In the autumn of 2006, shortly after I was diagnosed with
ALS, my wife and I embarked on a two-week whitetail safari in the Southeast. My
hunts in North Carolina , South Carolina and Georgia went smoothly thanks to the
help and generosity of people we hadn’t met before this trip.
Here’s the story of a rainy morning in South Carolina :
I met Mark Davis, PR man for
Shakespeare Fishing Tackle at that time, through my job at Sport Fishing
magazine. During a fishing trip—oops, I mean “business function”—Mark extended
an open invitation to hunt with him near his home in Columbia , South Carolina
While plotting the itinerary for my
Southeast whitetail safari, I contacted Mark and told him which dates I could
spend in SC. “I’ll be hunting deer in Missouri
that week,” he said. “But I’ll set something up for you.”
Mark put me in touch with Ray
Sedgwick, a professional bass angler sponsored by Shakespeare. Ray said I was
welcome to hunt with him, and he invited Ligia and me to stay as guests in one
of the rental cottages at the fish camp he owns.
On the afternoon of Monday, November
6, we arrived in Cross, SC and found our way to the Canal Lakes Fish Camp,
situated just off Highway 45 on the canal between Lakes Marion and Moultrie. When
we entered the tackle shop to buy my hunting license, Ray’s mother greeted us
from behind the counter and kindly found freezer space for the venison I had
collected in North Carolina and Georgia .
Ray came by later to introduce
himself and make plans for my hunt. His club leases a vast tract of land that
stretches from the Santee River to Highway 45;
membership is limited to 25 hunters, and each is allowed to place three blinds
on the property. Members adhere to a rigorous deer management program that
requires commitment, effort and sacrifice. Each member may take two trophy
bucks (three years of age or older) and one lesser buck per season. That means
passing on a lot of fine-looking bucks.
The club hires a wildlife biologist
to estimate the size of the deer herd on the property and determine how many
does should be harvested to maintain the population at sustainable levels.
“This year each member has to take five does,” Ray explained. “Unfortunately, I
can’t let you shoot any bucks, but you can help me with my doe quota.”
Ray picked me up at 5:30 the next
morning for the short drive to the club. There, he wrote our names on a sign-in
sheet and put a pin in a wall map so others would know where we were hunting.
Then we rode his Kubota utility vehicle (stored in a shed on the premises) along
the club’s network of dirt roads to reach the blind.
The floor of the box blind sat
about 5 feet off the ground. Ray steadied and helped lift me from behind as I
climbed the short ladder built of 2x4 lumber. I entered the blind on my knees
and gripped the sturdy frame for support while rising to my feet. Once I was
safely seated on a metal folding chair, Ray handed me a rifle (his son’s
Browning A-Bolt .270) and said, “I’ll be in a blind 400 yards from here. Good
luck!”
He pulled the curtain over the
blind’s entrance and when the putter of the Kubota’s engine faded in the
distance, the sound was replaced by the soft patter of drizzling rain. Pre-dawn
temperatures hovered in the high 50s.
I surveyed my surroundings as
daylight began sneaking past the low cloud cover. A 30-yard-wide field of green
clover extended 150 yards in front of me, bordered by mixed hardwoods on the
right. To my left, a huge patch of tall weeds and thick brush sat on the other
side of the dirt road. The blind consisted of a wooden frame covered by camo
canvas. A 6-by-12-inch viewing window was cut at eye level in the front, and a
similar hole let me look out the left side. I should say “at Ray’s eye level”
because he stands 5 feet 8 inches tall while I top out at 6 feet 4. So I
ignored Mom’s lectures on good posture and slouched a bit to see out the
windows. A hole below and to the right of the window served as a shooting port,
and I was glad to see that the blind’s frame included a thoughtfully placed 2x4
for a solid gun rest.
Can you see me now?
Other than a few early bird robins stalking
worms in the clover, the scene remained serene for the first 45 minutes of
daylight. I kept looking to my left at regular intervals because Ray had warned
me that deer often travelled the edge of the weed field. After one such gander
to the left, I returned my attention to the forward window and saw a deer in
the clover field, right in front of me, just 30 yards out. The full-grown doe
must have dropped in on a parachute because I never saw her coming. She was
completely broadside to me, walking from left to right.
The rifle leaned in the blind’s
front right corner, within easy reach, but I couldn’t grab it and thrust out
the barrel for fear of spooking the doe. I reached over, carefully picked up
the rifle and veeeery slowly pushed the muzzle out the shooting port. And I do
mean slowly. It took two minutes before I could shoulder the rifle.
The doe had kept walking. She was
still only 30 yards in front of the blind, but by now was 20 yards to my right.
The angle was too steep for me to find her in the scope, and repositioning the
chair would surely make noise and alarm her. If I wanted to take a shot, I’d
have to do it left handed!
I shifted the .270 to my left
shoulder and leaned forward—far forward, because the shooting rail, tailored to
Ray’s dimensions, was a few inches low for me. Attaining and sustaining this
extreme lean required me to contract my abdominal muscles. BIG MISTAKE!
One symptom at the onset of ALS is intense
and lengthy muscle cramping. I’m talking pit-bull-vicious cramps that bite your
calf and don’t let go, or screamers that seize a forearm and twist your hand
into a painful claw.
Right then, my abs locked up like a
bank vault. I stifled a groan and quickly leaned far back in an attempt to
stretch my belly and relieve the agonizing cramp. Thirty seconds later,
breathing more freely, I leaned forward—only to have my abs cramp up again. I
repeated the lean-cramp-stretch routine four times. With no sign of the cramps
letting up, I finally said, “This is gonna hurt that deer a lot more than it
will hurt me.”
Gritting my teeth, I leaned forward
and found the doe in the scope. She was facing me, head down, eating clover.
Not the ideal scenario, especially when shooting opposite-handed, but I was in
no position to wait for a better shot opportunity. I held the crosshairs at the
junction of her neck and shoulder blades, but she lifted her head before I
could shoot. I adjusted my aim to the center of her chest and squeezed the
trigger.
At the shot, the deer hunched its
back and ran off to my right. It bounded noisily through the woods and then
crashed to the ground. After that, I heard only the gentle patter of rain on
the leaves.
Ray came by at 8:30 and showed
faith in my ability. He had obviously heard the shot, but instead of asking if
I got one, he pulled back the curtain and asked straight off, “OK, where is
she?”
“Laying in the woods, about 30
yards that way,” I said, pointing.
Ray smiled and said, “You can wait
here while I go get her.”
Fifteen minutes later he dragged
the doe onto the clover field. While helping me out of the blind, Ray said, “I
would have found her sooner, but you said ’30 yards.’ She only went 20.”
“I didn’t want to tell you until we
had a confirmed kill,” I said as Ray took my photo. “I had to shoot this doe
left handed.”
Back at the clubhouse Ray wrote the
deer’s sex and weight in the club’s harvest logbook. He also cut out a section
of the jawbone to send to a biologist, who determines a deer’s age by examining
the teeth. “We do this with every deer we shoot here,” Ray explained. “All the
info helps the biologist understand the deer herd’s overall health.”
Jawbone sample
Then Ray skinned and gutted the
deer, and hung it in the walk-in freezer. We found my mushroomed bullet lodged
just beneath the hide on the doe’s left flank. On the way through her body, the
bullet had clipped the top of the heart. I guess shooting southpaw didn’t cramp
my style.
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