He materializes out of river-bottom tangles, silent as the morning mist that hangs thick in the cottonwood and hackberry limbs. The young buck isn’t cruising for girls; it’s still a week or more away from pre-rut festivities. Most likely, he’s ambled over from a nearby plum thicket sniffing for the burgundy-colored honey locust pods that litter the forest floor. I was counting on deer with a sweet tooth when I hung this stand back in late September.
I’m going to kill him if I can.