The Beagle Napper

Remember this: A good dog always keeps his nose either to the ground or in the air.

This evening I spent about two or three hours in a 12 acre Pine stand with a machete cutting off the lower limbs to make way for a tractor to drive through the rows. There were places riddled with briars. I was also keeping Deep Woods Off in business but the thought of poisioning myself with deet and helping the mosquitoes spread West Nile didn't make no never mind to me. By the time I got through I had lost more than one battle with the thorned bush as the tale tell red marks were on my ankles. I was making my observations as I was walking through. The pine stand abutts a cotton field but has a grass road around it so one can drive a full circle around it. I was moving along at a relaxed pace whacking and looking at the ground. I noticed something heavy with a big split toe was visiting the spot. I thought that was interesting as there were not a lot of tracks to see there. Out on the sandy dirt road I could see the deer prints traveling up and down the drive. I walked along the cotton field. Nothing. Maybe it was Santa's reindeer I thought or a Jesus deer that could walk on water or not touch land? Probably not. One blister, one broken ax and a bad tick investation later, my son and I went back to the ranch. I wanted to get this hanging feeder out of a tree because it was never used and there was another one left on a different tree. My son drove along the outside of a field in a fit to get revenge for almost tossing him and his friends out my truck~he almost tossed me: right into the bushes. Don't worry! I am an old pro. I held on for dear life. lmao.

Let me tell you. This kid was complaining about everything at this point but he was hungry. After we got this big J shaped PCV pipe I instructed him on which way to go. I got him to drive through the woods which he dubiously did. I don't think he trusts me sometimes? I got out and moved limbs for him. We finally got through the woods to the other side where I wanted to be and put up the feeder. Looking over the acreage you can see that the deer tore through it since they cut the pine stand from last year down by eating leaves and stripping anything green. Now in some places its like a tunnel system you would see underground. Dark and uninviting. One of my prospects was to grow ginger root in the area.
After we finished this I took my son home to feed him but then came back to sit in a stand in the far rear of the acreage. I figured I wouldn't see anything but got a little squirmy back there for some reason.
I will not lie. The other day I saw a buck come out the woods trailing his girls. Since then I have been anxious over this deer and worried someone else would shoot him before I did. Oh the horror! lmao. I have been mulling it over trying to figure out where to position myself to get this one buck. He runs slow and he holds his head like a chinese goose that is about to attack. Down and forward. Moving he doesn't look very big. Maybe he is a midget deer. Big rack no substance? This buck is one of those kind that will sleep under your window at night then knock on it with his horns saying, "Haa haa. Here I am. You haven't got me yet, you moron."
Back to my train of thought, I was sitting in this stand being all squirmy and playing with a buck grunt. While I waited I tied this blistering bright orange nylon string onto the 30-30. I wanted it to hang across my back and not off my shoulder this way I could crawl in and out of tree without the butt of the gun hitting beneath me. I have no idea why but all day I was thinking in my mind that it wasn't a day to sit in a stand or be on the look out. As I was sitting there I thought I heard the voices of men but they sounded like they were coming from a tube? I finally got to hot and said, "Screw it. I am going to the house." I crawled out the stand and made my way back across the field in grass that was way over my head. The idea that something could come tearing through there did cross my mind. I walked up to my truck but saw something moving. I stopped then realized it was a tri-colored beagle with an orange color. I started to call him thinking he might come to me. He crept off under the truck. I offered it some water in a ceramic flower pot. No go. It acted like it wanted to come to me but grinned then went back under the truck. I started to laugh at it and asked, "Do you have rabies? You looked like you have rabies." He grinned again from under the bed of my truck. I laid my rifle up on the tailgate. Who the hell had turned their dog loose back here? Or was it from somewhere else. I decided I would just get in my truck. Once I did I sat there thinking about this stupid dog that looked a little old. Ugh! I thought I would make one last try. I opened the door and looked back at the dog who was at my tailgate. "Dog, I am going to leave you here to die unless you would like a ride?" I hit my leg a time or two then waited. He was thinking about it. Finally after a hilarious stare down and one toothy grin he conceded to me and walked over with his head down. I felt kinda bad for him. That dog knew it was go time. He crawls up to my foot and lays down on his belly like he's saying, "I don't know what you're going to do to me but I don't want to stay here." I didn't know if he was one of those kinds of dogs that if you pick them up they will bite you. I reached down and grabbed him by the loose skin on his neck then hauls him into my lap. I tossed him into the passenger seat where he laid down full on panting. I shut the door and started to laugh as I looked at this dog. "It's your lucky day dog. Aren't you glad I came along?" I turned on the truck then drove back off with the dog who looked like a Barney. I got back to the house and wrote the number down then called his master. His master was this skinny guy driving a Nissan. When he came to collect him, two huge guys jumped out and I wondered how they all got in there. I stopped skill sawing a board then gave him his dog who stunk up my truck. I did feed him some dog food and water him.  This guy named Tron (someone liked Disney I guess) told me he was using these beagles to run deer across the river. They swam acrossed it to find their way on my side. Now I know why the deer came out the swamp on Friday. I didn't say much to him but they packed back in the sardine can truck then took off to look for the other dogs they turned loose and left. I did notice they didn't have tracking collars on them. Must not care to much about getting them back is all I can say. I watched Barney drive away in his dog box down the road never to be seen again.

 

After they left I finally cut my boards then took the schnauzer down in the golf cart to put boards in the box stand so I can have a writing surface while I wait and a cooler.
Once again in a weird fit when I got back I crawled up on top of the buck barn to view the back field that is used for a quail-dove plot. As the light got dim I thought I saw something in the shadow of the tree line but decided I needed to quit and crawl down before I fell down in the dark. I can imagine how the scene would look: me laying lifeless on the ground between a toilet and a shower my brother had left for my dad to install 'somewhere' and I stress 'somewhere'.

My tombstone epitaph: THE BUCK MADE HER DO IT!.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

The Nocturne of the Lightless Night.

Remember this: Cut the lights out. You'll see more.

Tonight I walked outside of the house to retrieve my rifle from the truck. I looked up at the stars but there was this nagging light coming from my peripheral vision. It would seem that the night sky is no longer a little brighter in the country because the city has come a-calling. 

At night there are seven security lights that stay on all night long at the abutting park. They never go off and come on just as the sun is rising or setting. I look down the road and all the neighbors have security lights. I wonder if they are afraid of burglars? The most I have is some soft solar runway lights that come on well after dark. I love looking up at the stars and the milky way. I can't imagine not having a world with that in it. Nor do I wish to have to buy a ticket one day on one of Branson's space ships so I can take a gander either. It just wouldn't be the same.

• Is it really necessary to have that much light polluting up the night?
• Are people that afraid?
• Can you kill the stars visually?
• What implications does it incur on wildlife and their habits?
• Do you really need lights all over your yard to showcase your house?
• Do you really need that security light on in an empty lot where no house stands?

No matter what the light source, it can affect wildlife in very inappropriate ways.

Humans have forced, coerced, and chosen to become diurnal mammals. Diurnal mammals cycle in a pattern that occurs every 24 hours as a result of one full rotation of the Earth.  People are  biased to the daylight and depend on visual cues because of this distortion to our nature. Jobs at varying times of the day, partying to much at night, and other vices perpetuate this bad habit and will brings about poor mental and physical health. Eventually you see this habit play out as the night becomes an artificial day. These ever growing habits affect the very animals that we love to hunt and the beautiful symphony of the worlds of day and night. What is a nocturne you ask?

A nocturne is a musical composition that is inspired by the evocation of night. As hunters,  we know that when night falls on certain game animals, we must abruptly stop hunting them until the next day. On the other hand there are game animals that are hunted solely at night for that is their habitation. This musical composition of hunting weaves itself all through our endeavors and hits its high notes when we finally make contact with our stalk. From the moment the Sun rises and trades places with the Moon, a musical composition of sorts is playing itself out. While we sit in our offices and make our daily bread somewhere out in the world a buck, bear, or duck is making the daily rounds in its life. Plants are filtering light to photosynthesis while decomposers are recycling the world and the energy that is never lost. Everything comes back as something even if it seems like nothing.

 
In order for animals or people to function there must be so many hours of light and dark. The more we change the natural landscape where light and dark is master, the more we influence the wildlife and ourselves.

 
Have you ever made a trip to the doctor only to find the treatment is to change your lifestyle?

 
Your physical functioning, behavior, reproduction, and immune system depends of the night and day cycle. Even thought humans do not need the night for survival there are wildlife that do. Take the sea turtle for example. It depends on the night for survival otherwise its off-spring would get confused and go into circles instead of the sea. This is a form of disorientation that can also be noted in migratory waterfowl. Humans change the outside world to accommodate our needs even if what we think is a need is more of a want or luxury. The ramifications of that change is sometimes subtle or very evident. What we consider our advancements would be considered a devastation in the natural world.  A season's photo period is the only consistent factor in the natural environment.

Areas that are affected by artificial light are:

• Reproduction i.e. mating out of season
• Communication between specie members
• Disorientation that leads to altering survival paths
• Fixation
• Degradation of habitat
• Energy Waste
• Premature blooming or ceasing to bloom
• Population declines
• Starvation i.e. interfering with prey/predator relationships
• Forming unnecessary feed concentrations around artificial light
• Artificial light can deter normal wildlife and remove them from normal areas
• Low light nocturnal animals can be compromised by illumination can alter survival strategies
• Inhibit normal Anti-predation behavior
• Variances in hunting quality

Animals usually have set times when they browse, drink water, feed, and sleep. When the sun is receded into the West and depending on the Moon, if light is available they are more likely to move about. You can pen this down like a teenager that stays up all night having a party but sleeping most of the day. At some point the wildlife wake up and have to drink or feed.

 
Wildlife chases the moon much like a sailor at sea. Their paths are determined to a point by the reflection of the moon and starlight. Daylight varies through out the year and so does moon light. The phases of the moon dictate a slow building up and occluding of its beams into the eyes of the wild. It is never abrupt. Even the sun creeps across the sky as the forest's trees shade the hotter parts of the day.

I once saw an example of light fixation in a Merlin falcon. I was walking around at night when I heard this knocking noise in the side of a Roanoke tobacco barn. I remember the full moon was shining up in the sky making everything very visible. After getting some leather gloves, I went over to investigate because it sounded like a bird was in trouble. There I found a Merlin trying to fly up into the side of the barn wall. The barn wall itself was a silver color which fooled the Merlin into thinking it was an open space to fly. Here in reflective surfaces where light played off confused the Merlin. I caught the bird then turned him free after a meal of raw venison the next morning after making sure it wasn't harmed.

Things that you can do to minimize artificial light:

• Buy a gun or start a community watch if you're afraid someone is doing criminal activity.
• Stop being so proud of your home and turn out the lights.
• Purchase sensory lights that come on and go off with a timer.
• Turn off unnecessary lights. You'll probably save money and sleep better.
• Get fully shielded fixtures
• Try using red or yellow lights. Wildlife chase the moon so red light doesn't reflect like the moon or draw curiosity. Yellow light doesn't attract as much insects.
• Educate yourself and others. Raise awareness not controversy or discord. Remember you are doing this for wildlife, yourself, and hunting in general.

As hunting sportsmen, we must make allowances for our quarry. This change in light can alter the natural patterns to make the stalk too simple or confusing. We must be ambassadors to everyone when it comes to educating people on the 'minor details' that can affect the sport. There are many controversies in hunting but the simpler ones you should be able to have an effect on.
Turn out the lights.


~Courtesy of AOFH~

Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved.

The Mourning Dove: An Epitaph.

 

 

Remember this: Doves are fragile.

 

Its Dove Season! Always a good time to stop and know your state regulations. Here are the following for our fair state, South Carolina.

• Sept. 1-Oct. 6 (Sept. 1-3 Afternoons only)
• Nov. 17-Nov 24
• Dec 21-Jan 15

Bag Limits:

Mourning Doves: 15 per day. No limit for Eurasian collared doves.

*All Hunters Please Not! The following special regulations apply to ALL Wildlife Management Area Public Dove Fields:

 

1. Hunters limited to 50 shells per hunt.

2. Dove hunting on all public fields is "Afternoon Only". No entry onto fields before 12:00 noon

3. No shooting after 6:00 pm during first segment of the season (Sept. 1-Oct 6).

 

Today I was sitting up in a pine tree in a deer stand waiting for something to come by. As I sat there I could hear the sad cooings of a mourning dove. It sounds exactly like a woman crying in sadness or pain. I was down in the forest so I concluded that their happy hunting grounds were no longer happy. The doves had taken to the sanctuary of the small area I serve to get away from the blast of gun and shell due to the farmer I previously heard combining a field of corn directly through the woods. 

A couple of days earlier I had been 'renovating' a handicap capable box stand on the ground. Of course it was way to comfortable in there and I fell asleep. I awoke and a small mourning dove landed right outside of the mesh screen. It started to coo its sad little song.  The understanding on the coo is more likely to be herd when males are courting females. Congregational groups also voice their opinions. Don't waste your time trying to call them like a duck. Its not happening. You also do not need to dress up like you are going to war either to hunt them.

The thing that was more disturbing to me was this little bird could have passed for one of those white, pink eyed mice you see in research experiments. In this case, it would be the obese study. The little bird could barely walk around. I would call it more of a 'waddle'. Duckish in nature, if you will. True to form just as soon as I spooked it, the bird took off in this erratic pattern.

I wasn't really out for anything that day. I had only chambered one bullet in the rifle I was carrying incase a wild hog or something else decided to play 'woods games' with me.

Truth be told, you can take several shots at them before you actually hit your mark. This would indicate  your level of expertise as most people usually empty 4 to 5 shells per bird but that is depending on the shooter.

To show our bird appreciation at the aerodynamics and speed, a dove can fly up to 30 or 40 mph but can also abruptly accelerate to 60 mph with a strong tail wind. A gun shy dove will twist right out of the shooter's well placed shots and be four wingbeats out of range before you can say boo (in this case coo).

Doves live a very strange lifestyle. They get intestinal worms, viruses, cowbirds steal their eggs and leave a cowbird egg behind just for fun. Doves can carry psittacosis or a form of menigitis but safe to eat if you are following proper cooking protocols. You do not want any form of the poultry police visiting your house. Trust me.

For a peace symbol, the male dove will pluck and stab his rival  just for the love of a lady dove.

If you're walking the bush and need to figure out where would be a likely spot to flush a covey the following plants might be on your 'things you should know' list to name a few:

• Bristlegrass
• Doveweed
• Ragweed
• Pokeweed
• Pigweed
• Crabgrass
• Cane
• Sorghum
• Rye
• Buckwheat
• Peanut
• Pea
• Browntop Millet

If you decide you want to get proactive and start building a habitat for your hunting foray the ideal thing to do is check with your local agriculture office and see what grows best for your location. Most farmers have already planted nice fields of wheat, corn, or soybeans but that might also be a GMO crop. You can't beat a machined picked cornfield or a sunflower field.

The habits of doves are to feed hard in the morning with a rest at midday. Around 2-4 pm they will go back to the fields, find water then roost for the evening.

A good dog is essential be it a bird dog or not. Once you shoot these little birds and they fly out, you're going to need an excellent bird dog to split the grasses to find where the dove has landed Always keep this in mind: if you shoot it make sure you collect it for the pot.

You do not want to waste a shell or a good evening's meal because you were ill prepared or couldn't find your quarry.

Good hunting and straight shooting.

  

 

~Courtesy of AOFH~

Copyright © 2026 All Rights Reserved.

 
 

 

Community Service: At Risk Teens.

Remember this: Children left alone with no mentor, may or may not, get into trouble.

The current state of  young adult finds social skills being replaced by electronic interactions with little or no human face time. Children wake up before the sun comes up only to spend roughly eight hours a day for five days in a row at what is pretty much a job: inside of a building being herded from one classroom to the next under artificial light. This being the only exercise that they find to alleviate unburnt energy and the problems of not being able to focus. Once children get home the parents are away at work or to tired to spend quality time with them.

What are kids to do?

Some hang out with their friends, depending on the quality of friend, what passing time they pursue is up to debate.

Recently, I spoke to a teen that took a new friend on from school that had just moved in. After several interactions, the transplanted student was only being accepted into the bully fold even though he seemed to make an effort to not be a bully. The teen had informed me that the new kid had invited him to partake in the use of drugs and alcohol. These teens being barely able to drive were definitely at the point of making some very bad life decisions.

This is how it happens.

Children are left to their own devises where boredom takes hold and to alleviate that feeling on their own decide to get mixed up in activities that don't necessarily help their future. You then have the problem of wayward kids with parents that may nor may not parent from the couch. There is also the possibility that the parenting system is perfectly fine, but things that influence the home cause this neglect or lack of parenting presence re-enforced by communications and trust.

Of course we all want our children to become productive independent functioning adults. I don't know of one parent that wants a child that becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol by their eighteenth birthday. Being inclined to better the youth of my community, especially when I see and hear such stories, decided to extend a moment of solitude and focus to these three youths. I picked them up and planned to do some work in a pine stand but then decided that I would take them down to the woods. I drove down the dirt roads and through the woods bouncing them around like a good country bumkin would do. Laughing the whole way as I looked out of my rear view in case one of them actually did go aflyin'. I put the three boys off at their prospective stands. The last one was the transplanted kid.

I decided to ask him some questions. He was interested in making money. I told him I didn't know what his interest were. He didn't seem to have a confirmed interest in any field be it science, math, arts, or other. I found this strange as my understanding was that he failed to pass to the eleventh grade by a couple of points. He  tells me that he has never been in the woods. I was a little floored. I know it happens but I had never met such a strange beast before today. He says to me, "I can learn a lot out here." I put him in the stand then drove off to leave them.

Let me note that none of them had a gun due to the lack of a hunter safety course. It was just a sit and observe objective. I drove out to the main house then walked back of the tree line to drive the deer in the woods back to them. It worked. I walked back out and parked down the road from where I had deposited them in the woods. After about an hour and a half, the trio broke the woods at the bend then came walking out. I laughed. They did make it for about an hour and a half. The ring leader saw a snake trying to crawl to the stand from a tree and crawled down. He went to find the second who was asleep in a box stand that was made for handicapped hunters. These two walked to the other side of the woods to pick up their wayward friend, then walk out. I was sitting in my truck by the road waiting to see if a deer would come out or if they would.

I took the transplant home after riding through the country while looking at this amazing sunset. I asked the two other teens: Who had broke first with boredom and moved? The guilty party was pointed out. I wasn't surprised.  I told them they needed to learn patience and how to be still. This was an old habit of tribal people. Take a child and make him sit. Learning patience, silence, and living with your own existence in a moment of being was a life lesson. Besides survival can deepen on stillness or movement.

One of the problems of children and teens is boredom. That can get them into all kind of trouble.
I have observed most kids lack a mentor. They do not know what path in life they are thinking about taking. Time passes and there is a lack of preparation for adult activities. Learning how to handle life by slowing building your arsenal with life skills is imperative. It  boils down to survival. It could be survival in the concrete jungle, the actual wilderness or traversing life itself, no matter the landscape.

The best solution is mentoring. I have always had the personal ideal based on this one precept.

If you see a person struggling don't just stand there. Ask them if they need help or just help them. Most people are way to proud to ask. You don't have anything to lose but self-respect for yourself. Depends on what you can live with or not. With kids, you shouldn't even mentally argue this.

If I take my time out to spend directing a child or teenager, or asking them indirect or direct questions on life choices to let them find their way to a better life, then I have not wasted my time.

The activity of hunting opens a dialogue with a teenager on what their life goals are, where they want to go, what they might be lacking in the quality of their life, or what they have to do to make it a reality.

Kids do have an ideal of the quality of life they want, but sometimes the environment is not supportive enough for them to open up.

It's a note to take to God, but there are countries even in this civilized and industrious world where people have to literally fight between living and dying. Kids go out into that. Lets not send them out ill-prepared.


~ Courtesy of the AOFH~

Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved

Once Upon A Time In A Hunting Stand

Remember this: Once upon a time in a hunting stand there was a woman who thought...….

During one of my first re-con sitting marathons in the deer stand, I sat back in the white faux leather chair to ease my mind. The cobwebs were quickly swept away as I could hear the sounds of things moving in the swamp. I knew whatever was in there was investigating from the bush so I paid no never mind. It would either come out or not. I was maintaining my coolness while mentally making a closer inspection of the machine of merchandising and sport shows.

The place these thoughts were coming from was the ever increasing concern that my concept of hunting could be indirectly/directly influenced by media and the messages it sends through advertising or informative hunting shows. I asked myself some questions.

How has media influence me positively or negative in my hunting endeavors? What messages have I received from exposing myself to these constructs?

Hunting does support a huge amounts of individuals and their families. On the other hand there are people that feed money into the machine only to get poorer. The discerning huntress has to navigate through this forest to find the trail that leads to a personal defining viewpoint she is comfortable  living with. No apologies or explanations should be required. It is what it is.

I thought about the big business of merchandising.
Do you often ask yourself when buying something is it a necessity? Is it a relevant product? Am I going to benefit from this purchase or will it make things too easy?

 
To me this is like picking up a book and reading the last chapter while skipping the body of the text.
I personally do not buy a lot of the things necessary to improve my hunting. Nor do I want all the information that could be available to make my hunting experience so easy that I get bored of it then quit. I like a more natural approach to stalking deer or in the case of a stand: sit and wait. I do not use scent blockers because I have found that I actually like a level of difficulty to outsmarting a buck.
On a more personal note as compared to information I gleaned from informative hunting shows, I have noticed the following. Even though this is definitely not the norm it seems to work for me.
Most of the time I spray a Honeysuckle scent on because wild jasmine grows in my hunting spot. Washing in a sodium bath followed by a floral underarm deodorant doesn't bother the deer either. I have noted they will smell and react to a male before they will a female. Also not eating tons of meat so it can ooze out your pores is another habit I have. If you don't smell like a meat eater they don't see you as a threat. I remember seeing the guy who studied wolves even said he had to feast like wolves by eating liver for them to smell and accept him. Its a different way of looking at the situation for sure. Even though this is contrary to known information on how someone should hunt is it wrong? Probably not. Are other peoples' ways of doing things wrong? No. Whatever works for the individual or gives them confidence is probably not a bad thing. No way of doing it is created equal.

I recently had a conversation with a nice hunter from England concerning the changing requirements of guns being used during fowl hunting. One interesting comment was on whatever was the fashion at the time. Can hunting be fashionable or unfashionable? Why not. This could pertain to the weapon of choice, bullets, dogs, boots, vehicles, etc. At the core of it is merchandising for profit.

In some countries, people that hunt dress up in fashionable regalia to go hunting. Depending on what the fashion of the moment is, that is what you will enjoy. Is it required? It would depend on who you associate with or the club. Is there something wrong with hunting clubs having a level or fashionable decorum? Certainly not. You always retain the option of saying yes or no. These are more formal social events geared to enjoy hunting but also hold fellowship with other like minded souls. In other countries, people that hunt will dress up like commandos with high powered weapons to enjoy their time. In other parts of the world you might find the lone hunter sitting out in a deer stand much like me with a pair of blue jeans and a red hoodie on waiting to claim that nights supper if you're lucky.

Even though each one of these scenarios is different are any of them wrong? I would say no. One would have to extend to the other a certain amount of respect for their way of doing things because it is the custom or the requirement. Its like the old saying goes, when a man is in a strange land, he should do as the locals do so as to not insult anyone which could cause his death.

I knew that this perspective stemmed from the many hunting based activities that existed outside of hunting in the actual woods. I thought of the hunting expos I had attended with rude people, vendors that sized clients up based on looks without offering a service, or the way women were sold the more prettier things such as clothes or ambience instead of something concrete.

My thoughts on this were not negative but more of a thoughtful exploration on how I perceived these issues. I would hope that others would examine these as well. It is something to think about.


~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Copyright © 2026 All Rights Reserved