River-Bottom Scouting

I spent about all day yesterday walking through a portion of the Hatchie River bottoms, which are part of a large public land area in West Tennessee (Hatchie River NWR). I accessed one area by boat, and, after hanging a few skipjack-baited limblines for catfish, I clamored up a steep bank, squirrel rifle in tow (it was the TN squirrel season opener this weekend) and started walking. As I suspected, by just running upriver a mile, I got away from almost all signs of people.

I've got a lot to learn about hunting deer in these places. I'm used to a few hills, but you won't see many of those in this part of the world. The wind swirls and does funny things in those river bottoms. What you will see, however, are ditches and small oxbow lakes lined with green vegetation and, often as not, several oak trees. Though it was too windy to do much on the squirrels yesterday, I did notice they were cutting on abundant oaks of several types in these areas, and there were quite a few deer tracks nearby. I also found at least one fruit-laden persimmon tree. A few old rubs marked smaller saplings as well. Given the lack of competition I'm banking on having in this spot, I was pretty excited, although it's tough to tell how much the deer will use in there until after the fruit and mast ripen a little more. I'm going to do some hunting there, and I think my goal, more than anything, will be to simply fill a tag first and foremost.

Oh, and by the way--my limblines were full of fat channel catfish when I started my way home yesterday evening, and I did round things out with one squirrel. When I got back to Memphis, I was soaked with a combination of skipjack guts, catfish slime, squirrel blood, sweat and bug spray. Dog tired as I was, my wife wouldn't let me touch the couch until after I'd had a shower.

Will Brantley