56 
FOREST AND STREAM 
February, 1921 
chicken and roast mallard, sweet pota- 
toes and plantation ham, — and a hunt- 
er’s appetite, there is nothing else in 
life that he really needs. After such 
a repast, enlivened by all the nonsense 
that a party of Southern hunters can 
devise, a man feels at peace with all the 
world. There was a day when such a 
meeting had other forms of merriment 
and, while the Southern people believe 
in prohibition, their sense of hospitality 
— and possibly the expectations of their 
guests — must in these dry days suffer 
acutely. 
We went no more into the woods that 
day. We had heard the dogs run; we 
had taken three deer and we had had 
fun and sport enough to satisfy us all. 
S WAMP hunting is uncertain busi- 
ness. The prevalence of water, the 
density of the undergrowth, the 
general wildness of the situation, and 
the fact that deer have all the chance in 
the world to skulk and dodge, render 
the going difficult and the sport not al- 
ways good. I much prefer, and I think 
most other hunters would also, the deer- 
hunting of the open pinelands, where a 
man can see what is going on, and can 
tell at all times “where he is at.” 
There i^ a method of hunting in the 
pinelands that I have followed so long 
and with such uniform success that I 
am going to describe it; for the man 
who goes South for a deer or two can 
get his heads in no manner quite so cer- 
tainly or so sportily as in the way I 
shall mere recommend. Even when a 
man is a member of a hunting club, 
which hunts deer regularly in the old 
driving fashion, I am sure he would 
enjoy a change to this style, which is 
about as near to stalking as any deer- 
hunting in the South can be. 
The pinelands, wide, lonely, level, 
grown to broomgrass and gallberries, 
are interlaced by long narrow water- 
courses. These “bays” as they are 
called are almost invariably the daytime 
retreats of deer. Occasionally, when 
the winter’s sun is persuasive, deer will 
lie out in the broomgrass under the 
pines, or among the fallen logs in a 
sheltered, sunny place, but it is a safe 
bet that most of them are in the bays. 
If a bay is narrow, and the green 
growth is not too high, a hunter can 
walk along slowly, peering into the 
undergrowth, observing signs along the 
borders, and often, if in genuine deer 
country, starting deer from their day- 
time lairs. If I had not hunted in this 
manner so often and with such uniform 
success, I should never think of rec- 
ommending it to others. But it is a 
sporty way in which to talk business to 
an old buck. I have usually kept to 
windward, for as a rule a deer will leave 
cover on that side, even though he winds 
danger from that direction. I remember 
having a fine six-pointer jump out in 
front of me, with his head held high and 
his nostrils wide, not more than thirty 
yards away. Before planning a regular 
campaign of elusiveness, a deer likes to 
get his bearings. To do this he employs 
his ears, his eyes, and his nose. I think 
his nose is worth most to him. His 
hearing, while acute, does not always 
compel him to do the wise thing. For 
example, while walking along quietly 
beside the bays described, I have never 
had any difficulty in coming up within 
easy gunshot of a deer. Often, indeed, 
the shot is too close, and I have to let 
the creature get a respectable distance 
away. Even in comparatively open 
woods I have walked within thirty yards 
of deer lying down. Of course, these' 
creatures were fully aware of my ap- 
proach, but their characteristic tendency 
to skulk held them to the ground. I re- 
member seeing an odd incident in the 
pinelands. Two of us were going to our 
stands. Suddenly my companion threw 
his gun to his face and fired. Not forty 
feet away a big buck began to roll over 
and kick. He had been lying on a little 
space of clean sand, partly sheltered by 
some scrub-oak bushes. My friend said : 
“I made him out, but only because his 
horns rocked. He had his lower jaw 
flat on the ground, and as he moved his 
head craftily, I saw the antlers move. 
He counted on having us pass him by.” 
While the method of walking up deer 
is adapted to the solitary hunter in the 
Southern pinelands, two men can per- 
haps do the same kind of work equally 
well. I have often hunted with a com- 
Horns of a Carolina stag taken in 1915 
panion, each one of us taking a side of 
the bay. When with a friend, we were 
able to flank all bays, regardless of 
their thickness or the height of their 
growths. Sometimes I have hunted thus 
with hounds, but oftener with no dogs. 
Perhaps one slow dog, with a good nose 
for a cold trail, makes the sport more 
certain. He gives a man some warning, 
and there need be no fear that deer, 
hearing a trailing dog, will get up out 
of range. As I have already hinted, 
a deer, especially a buck, isn’t going to 
bother his head much over dogs until he 
positively has to. And even when he is 
fairly roused, he may not show any of 
that six-cylinder speed of which he is so 
easily capable. During all my years of 
deer-hunting I have never more than 
two or three times seen a deer in full 
run before dogs, and in each case the 
deer was wounded and was about to 
be overhauled. In front of hounds, deer 
will gracefully loaf along, skulk, dodge, 
make a showy spurt or two, and make 
some spectacular jumps over obstacles, 
but most of the wild races that are sup- 
posed to take place never really come 
off. 
Some hunters, while they like the idea 
of jumping up deer, are rather unen- 
thusiastic about the walking end of it. 
They should ride. A deer will let a 
horse come closer to it than it will a 
man. The elevation afforded by a seat 
in the saddle affords better observation. 
The only thing to watch is the behavior 
of the horse. No aminal of spirit is go- 
ing to be wholly tame when a harmless 
green thicket suddenly explodes into a 
stag with horns and a tail as broad as a 
regimental flag. There is some skill re- 
quired in calming the horse and in 
calming oneself sufficiently to get sight 
on the fleeing whitetail. Yet many men 
hunt deer in no other way. 
T HE practice of riding up deer has 
considerable vogue in some parts of 
the South. Often as many as five 
or six horsemen will ride the woods and 
the bays in extended-order formation, 
and they invariably shoot, even if they 
do not always bring home the venison. 
However, for a quiet day’s sport, with 
an opportunity to stop when I feel like 
it, and with chances for observing wild 
life of many kinds, I prefer solitary 
hunting in the bay-country. And let 
me add that no man thus following the 
whitetail should neglect to investigate 
the little bush-bordered ponds that 
abound in the Southern woods. It is as- 
tonishing how deer love these ponds. 
When they are bush-grown throughout, 
the deer will wade across the water and 
bed high up on the hummocks of gall- 
berries and sphagnum moss. Repeated- 
ly, when the broomgrass and the bays 
would yield nothing, I have killed my 
buck in one of these ponds. And the 
size of the place appears to have noth- 
ing to do with its attractiveness for 
deer. Out of a pond no larger than an 
ordinary room I have started five deer, 
and often I have seen stags of the larg- 
est sort run out of similar places. If 
one stag is taken out of such a resort, 
in a very short time another one will 
take his place. It is characteristic of 
deer to love definite localities ; if an old 
king dies, his throne will not be long 
vacant. 
There are many plantations in the 
South where the visiting sportsman can 
secure the accommodations necessary 
for the sport I have described, the chief 
of these accommodations being the 
privilege of roaming the pinelands of 
the neighborhood. I know and have 
hunted on many plantations of about 
two thousand acres each on which a 
man can take a fine head at almost any 
time he desires to do so. Perhaps, how- 
ever, the sportiness of the achievement 
will be in proportion to the skill and 
effort expended; therefore I recommend 
the form of still-hunting that I have 
described, which is far more interesting 
and exciting than just bowling over a 
buck as he is run out to a stand. And 
yet, judging from the number of deer 
that are shot at and not bowled over, 
even, when coming close to the stand- 
ers, a rather respectable degree of skill 
is required to accomplish that feat. 
I MENTIONED the coastal islands as 
haunts for Southern deer. When 
islands are far offshore — like St. 
Katherine’s off the Georgia coast — the 
deer are permanent residents, and the 
hunting of them is restricted to a few 
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