• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Cold Snap (another tale of suffering)

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
314
Reaction score
901
Location
Fair Grove, MO
I thought you all might enjoy this somewhat true tale of my hunting adventures.

Darren

q2aMASG.png


At least once a season, I go to my farm with a bag packed for 70-degree hunts when I should have packed for 30-degree hunts. This usually happens during the middle of October when we get our first cold snap. There are a couple of reasons I continue to make this mistake, well, three, if you count just plain stupidity. The first is that my mind is still stuck on the miserable, sweat dripping sits I did when the season first opened. As I pack for first October trip, I again grab my lightweight hunting clothes, no hat, and then a light jacket as an afterthought. Sure, it’s supposed to be cooler, but that will be a nice change of pace, right? Wrong! As I have adjusted to a body with 50 plus years on it, I have learned that, along with my memory, my tolerance for the cold is fading. Unfortunately, my mind still thinks I’m in my 30s and it would have me in the bush covered in nothing but mud and hunting down the closest Predator. So it takes a couple of outings in colder weather before the two come to a compromise and I dress appropriately for the conditions at hand.

The other reason for not packing heavy clothes is a self-defense mechanism of sorts. If you have ever been to my dad’s home, you will know exactly what I’m talking about. Dad lives in a big, old, drafty house that takes a while to heat up and is hard to keep that way. His only heat source is a wood stove and he feeds that thing with the fervor of an engineer on a steam locomotive. And since there is no such thing as building a little fire, unless it’s near zero outside, it’s always a tad warm inside Chateau Haverstick. To further compound matters, the stove he has breaks all the laws of thermodynamics by producing more heat than its fuel contains. Throw a handful of wet elm branches on the three tiny coals in the firebox and you soon will be opening all the doors and windows to cool the house down to the mid-80s. Horseshoes could be forged on its surface and I once saw a mouse vaporize when it scampered too close to the Iron Sun. Thus, dressing for an outdoor adventure in the morning can be a bit tricky. On one hand, you know that you will need X number of layers on to be comfortable during your hunt. On the other hand, you know that you can only put on Y number of layers before you succumb to heat exhaustion. Can you make it out the door, carrying the (X minus Y) layers, before passing out? Have you voided your bowels and bladder before starting this exercise? That added time will figure directly into your chances of survival. As you can see, it’s a complicated process and I’m not in the right frame of mind in mid-October to make these kinds of calculations. Hence, I always run out the door half naked and end up paying for it on the stand. Note to self: your safety harness does not count as a layer of insulation.

So that brings us to the hunt that started me thinking about all this. When I left Dad’s house that morning it was a cool 35 degrees outside. I was going to hunt on the ridge behind the barn and all I was thinking about as I threw my stuff in the truck was the plethora of buck sign I had seen up there the day before. I had on an extra shirt as a feeble attempt to make up for my lack of insulated clothing and I figured I would most likely be good to go. I got to my hunting spot well before daylight, climbed a nice, big hickory, and settled in for the magic that was about to happen.

That magic turned out to be the 25 mph winds, straight out of the north, which turned the cool 35 into something more like a frigid -147 with the wind chill factored in. As I sat there, wishing for the 100th time that my safety harness had wider straps and a fleece lining, I decided it was probably in my best interest to pack up, climb down, and go hug the nuclear furnace in Dad’s living room. Unfortunately, I was so cold by then that my muscles couldn’t operate my climbing tree stand. My mental faculties were also beginning to shut down so, instead of thinking of a way to get out of the tree, I just fixated on the embarrassing way I was going to die – semi naked and afraid. I thought it best that I at least try to leave my loved ones a note and I remember my hands feeling like clubs as I dug around in my pack for suitable materials, a small roll of toilet paper and a half-eaten bar of chocolate. With my last remaining bit of body heat, I softened the chocolate and then added a few drops of doe pee to make a writing medium. Then I gnawed a feather off one of my arrows and, using it as a makeshift quill, started scrawling out my last will and testament. Even in my catatonic condition, though, the irony was not lost on me that I was using smelly, brown ink and toilet paper to document my crappy demise.

So, as I scribbled in midair for a while, trying to record something profound in chocolate, the sun continued its climb in the sky and the combination of its radiation and my physical exertions allowed my extremities to finally unlock enough for me to be able to begin my descent. Woohoo! No death today! But what’s the old saying? “Out of the frying pan and into the fire”? Did I mention earlier that I was in a hickory tree?

Despite what botanists will tell you, there are really only two species of hickory, Shagbark Hickories and Steel Pole Hickories. If you are a veteran of climbing tree stands, you know that you should stay away from shagbarks because they are moderately easy to climb up but almost impossible to climb back down. The other variety is prized for climbing, mainly because they are straight and usually don’t have any limbs on them for the first 100 feet or so. Their only drawback is that their bark is so tough and smooth that getting a good bite into it with the tree stand’s teeth is a very hard thing to do. Going up is not so bad but, coming down, you may find yourself in an unplanned accelerated plunge to the base of the tree. Yeah, that’s what happened to me.

Now I don’t remember the exact series of events, but I can kind of fill in the blanks. As I was working the lower part of the stand to bite into the tree, it suddenly slipped down about two feet, and this caused me to pitch way over the sitting bar on the upper part of the stand. In an effort to arrest my fall, I overcorrected in the opposite direction and smacked my head, face first, into the tree’s steel side. I guess I must have blacked out after that and my aluminum elevator, and its passenger, continued in freefall to the ground. All I know is that I woke up a few minutes later, half hanging out of the stand, dazed and confused. I felt a warm fluid running down my face, which I first thought was blood, but the expected coppery bouquet had ammonia notes instead. My dad has a neighbor who lets his hounds run loose 24/7 in an effort to keep the deer properly exercised. One of those had come by while I was incapacitated, taken a sniff of my toilet paper testament, and decided to highlight my work with an ink of a different color. I now stared at the world through my urine-colored glasses and remarked to myself that at least I was alive, and I was certainly no longer cold.

After untangling myself from the tree stand, I gathered up all my gear, dried myself off the best I could from my canine golden shower, and then walked back to my truck. Dad met me on the front porch as I walked to the door and, after getting a whiff of his son, made me strip off my soiled garments in the chilly front yard before allowing me into the warmth of the house. Yeah, the hits just kept on coming. They say that a person does not truly learn a lesson unless there is a sufficient amount of pain attached to the experience. I think I can safely say that I will never pack too light for a cold weather hunt again!
 
Last edited:
Have also been on one of those accelerated Decents. They are no fun. now at almost 69 I no longer climb trees :thumb:
Some 15 years ago now, I went and rented a very tall, 35' extension ladder to get on top of a very tall 30' RV garage to place a weather vane. I meticulously planned every aspect so I would not have to climb up and down the thing, bringing my tools in a bucket and tying off the weather vane via rope to haul up after I got the base set. It was a 6/12 pitch roof.

I got to the top quite easily, mounted the bracket, set my tools down and began to haul up the vane, however is hung up on the gutter. I began to move down to the edge and started to slide. I was able to stop at the edge, but just barely. All 6' 200lbs of me was perched right on the edge teetering . If I moved, lifted a hand or did anything I started to pitch over the edge.

After about 15 minutes of yelling at my now ex-wife for help to no avail, I was able to barely reach my truck keys in my pocket and press around until I set my truck alarm off. After a bit I heard my ex-wife come out. I began yelling again. It did not work as she climbed into the truck, turned off the alarm, moved it out of the way in the driveway, climbed into her car and headed off to town.

After about what seemed like 2 years, I was able to creep my self around to get my feet out to the ladder, but every move was fraught with almost pitching over the edge. The ladder kept pushing out and tipping over. I stopped once and said "Lord, if you can get me off of this roof without breaking anything, dying or falling, I promise you I will never get on a ladder above my shoulder height ever again.

I was finally able to get down without falling, leaving tools and everything up on the roof.

I took the ladder back to the rental shop and told them to put into the computer that if I ever came back to rent a ladder, to tell me "NO!"

To this day, I am a man of my word and I have not gotten above shoulder height on a ladder. At almost 69, I have enough partially working parts without stupidly adding to them

Makes for a good excuse NOT to put up Christmas lights.
 
Last edited:
chorizo,

What became of the bucket of tools and weather vane ?

A terrifying tale as I am severely afraid of heights, my first job out of high school was installing an awning on the observation deck over the falls at the Smiling Cow in Camden Maine

My cousin couldn't stand on an upturned washtub without freaking out, he joined the Paratroopers.

Great reads here
 
When I was young, I climbed a few trees while hunting. I never got a deer from a tree stand, and I was always cold and uncomfortable. I've found ground blinds to be more effective and a damn site more comfortable. As I am in my sixties now, I don't like to do things that could result in broken bones. I got more'n enough problems as things are.
 
chorizo,

What became of the bucket of tools and weather vane ?

A terrifying tale as I am severely afraid of heights, my first job out of high school was installing an awning on the observation deck over the falls at the Smiling Cow in Camden Maine

My cousin couldn't stand on an upturned washtub without freaking out, he joined the Paratroopers.

Great reads here
Tools stayed up there, in the bucket attached to the base of the vane a couple of years until I had a roofing company come out to repair a couple of missing shingles from a wind storm. I coaxed the fellow into retrieving the bucket for me.

The weather vane got attached to a fence post in the back yard, which was appropriate as it was a quite large 3D copper flushing pheasant and looked really good there, especially so since my feet didn't have to leave the ground to mount it.

Let me tell you, of all the dumb things I have done......that was one of them!
 
Last edited:
The ridiculous pickles we get ourselves into shed a bright light on some of the differences between men and women. Good job with the “minus 147 degrees” Darren. That made me laugh. Most of us reading this can remember times like this.
Our woods had enormous hemlocks that I would climb and hunt out of as a kid. Limbs eight to ten inches thick. The original tree stand was just getting up into the right branches where the butt and the feet and the rifle all had good places to rest, and then waiting for deer. A couple times I stayed up too long and was frozen stiff when it was time to stop hunting, which made the speed of returning to earth a toss-up - slow and scary or fast and painful. I’m too fat now to get up in a tree stand. I’m built for falling out of it hard. But I admire people who do it anyhow and then discover that they, too, have aged or gained weight or lost flexibility, and then have a dickens of an adventure getting out. Good luck everyone with their late season hunts
 
I thought you all might enjoy this somewhat true tale of my hunting adventures.

Darren

q2aMASG.png


At least once a season, I go to my farm with a bag packed for 70-degree hunts when I should have packed for 30-degree hunts. This usually happens during the middle of October when we get our first cold snap. There are a couple of reasons I continue to make this mistake, well, three, if you count just plain stupidity. The first is that my mind is still stuck on the miserable, sweat dripping sits I did when the season first opened. As I pack for first October trip, I again grab my lightweight hunting clothes, no hat, and then a light jacket as an afterthought. Sure, it’s supposed to be cooler, but that will be a nice change of pace, right? Wrong! As I have adjusted to a body with 50 plus years on it, I have learned that, along with my memory, my tolerance for the cold is fading. Unfortunately, my mind still thinks I’m in my 30s and it would have me in the bush covered in nothing but mud and hunting down the closest Predator. So it takes a couple of outings in colder weather before the two come to a compromise and I dress appropriately for the conditions at hand.

The other reason for not packing heavy clothes is a self-defense mechanism of sorts. If you have ever been to my dad’s home, you will know exactly what I’m talking about. Dad lives in a big, old, drafty house that takes a while to heat up and is hard to keep that way. His only heat source is a wood stove and he feeds that thing with the fervor of an engineer on a steam locomotive. And since there is no such thing as building a little fire, unless it’s near zero outside, it’s always a tad warm inside Chateau Haverstick. To further compound matters, the stove he has breaks all the laws of thermodynamics by producing more heat than its fuel contains. Throw a handful of wet elm branches on the three tiny coals in the firebox and you soon will be opening all the doors and windows to cool the house down to the mid-80s. Horseshoes could be forged on its surface and I once saw a mouse vaporize when it scampered too close to the Iron Sun. Thus, dressing for an outdoor adventure in the morning can be a bit tricky. On one hand, you know that you will need X number of layers on to be comfortable during your hunt. On the other hand, you know that you can only put on Y number of layers before you succumb to heat exhaustion. Can you make it out the door, carrying the (X minus Y) layers, before passing out? Have you voided your bowels and bladder before starting this exercise? That added time will figure directly into your chances of survival. As you can see, it’s a complicated process and I’m not in the right frame of mind in mid-October to make these kinds of calculations. Hence, I always run out the door half naked and end up paying for it on the stand. Note to self: your safety harness does not count as a layer of insulation.

So that brings us to the hunt that started me thinking about all this. When I left Dad’s house that morning it was a cool 35 degrees outside. I was going to hunt on the ridge behind the barn and all I was thinking about as I threw my stuff in the truck was the plethora of buck sign I had seen up there the day before. I had on an extra shirt as a feeble attempt to make up for my lack of insulated clothing and I figured I would most likely be good to go. I got to my hunting spot well before daylight, climbed a nice, big hickory, and settled in for the magic that was about to happen.

That magic turned out to be the 25 mph winds, straight out of the north, which turned the cool 35 into something more like a frigid -147 with the wind chill factored in. As I sat there, wishing for the 100th time that my safety harness had wider straps and a fleece lining, I decided it was probably in my best interest to pack up, climb down, and go hug the nuclear furnace in Dad’s living room. Unfortunately, I was so cold by then that my muscles couldn’t operate my climbing tree stand. My mental faculties were also beginning to shut down so, instead of thinking of a way to get out of the tree, I just fixated on the embarrassing way I was going to die – semi naked and afraid. I thought it best that I at least try to leave my loved ones a note and I remember my hands feeling like clubs as I dug around in my pack for suitable materials, a small roll of toilet paper and a half-eaten bar of chocolate. With my last remaining bit of body heat, I softened the chocolate and then added a few drops of doe pee to make a writing medium. Then I gnawed a feather off one of my arrows and, using it as a makeshift quill, started scrawling out my last will and testament. Even in my catatonic condition, though, the irony was not lost on me that I was using smelly, brown ink and toilet paper to document my crappy demise.

So, as I scribbled in midair for a while, trying to record something profound in chocolate, the sun continued its climb in the sky and the combination of its radiation and my physical exertions allowed my extremities to finally unlock enough for me to be able to begin my descent. Woohoo! No death today! But what’s the old saying? “Out of the frying pan and into the fire”? Did I mention earlier that I was in a hickory tree?

Despite what botanists will tell you, there are really only two species of hickory, Shagbark Hickories and Steel Pole Hickories. If you are a veteran of climbing tree stands, you know that you should stay away from shagbarks because they are moderately easy to climb up but almost impossible to climb back down. The other variety is prized for climbing, mainly because they are straight and usually don’t have any limbs on them for the first 100 feet or so. Their only drawback is that their bark is so tough and smooth that getting a good bite into it with the tree stand’s teeth is a very hard thing to do. Going up is not so bad but, coming down, you may find yourself in an unplanned accelerated plunge to the base of the tree. Yeah, that’s what happened to me.

Now I don’t remember the exact series of events, but I can kind of fill in the blanks. As I was working the lower part of the stand to bite into the tree, it suddenly slipped down about two feet, and this caused me to pitch way over the sitting bar on the upper part of the stand. In an effort to arrest my fall, I overcorrected in the opposite direction and smacked my head, face first, into the tree’s steel side. I guess I must have blacked out after that and my aluminum elevator, and its passenger, continued in freefall to the ground. All I know is that I woke up a few minutes later, half hanging out of the stand, dazed and confused. I felt a warm fluid running down my face, which I first thought was blood, but the expected coppery bouquet had ammonia notes instead. My dad has a neighbor who lets his hounds run loose 24/7 in an effort to keep the deer properly exercised. One of those had come by while I was incapacitated, taken a sniff of my toilet paper testament, and decided to highlight my work with an ink of a different color. I now stared at the world through my urine-colored glasses and remarked to myself that at least I was alive, and I was certainly no longer cold.

After untangling myself from the tree stand, I gathered up all my gear, dried myself off the best I could from my canine golden shower, and then walked back to my truck. Dad met me on the front porch as I walked to the door and, after getting a whiff of his son, made me strip off my soiled garments in the chilly front yard before allowing me into the warmth of the house. Yeah, the hits just kept on coming. They say that a person does not truly learn a lesson unless there is a sufficient amount of pain attached to the experience. I think I can safely say that I will never pack too light for a cold weather hunt again!
Your first chapter in a “ tales of the hunt “ book ??? Seriously,you do have a gift! That was funny as all get out !!
Great read !! Thank you 😂😂
 

Latest posts

Back
Top