"See Ya Tomorrow"

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You’re back early.”

“So are you. Hear anything?”

“Nothin’. You?”

“Not a peep.”

“Weird, huh? They were gobblin’ their heads off two days ago. That was a great hunt. For a while there it looked like we were gonna get a double.”

“Til those hens cut us off.”

“Now nothin’. These turkeys are driving me crazy.”

“Me, too.”

“How many days does this make?”

“Nine.”

“In a row?”

“Naw, we took off Sund’y.”

“That’s right. I’m gonna get fired.”

“I’m ‘a get divorced.”

“Which is worse?”

“Mmm, they’re both bad.”

“Remind me again why we do this.”

“Can’t explain it. Just got to, that’s all.”

“Well, not me. Not anymore. I can’t take this punishment. All I’ve got to show for this season is bags under my eyes and fuel bills. It ain’t worth it.”

“So yer quittin’, huh? Lettin’ ‘em win?”

“That’s right. They’re just birds. Shouldn’t be this hard. I’ve had it.”

“Alright.”

“When’re you comin’ back up?”

“Tomorrow, I reckon.”






“I’ll meet ya at the gate a little after five.”

“See ya tomorrow.”



(c) Roger Guilian 2006

"Top Ten Must Haves for Every Hunting Camp"

According to the latest surveys and estimates, more than 28 million Americans consider themselves “hunters.” By way of comparison, that number is higher than the total population of Texas and is almost four times the population of New York City! That’s a whole lot of folks walking into and (hopefully) out of the woods every year. All those people need places to hunt, and the places they hunt are as numerous and different as they are. While hunting camps can be as varied as the people who frequent them, certain hard and fast rules apply to all hunt clubs everywhere. No matter where you go, there are certain ubiquitous elements common among hunting camps, woven through the fabric of varying destinations like our common language. Here is a list of the top ten things every hunting camp needs if you want it to be considered the Real McCoy. Without these, it’s just a shack out in the woods.

10. Gut Bucket

Nothing says, “Hey, we kill things here” like a good old stinky gut bucket. The closer it’s kept to the camphouse the better. It must be visible at all times. There are all kinds of gut buckets and truthfully just about anything can serve as one, but if you want your camp to be let in the upper echelon without getting carded or having to pay the cover charge, nothing beats a round plastic bucket with rope handles. If you waited to sight in your rifle until a deer was standing in front of the business end of it and therefore haven’t harvested anything yet, pour some chocolate syrup in the bucket and drag it behind your truck to give it that authentic look.

9. Rocking Chairs

Telling lies and coming up with excuses is hard work. You’ll wear yourself out if you stand up all evening. Rocking chairs are comfortable, they’re country, and they’re on the front porch of just about every camp in the major outdoor magazines. Do you need any more reasons to get some?

8. 50 Gallon Drum

The utility of a 50 gallon drum cannot be overstated. All civilized households, not just hunting camps, need at least one 50 gallon drum at all times. Indispensable at the camp for building fires, collecting garbage, burning cardboard boxes, and holding corn, a .22LR round will pass right through both sides of a 50 gallon drum like a knife through butter, making it ideal for target practice, too.

7. Stuffed Bass

Like its antlered counterpart, the stuffed bass is as central a requirement for a hunting camp as whiskey and cigars. The fact that there is not a body of water within 30 miles of your property is irrelevant. Your camp needs a ten pound lunker peeling the cedar off the walls. Otherwise, please give up your lease and sell the camphouse to someone who will do it justice.

6. Maps of the Property

Aerial photos, topographical maps, and hand drawn renditions exude hunting camp-ness and serve as reminders to guests of the always present danger inherent to hunting. It is not necessary for the members to be able to read and interpret these maps. Nor is it of particular relevance that the maps themselves are completely unnecessary since most members would pour honey over themselves and sit in an ant mound before venturing into the woods beyond sight of the road. Hunters feel empowered and brilliant when they can poke a landmark on a map with the tip of a pocketknife and talk about “walkin’ down this here draw” and “hangin’ a stand over that funnel right there.”

5. Collection of Shirt Tails

Hunters miss. Usually more often than they are willing to admit. The only thing more fun to a hunter than watching someone else anguish over missing the buck of a lifetime is getting to ridicule him in front of the entire camp and cutting off his shirt tail as a reminder of his failure. Time honored tradition requires that the camp’s court be called to order, that the perpetrator’s charges be read aloud to the jury, and that promptly he be found guilty without benefit of counsel or a defense. The sentence must be swiftly meted out by depriving the condemned of his shirt tail and making him wear the shirt untucked the rest of the night so his guilt, like that of a woman branded with the Scarlet Letter, can be plain for all to see. The guilty party's name shall be written on the tattered shirt tail which shall then be pinned to the wall. This serves both as a punishment to the guilty and a deterrent to others contemplating similar behavior. If your camp does not have a collection of shirt tails it is either comprised of utter frauds or crippled by anarchy.

4. Hornets’ Nest

I have never seen a hornets’ nest in the wild, despite having spent my fair share of time in the woods. Yet, with as many of these sinister looking papery bulbs hanging in hunting camps throughout my home state of Alabama, one might think they were sold in home decorating stores. A friend once told me he acquired his camp’s hornets’ nest by shimmying up a tree and breaking it off the limb from which it hung – after throwing sticks and pine cones at it to insure it was dormant. Not sure I believe that one. I have heard stories of people shooting out hornets’ nests with .22s, or quietly sneaking up on one and wrapping it in a black garbage bag before its inhabitants could swarm and attack, but chances are most of these ornaments of prestige found their way into camp after being doused with wasp spray under the eaves of suburban homes.

3. Grill

Gar or charcoal does not matter. Real hunters cook their meat on grills, not in a pan in the kitchen. If all meals were meant to be cooked in an oven or on a stove, hunters would stay home with their spouses and there would be no such things as hunting camps. Rather, the woods would be filled with things like Drifting Petals Bird Watching Club or Windbreak Nature Trails.

2. Fires

Not every camp has a grandiose fireplace with a rail tie mantle from which proudly hangs Paw Paw’s old rabbit gun from the tusks of a Russian boar. Some camps have no fireplace at all. These junior varsity versions require some place to build and enjoy a good fire. No self-respecting hunting camp can accept the absence of a fireplace as a reason not to have one altogether. There must simply be a place for one elsewhere. Whether the camp employs a fire pit, a chiminea, or some other crafty means of generating warmth, light, and fellowship, provisions must be made out of doors for those camps who do not boast a rustic firebox and hearth. Fewer things are more spectacular than sitting on stumps around a blazing fire while lies thicker than the smoke fill the crisp night air.

1. Whitetail Trophy Mount

A whitetail trophy mount is the most important ingredient to a successful hunting camp. Even if your camp is brand new and did not exist during the most recent deer season, a mounted whitetail buck must adorn a wall or a fireplace in order for the place to have any legitimacy whatsoever. If none of your members is willing to donate a trophy mount of his own or if none of you has ever shot one, you must go find one – buy someone else’s from an unscrupulous taxidermist or outright steal the thing, but for goodness sake, hang a dead deer someplace if you expect your camp to be taken seriously.

If your place has these ten items, congratulations – it is a true hunting camp. If not, get cracking and do whatever it takes to make the cut next season.



(c) Roger Guilian 2006

"Napping"

There is no better, no more peaceful sleep than the sleep I get eighteen feet up a tree. Enveloped by the music of the woods, a twenty minute nap in my tree stand can be more refreshing and invigorating than any a bed has given me. I have often wondered why this is; after all, when I am sleeping in my bed I am but no more than four feet off the ground and in relative safety (my safety at home is only really in jeopardy when I do something that lands me on the couch). If somehow I were to roll out of bed, the worst that would happen would be landing embarrassingly on the floor. The quality of your choice of partners notwithstanding, it should be accepted that as a general rule, there are places far more dangerous in which to sleep than a bed - like halfway up a pine tree.

I am conscious of the fact that dozing off and falling out of a tree would be much more detrimental to my health than falling out of bed. In fact, falling asleep in a tree would probably void the warranty on my climber altogether. Apparently, napping in a tree stand is not sanctioned by the Treestand Manufacturer’s Association. I have scoured TMA’s Treestand Safety Rules and while, admittedly, sleeping in a tree stand is not listed as a recommended safe practice, it isn’t specifically prohibited by them either. So in the face of such ambiguity, I choose to exercise my discretion and snore away, snoozing peacefully and entirely unaffected by the precariousness of my perch, hunt after hunt. Perhaps this explains the barren walls in my study which I have designated for trophy mounts.

Napping in the woods is not just restful and inspiring. It affords also that unforgettable Christmas morning possibility when absolutely anything in the world can be waiting for you under the tree. One of the most wonderful things about napping in the woods is the excitement that my mind conjures up between the time I awake and open my eyes. After I snap awake from a woods nap with an adrenaline inducing jolt and risk wrenching myself right out of my stand, my mind races with the possibilities of what will be awaiting me when I look up to begin opening the presents Mother Nature may have left me. Somehow I just know that in my slumbering absence a parade of fat, healthy does will have filed into the field below me. When I peak out from under the bill of my cap, I am convinced that I will witness a pair of young bucks trying out their horns, sparring with one another and chasing does. If a yawn doesn’t force my eyes shut, I might catch the whites of the young bucks’ tails as they are run off by that granddaddy bruiser buck who has had enough of their adolescent shenanigans and glided silently into the field after having surveyed the scene from the fringe of the woods like a teacher watching his students at play.

Every time I wake up after a good climber nap, it feels like much more time should have passed than what actually elapsed. A twenty minute snooze leaves me feeling like a couple hours surely went by. It just seems impossible that in that time, half the woodland creatures in the county would not have quietly stepped out into the open for me to take my pick. Yet more often than not, when I open my eyes and look back up at the woods I’m hunting, they are as empty as they were before I succumbed to the tranquility of my surroundings, save a few busy sparrows and longer strands of shadows.

Still, even with an empty field and an empty freezer, it is moments like napping high up off the ground as the wind gently sways the tree and rocks me to sleep that make just being there just enough. The exhilarating crack and echo of a snapping twig or a tom turkey’s explosive gobble shattering the anxious silence of the foggy morning woods are much more pleasant alarm clocks than the screeching nag that sits on the nightstand back in the real world.

Sometimes I am hesitant to look up at all after awaking in my stand because as long as I do not look up, that wall-hanger could still be standing there beneath his twelve-pronged scaffolding. There is always a subtle sense of disappointment and defeat, however, when I do look up to survey the woods only to find that the parade has been canceled due to inclement hunter. On the flip side, I don’t suppose hunting would be much of a challenge if I saw a petting zoo beneath me every time I woke up from my tree naps. At the end of it all, I’d be hard-pressed to name many things about hunting that are more rewarding than the endless possibility of what might be on the other side of closed eyelids, behind which is a place where the fields are always teeming with wildlife, and the season never ends.



(c) Roger Guilian 2005

"The Caretaker of Lake Stripling Lodge"

The alarm clock on the nightstand chirps dutifully at 4:15. It is not necessary, for I have been awake fifteen minutes, stirred from a sound sleep by the thuds of heavy boots and the clinking of coffee mugs. Pinned down by grogginess and struggling to steal a few more moments of precious rest, I become motivated by the hearty aroma of fresh coffee wafting throughout the camphouse. The turkeys have already been scouted, the most ostentatious of them singled out for an early morning visit. We are briefed over piping hot cups of coffee on where to go, how to get there, how many longbeards have been gobbling, when, and how often. The gentleman imparting this wisdom speaks slowly, his drawl thick as fig preserves, while he leans authoritatively against the kitchen counter. His knowledge of the land and the habits of its game fills the air like the steam rising out of our mugs. He ought to know. This place is his life.

For the last 31 years, a single caretaker has been the steward of this land and the lodge. His name is, simply, D.P., and for three decades he has risen before the tom gobbles back at the sunrise, before the whitetail rises up from its bed, before the wood duck whistles through the swamp, and before the hunter rubs his bloodshot eyes on frosty mornings. He is quiet, humble and supremely capable. The caretaker’s appearance is as proud, practical and functional as the man. His olive drab fatigues are always neatly pressed and creased, his work boots never scuffed or muddy. He is always there and always early.

His wit and subtle sense of humor are rivaled by only his ability to recall the people and events that have shaped this special place. The caretaker is like kin to the owners and their families and friends. To see them interact is not to watch employers interact with their employee, but rather is like observing lifelong friends exchange jabs, barbs, jokes, and memories. Not a single oak, pine or dogwood is as permanent or valued a fixture on this place as the caretaker. Guests like me look as forward to seeing him as they do any buck they might harvest or bass they might catch. Time passes more slowly, the fire warms more invitingly, and the bourbon goes down more smoothly with him around.

I may not shoot a turkey this morning, but I know they’re out there. D.P. said so. And he ought to know.



(c) Roger Guilian 2006

"The Cutover Tom"

If you go outside before dawn on any cool, still morning after turkey season, face due north of Mobile, Alabama, and listen very hard, you will be able to make out the unmistakable sound of laughter. When you hear this laughter, you will note that it distinctly resembles the long, drawn out, throaty gobble of a mature longbeard; but make no mistake – it is not just a gobble. It is laughter; heavy, uncontrolled belly laughter. If your ears are keen enough and your concentration great, you will discover that this laughter originates from a single pine tree located next to a branch running north-south along the property line beside a two year old cutover on my hunting lease.

The source of this laughter is a weary old gobbler I have respectfully dubbed The Cutover Tom. The object of his waddle-borne cachinnation is me. The joke is two years old and running.

I encountered The Cutover Tom on opening morning two seasons ago. Since then I have thought of little else when it comes to hunting turkeys. He was the first bird to sound off that crisp morning. I had been standing at the foot of an old-growth pine twenty yards into the woods off a food plot since long before sunup, listening for that distant gobble by which to set the morning’s compass. His first gobble was an irritated response to his arch rival, the boisterous barred owl. I remained in place, excitedly hoping for a second offering to nail down his location. He was even louder the second time he gobbled, and I immediately set out in his direction.

The sun was not quite up but it was light enough that I knew I had to use the terrain to get close. I worked my way through a bottom, a swamp, and up a ridge that led to a logging road on the edge of a brand new cutover. There I stopped and waited, mindful not to get too close and bump him off the roost. After a minute or so, he throttled his long, rattled gobble two more times. I took off across the logging road and through the corner of the cutover to yet another wooded swamp where I knew my approach would be concealed. I trudged through black water and mud, thankful it was too cool and too early for the cottonmouths to be out, and inched closer to the next section of cutover ridges.

I owl hooted and the roosted tom all but cut me off. He was roosted in some old pines about 100 yards from a food plot at the eastern boundary of the cutover. Despite myself, I had arrived in the perfect location to hunt him. I was at the base of a ridge below the food plot within 150 yards of the bird. And he had no idea I was there.

I got set up and waited about twenty minutes before calling to him lightly with tree yelps and some soft clucks. He must have gobbled in response to every one. A few minutes into our duet, I slapped the stew out of my right leg and gave a loud fly down cackle and then shut up. Moments later I watched him fly down into the food plot. I could hardly contain my anticipation.

From that moment on he never made another sound and I never made another sound decision. Because I was below the ridge in front of me, I could not see what he was up to or where he was. I had to assume this gobbler could pop up at any second, so I remained motionless with my gun in the ready position waiting for my heart to burst right out of my chest.

Not long after the gobbler pitched, three hens flew down from overhead into the cutover to my left. This was perfect. I was now between the tom and three live hens which immediately began cutting and clucking when they hit the ground. I was already deciding how the taxidermist would mount my gobbler for me. “Hell,” I thought to myself, “I might even make it to work before nine o’clock at this rate.”

One hour, one numb left foot, and one tingling backside later, I still had neither seen nor heard that tom. I decided I’d better go to him if I was going to seal this deal. I belly-crawled up the ridge to a pile of tree debris and began glassing the expansive cutover with my binoculars. Not a bird in sight, not even the hens. Frustrated, I slowly lowered the binoculars back onto my chest and settled back on my legs which were folded beneath me. At that precise moment, the gobbler emerged from behind a cut down pine 35 yards to my right, putted twice, ran through the food plot, and took flight like an airliner lifting off the tarmac before disappearing over the trees and out of sight.

I was sick, physically nauseas. I fell onto my back and stared at the bright morning sky as I tried to fathom how I had so poorly prosecuted such a promising hunt. I had covered almost 400 yards and crawled to within 35 steps of this mature gobbler without either of us knowing how close I’d been until it was too late. One innocent movement had busted the whole deal. His silence after hitting the ground had saved him from the dose of Hevi-Shot I had set aside to offer him. Had he gobbled or drummed just once I might have known he was there.

I stood up and walked over to where he had stepped out from behind the downed tree. I became even more ill when I surveyed the logging road and realized he had spent the past hour and a half walking back and forth in a 30 yard stretch of the road, studying the cutover in search of a date. The long-toed tracks with little divots behind them that cluttered the logging road dashed any hopes that I had spooked merely a hen.

I spent the better part of last season hunting that Cutover Tom. I got close a couple more times but always he prevailed. Halfway through this most recent season, I patterned his tracks in the same 30 yard stretch of logging road beside the food plot and decided to hunt him again. I told my wife I was borrowing trouble by doing so and I was right. No matter where or when I set up on this bird’s hangouts, he refused to keep our appointments. Yet again I walked out of the turkey woods the last day of the season with nothing slung over my shoulder but a shotgun.

Getting bested by a mature longbeard is no reason to feel ashamed or insulted. Finding a tom’s tracks on top of yours in the road, on the other hand, constitutes grounds to shoot him off the limb with a .270 if presented with the opportunity. Not really of course, but losing the chess match to this unpredictable and regal adversary is no reason to sell your turkey gear and take up scrapbooking. Although in my case being owned lock, stock, and barrel by that Cutover Tom sure seems like a good reason to at least place the classified and see if I get any nibbles.

Ol’ Cutover’s still alive and well. He still roosts in the pines above the branch, safe and sound. Speaking of sound, is that laughter I hear?



(c) Roger Guilian 2006 - NO LONGER FOR HIRE. ACQUISITIONED FOR PUBLICATION IN 2007.

"Quitting-the-Business Sale"

I am placing the following classified in tomorrow’s newspaper.

TURKEY HUNTER QUITTING THE BUSINESS – SAVE BIG! Quitting the turkey hunting business and selling everything at fire sale prices. Well-conditioned camo turkey vest comes pre-packed with everything you’ll need to chase Ol’ Tom - yelpers, glass and slate calls that summon up only hens; sandpaper for slate can be used to put finishing touches on wood carvings made out of sheer boredom; box call guaranteed to fire up only the most distant gobbler within earshot, but you’ll need half a day and a willingness to trespass to get to him; clippers to trim the bushes around your set-up to pass the time; compass to find your way out of the woods after 6 hours of blindly meandering in search of a single gobble; crow call and owl call to talk to the only winged creatures that answer back. Also, camo turkey gun – never fired and practically new! Dusty, muddy, and very broken-in snake boots round out this package of must haves. Please contact the shadow of seller’s former self if interested. Willing to negotiate.



(c) Roger Guilian 2006

"The Old Shooting House"

There’s a place along southbound I-65 just south of Stockton, Alabama where, if you look hard enough over your right shoulder, you can make out a dilapidated shooting house in the middle of the northern inside edge of a long forgotten foodplot. Many years obviously have passed since the shooting house or the foodplot over which it stands guard were the subject of anyone’s great attention. The structure itself is an elevated box blind with rectangular windows on three sides. Tattered strips of mesh flap out of the window openings the way a child wiggles his fingers beneath the bottom of a door. Years of baking heat and drenching rains have weathered the rust red exterior of the box blind, and much of the paint and wood has chipped or rotted away.

The box, which once quietly perched atop four posts, now leans back on two broken stilts the way one might look up at the heavens. The old field beneath the shooting house is overgrown with weeds, shrubbery and young saplings. Running parallel to a power easement, it looks to be about 200 yards deep by 100 yards wide, and was likely once a magnificent hunting spot. The Mobile River runs just north of the field, and the surrounding terrain is rich with dark, moist soil. A stand of 20 year old pines delineates the perimeters of the foodplot. Younger, more spindly pines have slowly begun sneaking up on the old shooting house, and will shortly enclose it completely in a green-needled bear hug.

I first noticed the old shooting house about four years ago on my way home from a hunting trip near Monroeville. Since then, I have made it a habit to crane my neck and look over my right shoulder to check on my old friend whenever I have begun my descent down the high bridge that spans the Mobile River. And each time I have been relieved to find the broken down old box blind faithfully at its post.

I have often wondered who owns the property where this field is located and who hunted there.

In my mind’s eye, I envision a young father and his little girl sitting side by side on the bench in the shooting house keeping watch over the lush green field beneath them. I smile at the quiet thought of the talks they must have shared while waiting for the deer to stream into the foodplot, and the excitement on the little girl’s face and the pride in the young father’s heart after she took her first deer.

Or maybe the old shooting house played host to a young man who excitedly raced home from school on winter afternoons to hunt over the greenfield before dark. I picture the young man sitting anxiously through the last few classes of the day waiting for the final bell to ring so he could take his seat in Nature’s classroom. I can see him sitting there carving his girlfriend’s initials into the bench beside him with an old pocketknife as the big one steps out from the treeline.

Perhaps the old shooting house was the focal point of a deep family tradition shared by an old man and his loving grandson. I listen closely for the words of wisdom the old man passed down to the young boy as they strolled quietly along the river bank on their way to the shooting house as the young boy looked up to his grandfather. It was his grandfather who taught him how to hunt, how to read the animals’ sign, and how to respectfully render the harvested beast. No doubt, times spent together in the shooting house helped that young boy become a man.

The old shooting house is safely visible for only a couple seconds. After that, you must return your attention to the roadway in front of you. But while it is only visible to me for a few seconds once or twice every year, the specter of the old shooting house and all it represents stays with me year round. I like to think it was built and utilized in a simpler time – a time before ATVs, laser range finders, and digital scouting cameras. I will, in all likelihood, never have real answers to my curiosities. But I think I much prefer my own answers whenever I see the old shooting house. And I bet if I ever got the nerve to sneak onto that property and climb up the ladder into the back of that box blind, I’d find some rusty old thirty-aught-six casings on the floor and some not quite completed initials carved in the bench.



(c) Roger Guilian 2005

Welcome to Days Afield Online - Fine Outdoor Writing

I would like to welcome you to Days Afield Online, an exclusive source for original fine outdoor writing. If you enjoy the crisp, clean feel of a December morning on your cheek; if your heart's pace quickens at the emergence of the whitetail from the treeline; and if your soul is lifted by the arrogant gobble of the tom, then read on and enjoy tales of days afield, where the season never closes.

Let me tell you a little about myself. I am an average hunter with an above-average love of the outdoors. My family and I live and hunt in beautiful Alabama. My weekdays are spent in an office. Thankfully, a majority of my weekends are spent in God's great outdoors, marveling at His wonderous creation and taking in all it has to offer the sporting conservationist.

Years ago I began collecting my thoughts and observations in journals while I hunted. Those journals led to my first outdoor stories. As time went on, I wrote more and more and eventually began to get some work published. I share some of those stories as well as some originals with you here, and hope you will find pleasure in them - that you might identify with the emotions called forth in them, and that they may inspire you to laugh, reflect, and look forward to your next hunt.

Thank you for visiting. If you have a comment or a criticsm, please share it. Prop your feet up on a stump, enjoy the crackling fire, and come share these Days Afield.

- Roger Guilian