So much for a sportsman to do, so little time

LITTLE ROCK — Deer season will soon be finished, but it seems like it started only yesterday.

With all the time I’ve hunted this fall, I should be tired of it, but I’m still fully engaged, strategizing and thinking of ways to kill a memorable buck before the season ends.

I almost did last week. A buck with a very tall, narrow rack and tines that were as long as witch’s fingers gave me an easy broadside shot last week. It was a giant for me, but I wasn’t sure it met the club’s requirements, so I let it walk. I misheard the prehunt briefing to say that a buck required a 15-inch minimum inside spread and at least one 18-inch long main beam. It was actually either-or. I’m almost certain the beams were 18 inches or better, but when in doubt, I prefer not to test my host’s goodwill.

In past years I would have agonized for months over a lost opportunity like that. Not anymore. That’s part of hunting, but I’m past the age where killing the biggest or most game defines me in any way. I make a living doing these things and writing about it. How could it get any better?

Before that buck appeared, I watched a doe for the longest time. It entered the field about 70 yards to my right, and it looked peculiar. I put my binoculars on it and saw that its tail was missing. Judging by the big gaping wound around her tailbone and haunch, the tail appeared to have been torn off. I could only imagine what might have inflicted that wound.

Truth be told, that’s the deer I probably should have shot. I thought long and hard about it but declined. Despite the wound, she appeared healthy and not in distress.

By the “season,” I mean modern gun season. And even when it’s over, it still isn’t, really. We still have the Christmas holiday deer hunt from Dec. 26-28, and we have one more muzzleloader season. It ends Monday in many zones, but in Zone 12 it starts Dec. 29, right after the Christmas holiday hunt ends. After that, the archery season goes on and on until Feb. 28.

So, I think about how to employ new information from game cameras I have recently deployed. I scout to see if deer are still running in hardwood creek bottoms or pine thickets. Which stands can I retire for the year, and which are still in play?

Or, do I give it up and move on to other things? Mike Romine, a member of the Old Belfast Hunting Club, suggested that a bunch of us get together after New Year’s and just do an old time, “kick-’em-up” hunt through the cutovers and thickets for rabbits, quail and dove.

Rabbits and doves are thick on the property right now, and with all the 1- and 2-year old cutovers, quail seem to be fairly abundant in places.

Again, to my lasting regret, I have let another woodcock season slip past without indulging this particular passion. I see woodcocks every evening from my deer stands, and I often see them in the mornings.

Every time it makes me wish I was down on the ground with my battered old Remington 870 20-gauge Express. I have it especially for stomping around the thick, nasty overgrowth that woodcocks prefer. Its short barrel makes for easy swinging in tight cover, and the ugly birch stock doesn’t mind a few more bruises and gashes. And woodcock is so delicious. It tastes kind of like a cross between duck and pheasant, rich and earthy.

Ducks are in, too, and geese, but the fishing is also excellent right now. Bill Eldridge of Benton said he loaded up on big crappie Thanksgiving morning at Lake Maumelle, and he said they are still in their fall pattern.

Walleyes are biting on the rivers, and now is also a great time to catch big hybrids and stripers on Lake Hamilton. Or, perhaps, a lightning strike with Rusty Pruitt to the White, Norfork or Little Red rivers. This time of year, you can often have them and all their trout to yourself.

Did I mention that I get to make a living doing all this and writing about it?

Sometimes I don’t know how I live with myself.