Our mountain hunt...

[HarvDog]

My buddies, Mike and Joel, and I packed up his Jeep with all of our hunting gear and headed to Mike’s property on Great North Mountain outside Strasburg, Virginia. Through very dense fog, we arrived at the trailer around 1am on Friday morning, October 15, 2004. After unpacking, getting the trailer ready, and settling down, we finally went to bed around 2am.

The plan was for Mike to hunt from a stand he hung earlier down at the base of the mountain which would take about 30 – 45 minutes to reach from the trailer. As a result, he would get up first before 5am and head out. Joel and I would hunt from two different ladder stands a bit closer to the trailer…maybe a 10 minutes hike. We all hoped to be in our stands by 6am which would give us at least 30 minutes before any daylight.

We all pretty much woke up around 5am anticipating the daily hunt. We realized that the fog was still just as heavy as when we arrived. Mike quickly got ready inside then went outside to finish gearing up and ensuring that he was scent-free. Joel and I quickly got ready as well and found Mike still packing up when we got outside. That was around 5:45am so he was running a bit behind. Mike headed towards his stand a few minutes later. After Joel and I finished getting ready, we headed towards our stands. The fog was so dense we had difficulty even finding the reflective trail markers. We finally found my stand after going up and down the trail a couple of times. As I started to get setup in my stand, I could still hear Joel trying to locate his stand which was probably 100 yards away. I saw his flashlight coming back towards me at one point through the fog as we tried to get back on the trail. Did I mention how thick this fog was? He finally found his stand and we were both settled in around 6:15am. Around 6:30am, I heard from Joel and learned that Mike had encountered all kinds of problems and still had not reached his stand.

Daylight came and the hunt was on. The fog was still very thick and started playing tricks on us throughout the morning. Occasionally, it would completely clear away for 10 – 15 seconds then would role back in again even thicker. By 10:30am, neither one of us had seen ANYTHING…no bear, no deer, no fox…only fog. Around 11am, Joel and I decided to head to the trailer to take a break, warm up a bit, get some food, layer up some more, and head back out. Joel had tried to contact Mike a few times before we headed in but didn’t get any response. We figured that he either had deer around him or was asleep. After eating some lunch and taking a short nap, Mike showed up at the trailer and BOY did he have a story.

When we left the trailer that morning, the fog was so thick that he couldn’t find the reflective trail markers either…sound familiar? On his trip down the mountain, he got a bit lost but ended up finding the creek which would lead him towards his stand. Finding the creek was good and bad. He partially fell into the creek getting his boots and feet completely soaked. After searching for awhile, Mike was started to wonder if someone had stolen his treestand. He decided to use is GPS to try to locate it. While rummaging through his backpack to find his GPS, he started hearing a loud hissing noise coming from his backpack. It was his bear-mace! Somehow, he had tripped the safety switch and this stuff was spraying all over the place including on him. He couldn’t see anything…not because of the fog this time…and all he could smell was pepper! Mike had to sit down for about 30 minutes to regain his sight and composure. Where many would quit after all of this Mike trudged on, found his stand, and commenced to hunt for black bear and big whitetail bucks with his bow!

By 11:30am, Mike hadn’t seen anything either so he decided to call it quits. He planned to still hunt on his way back up the mountain. While coming back up the mountain, Mike ended up wiping his face and eyes with gloves that were still covered in bear mace. Blind again, he had to sit down for 20 minutes before he could continue.

When Mike finally made it back to the trailer, his skin was red like a sunburn from the mace. He said it was still burning. After we shared our stories and laughed about everything that happened, we all ended up falling asleep. That was probably around 2pm. We all woke up to a heavy down-pouring of rain and realized that it was after 5pm. There went our evening hunt…oh well. Instead, we headed down to the general store to pickup some junk food. On our way back, the headlights of the Jeep caught two little eyes on the dirt road ahead of us. Wow…our first wildlife of the day! We thought it was either a gray fox or a small bobcat. We continued down the road and it ran along the road ahead of us. Finally, it veered off the road into some tall grass. We couldn’t believe that it was still standing there as we approached…until…we realized that it was a STINKIN’ HOUSE CAT!!!! Oh my goodness, the three great white hunters! We should have stayed home with the ladies and watched chick-flicks.

Maybe next time….