The weight of the wait
By Nick Simonson
With the anchor-like weight of a deer tag becoming more and more tangible in the right leg pocket of my camouflage hunting pants and that heft spurring much of my recent
outdoor activity, I catch myself thinking ahead, beyond the quiet morning sits and windy sneaks through the countryside as I wait for a buck – at this time, I’d take any buck – to magically appear in front of me. As I do, I listen to the winged world around me as chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers and other birds of the creek and river bottoms herald opening hour and then, once I’ve followed the sun through the sky from my vantage point on the grassy hillside, they again warn me of the approaching end of each day afield, pointing out that I have yet to set my crosshairs on my target. In my slow hikes, the ones where I hope to gently nudge my quarry from his daytime hiding spot in the tangled ground cover, other birds greet me, most notably the coveys of sharptailed grouse which abound this particular season, along with a good population of pheasants. Their whirring wings spark a muscle memory from September and October and despite the dozens of encounters in this halftime of sorts in their hunting seasons, it takes a second for my synapses to override the mechanical motion of my shoulders and biceps raising the unfamiliar firearm in an instinctive snap. Across the brown landscape I watch the hens and roosters fly, pumping their wings and gliding softly over the rises.
