul-de-sac with nothing but prairie above. I started picking my way down the nearly vertical slope.

The bottom of the coulee was a patchwork of bright green grasses and large, multicolored mineral stains. It was still, even though a good breeze rattled the dry wheat stems up on the plains. I sat down on a pleasantly warm rock to drink some water and enjoy the sunshine; moving too fast is usually a greater mistake than proceeding slowly. Suddenly, the back of my neck went prickly. This wasn't mountain lion or bear country, and I was carrying a 7 mm. magnum rifle. I had nothing to fear, but being on the floor of the coulee gave me the willies. The walls towering all around me made me feel as if I were being watched.

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