Getting Ready

I love this time of year. I am busy with all of the pre-season preparations. Practicing shooting my bow and sighting in rifles. Cleaning out my packs full of old napkins, leaves from last season; crumbling and half rotten. Old candy wrappers, and empty cans of tobacco. Musty clothes piled in tubs ready for washing and airing out. Boots with last years mud dried in place to remind me of the raining weekend when we bagged 4 whitetails, 3 bucks and one doe. Leaking rubber knee boots that need another patch to replace the previous patch that now leaks.

I love the preparation, and in many ways it is almost as fun as the hunt itself. Each item that I gather has a memory of a previous adventure. Rattling antlers - from bucks harvested in the past still remind me of those fateful adventures when all seemed to go as planned. Knives that have cleaned several animals, moose, mule deer, turkeys and of course whitetails. Each has a story and each a memory forever deposited into the bank of my mind. My vest still has turkey calls in it, and the unused tags from last season. Left after a hurried exit. I need to put those up and replace them with grunt tubes and water bottles. Batteries need replacing in headlamps and GPS. Knives need sharpening and storing. Tents need to be set up and checked for leaks. There is a lot to do, and I have always reserved August as the time to do this.

Our season in my part of South Carolina open on September 1st. Our two week archery season is around the corner and I am getting ready. Anxiously I anticipate the first morning, wishing and hoping it will not be too hot, but experience tells me it will. Usually in the 90's with little wind. I can only hunt the morning before it gets too hot and all of my scent control is lost to beads of sweat. If it were not for the thermacell- (Still one of the greatest inventions for hunters the past 40 years) I would have to wait until it cooled down. Early season means nothing when the mosquitoes are bigger than buzzards and swarm like locusts. But the thermacell keeps them at bay and seems not to spook the deer. It too is checked and stored.

Camp stoves, lantern mantles are replaced, propane tanks filled, cots checked and the lit goes on and on. Yet it is with the anticipation of a child waiting for christmas that opening day captivates me. I count the days, and long for the opportunities to come.

Yes I love this time of year, I look forward to it, I in some ways long for it, for the anticipation, for the preperations, for the going through and plundering through things and memories of times well spent.