11/24/2024
They are all around us, but we can’t see them. We walk their trails and sit in advantageous locations. Invisibility and patience play out a direct relationship with warm toes and fingers. Invisibility expires-so we move. The trails gently transform every year as old aspen rot and fall, adding meanders. Like a creek, old oxbows are abandoned as logs decompose and are swallowed by the duff. We do not brush out any trails for our purposes. The compact folding saws we carry are for cutting through the bone of a successful kill.
As we walk the trails, some sounds cannot be avoided, the crunch of snow under half the sole, and leaves beneath. The brush of beaked hazelnut and alder against nylon face fabrics. Other sounds are taboo and the result of a mistep. Light snapping sounds are acceptable, large ones are not. The thump created by tripping over a hidden log or heavy step spooks prey. Pant legs brushing together, metal clinking and speech are also unnatural. It’s impossible to move in silence, but one can move quietly enough to mimic a buck in rut. As we gently tip toe the meandering trails, we stop. Moving. Breathing. 15 seconds. 30 seconds. Straining to listen for any sound beyond our own tinnitus. Beyond the snow flakes hitting the nylon beside our ears. Nothing. We sound the grunt of a young buck to coax anything nearby toward a fight. More listening. Still nothing.
