We hunted hard for a change, but the annual Crutchfield Family Squirrel Hunt in the Ozark National Forest had a familiar result.

We didn’t kill a squirrel.

This year’s hunting party consisted of Wayne Crutchfield and Paul Crutchfield of Prattsville, as well as Paul’s daughter Sidney Crutchfield and Amy, my oldest daughter. Amy and I arrived at camp too late for the morning hunt last Saturday, but we didn’t miss anything but some good fellowship.

After setting up our camp, I joined Wayne and Paul for a walk through some new territory. A large swath of forest had been selectively logged and burned with prescribed fire. The understory was open, with dense islands of grass and brush. The lowlands looked better, but we decided to hunt a high ridge, believing that we might find more productive nut trees in the higher elevation. If we were wrong, we’d simply scratch that off the list and hunt the bottoms Sunday morning.

We split off in three directions. Paul hunted a hollow, and Wayne eased up an old service road. I left the road and went straight up the face of the ridge. That was a poor spot for squirrel hunting. It was too open, and the trees were too high and too far apart. At the same time, I was intrigued with all the deer sign I saw, especially some fresh tracks that looked almost big enough to have been made by an elk. Except, there are no elk in that area.

I continued straight up the spine of the ridge to a point where it made an abrupt rise that formed a low wall. There was a big deer bed at the foot of the wall. Behind the wall was a dense thicket of brush, and the little bedding flat dropped sharply to both sides. The buck that was using it had a clear view all the way down the ridge. There was no way to approach from behind or to the sides undetected. For a deer, it’s probably the safest place on the whole mountain.

I returned to the road and eventually met up with Wayne. We found uncut hickory nuts under several trees, and uncut acorns under several oaks. Squirrels weren’t cutting nuts in the trees. There was no sign or sound of squirrels anywhere. In fact, we didn’t even hear or see any “tweety birds,” as Wayne calls them. Just a few pileated woodpeckers and nuthatches.

Sunday’s sunrise found us in the Hurricane Creek Wilderness Area. After we passed an old grove of wild lemon trees, Paul and Sidney veered south to hunt an old beech flat while Wayne and I continued down the main road.

I made a quick detour to visit a fire ring my wife and I made a few days after we were married in 1987. It is still there. It was at the edge of an open field then. The woods have reclaimed it now. A woman who once lived there told me that the name of that particular hollow was the “Valley of Light.” It is one of my favorite places.

Wayne eventually split off to hunt another beech flat, and I continued on for about a half-mile before a barking squirrel lured me into the woods. I inched about 75 yards up a bench, and although I could hear the squirrel, I couldn’t see it. I finally glimpsed it scurrying down the tree to the forest floor.

I leaned against a big oak and watched and listened. I heard a soft crack to my right. I rolled my eyes that direction and saw three deer, a doe and two yearlings, about 20 yards away. They hadn’t a clue I was there. They turned and passed behind me single file, a mere seven paces away. Wayne, Paul and Sidney later reported seeing deer, as well.

We agreed to meet back at Wayne’s truck at 9:30 a.m., but that was too early. The squirrels were really getting active by that time, but hunting time had expired. Crossing the creek, I flushed three wood ducks. Later, a gray fox dashed across the road in front of me.

After lunch, the Crutchfields dismantled their camp, and we said our farewells for the year.

The squirrels were safe for another season, but we couldn’t have asked for a beautiful morning or spent it in a more beautiful place.

Sports, Pages 37 on 09/29/2013