Susan Lagazo

     In the year 2003, we started early scouting of the hunting grounds. As it so happened, our new neighbors (hunters) had the same intent as ours. We could feel a silent, friendly race to hunt the best deer that year. Larry Gillespi the first person who welcomed us to mile square road was a retired contractor and a seasoned hunter. He had lived on the first corner of our road with his two dogs, Jessie and GUS since 1974. At the end of this mile long leg, a cozy cabin sits on a manicured green lawn owned by Terry and April Rivers (both hunters). James and Karen Vosburg, roof contractors are located at the right of our property. James is a seasoned hunter, I presumed as I listened to his exciting hunting stories. The couple was the last to buy in the neighborhood but the first newcomer to build a cabin. Retired Bill and Diane, who just love the winter weather, built an elaborate “Straight from the Home Magazine” cabin.

James Vosburg with trophy moose

Terry & April Rivers

Neighborhood get together

According to Diane “This area is a perfect place for snow lovers! The snow can go as high as 6 feet and we just love snowmobiles, spending quite warm evenings inside the cabin and watching the beauty of white weather.” “What a beautiful idea to have a cabin in the middle of nowhere”, I started telling my partner. I was quickly intercepted with a red flag. “No my dear you are not going to get any more ideas about spending. We spent enough for this year”!  “Uh huh, that was round one,” I thought to myself. I knew I need not say a word and things will fall into place soon as he sees the logic of building a cabin instead of spending for our lodging every time we travel to our new place. I wondered if I’m rationalizing all these future expenses.  For an instant the wish to win the “lotto” or a miracle of being an heir of a lost rich relative came fleeting in my conscious mind!

Larry Gillespi with Jessie and Gus

                                                                                      

      Electricity was just around the corner. It stopped at Diane and Bill’s cabin.  It will take a lot of money for all the new landowners to run the service to our area. There is a telephone pole on the road, a big plus for all. In spite of that condition, our neighbor to the left of us, Linda (adventurer) and John (car race driver) McCoughliff started to build their cabin too. Our road suddenly became an orchestra of hammer bangs and nail gun thuds.  The steady humming sound of the generators from the left and to the right of our place must have driven the creatures in the forest nuts. The variety of noise was enough to clean my ears and juggle my brain cells!  The worst result of the noise was the deer population retreating deeper into the woods. I did not see a shadow of any of them during the day except the tracks that were weaving and crossing our land. As if to punish us, the deer went nocturnal the whole summer. The irony of it all, the deer were basking under the light of the moon in James’ and our backyard, sometimes twenty at a time when silence blanketed the night.

 

Bill and Diana Beisel

 

Terry and Rose Snyder

   Every weekend on a Saturday early morning as sure as daylight comes, I’m in my tree stand observing the woods, waiting to see a glimpse of deer. Although I have not seen any, I know for a fact that they pass my tree stand because of the evident tracks they leave behind, together with the unidentifiable pitter patter footprints of little creatures always found under the tree stand. Since our property was bounded at the rear with 2000-acres State forest, Armen spent his time roaming the vast woods scouting the area and studying the routine the deer might have. We also managed to put several CamTrakker Game cameras in strategic spots. So far we have captured a few images of deer and several mug shots of different angles of the raccoon and porcupine. At least with the use of cameras, we can conclude that deer inhabit the area. We were indeed up to date with our homework! The deer were out there looking at Armen and me. I can imagine the deer converging and saying, “Look at those two silly greenhorns!  Hey you city folks, over here, we are just here!”

  

Susan at treestand site

 My tree stand is located near the ridge overlooking the creek where the view is phenomenal. Aside from the view, the tracks that created a deep passageway along the ridge made me decide that the best place for my tree stand was along the higher ridge. Meanwhile, Armen located his tree stand at the lower ridge on the other side of the creek a few hundred yards not directly opposite me to avoid a terrible accident of hitting each other when one of us finally release our long awaited shot. 

   There were days when rain did not touch the ground for several days.  The pristine creek rolled down serenely caressing the steps leading to the river that seemed to be humming sweet melodious sounds. Those are the days when the creek lulls me to doze in my tree stand leaving me rested when my watch was over. There are days after the rain when the raging creek would slap the steps down the river, slapping sounds that would strike the nerve of deafening fear in my head. All kinds of terrifying scenarios from all the horror films I’ve watched would start dimming my mind to the rhythm of the water surging down the river. Those angry sounds plus the darkness of the sky would cause a sudden change of ambience. The combination of emotion and imagination was almost enough to urge me to abandon my watch. Most often, I try to be brave. Aborting my watch would only occur when the weather turns ugly and pours tremendous amounts of water on the face of the earth to dampen my activity. Such lucky breaks allow me a handy excuse to give up my watch and consequently save me from the embarrassment of being tagged as a “Scaredy cat” by the men. But, when I go down from the tree stand, I feel like a pincushion, walking around with needles & pins stuck to me, a very unnerving experience that will only quiet down when I see the comfort of company. When anyone would ask me “How was your watch?” I would shrug my shoulder nonchalantly like a brave man, not telling how my mind brought me to different crescendos of fear and answer “ My watch? Just great!”

      I can sum up my hunting season year in the year 2003 through excerpts from e-mails I wrote to our Editor Rich Walton. I have to thank him because of his constant encouragement to me to go on trying in spite of my unsuccessful hunts. 

Sent Tuesday, Sept 30, 2003  1:15 PM
To: Rich

Dear Rich,

                  Well, I’m back from the 3 days hunt without success. It was raining hard, the creek below me was raging, the wind was bellowing and I think the deer could smell me! Let me tell you of a typical day of hunting. We are at our tree stand at before sunlight; go down at 10:00AM, return to our tree stand at 3:00 PM till dark without the expected success. On our very last day, since we have been studying the lunar position and size, we decided to heed the advise of experts and hunted during the day from 11:00AM till dark! Ha, don’t ask me how I managed the “call of nature “ needs. I managed some how with a portable blah  & blah to take care of my what-cha-ma-call-it and sealed the liquid tightly & so did my husband who I suspect did not have a hard time just because he was a guy!!. Armen gave up ahead of me, so I must have been a desperate hunter and because of these signals, I must have emitted warning smells to the creatures! Who ever said that deer were dumb must be dumb! They know when to be there when the hunter is not there! Believe me Rich; my tree stand is facing a heavy traffic site!  So… we will try again next week and get those elusive#*!!! I’m not giving up!!…Susan

From: Rich
Sent: Oct 03, 2003
To: Susan V. Lagazo

       YOU ARE A TIGER. I never thought you would attack the sport quite like you have. I am proud to know you….

Be safe, have fun.

From: Susan
Sent: Monday, October 6, 2003
To: Rich

Dear Rich,

        This weekend was a major disaster, Armen and I together with an experienced hunter Carlos went into the woods Saturday around 2:00pm expecting to come out of the woods when the day ended. The cloud was gloomy when we did go in and it was raining, actually it was pouring. This situation did not bother any of us because we’ve gone hunting in the rain much too often. With heavy boots, raincoat, tree umbrella, some apples for me (hopefully the deer could smell it too) and bow equipments, etc, etc, I throttled into the woods with songs like Aladdin’s  “ A whole new world, a whole new fantastic point of view, No one to tell you “no” or where to go or say we’re only dreaming…”hmmmmmm hmmmmm” humming in my head like in the movies when the heroin goes towards the sunset and a magnificent tune in the background would play! Ha, I even had the background music of Hawaii-Five-O when I started ascending the steps to my tree stand when half way along upward line I stepped on my raincoat dropping what was on my hand or what have you. I don’t know how it happened but I found myself dangling 10 feet above ground, my rain coat saving me from dropping but strangling me by the neck!! Somehow my raincoat got caught in one of the supports of the ladder tree stand allowing me to catch the steps of the stand in a second. Scared the hell out of me but I managed to save my cold “beep” with my quick reaction. That quick action saved the fall that was coming because my weight would have ripped the raincoat! You think this incident discouraged me? Guess what…I went back up the tree stand and settled down and tried to capture the serenity and pleasure of a tree hunt. Soon as I attached my umbrella a hale of ice came pelting down on the umbrella! After 2 hours, my hands were cold and half dead. My plan was to stay until dark because as I always feel every time I’m up in the tree stand, the deer would come, but the pain of cold hands was unbearable. I finally decided to call it quits. I went down my tree stand like a sick puppy, my body numb and the music that was in my ear was no longer there…only sounds of execution drums beating in my ears as I walked towards my comrades’ meeting place. Thank God they too were freezing!

    The following day, my spirit was willing to hunt but my aching body refused to budge and my neck got all scratched up! Ha ha  ha.. I’ll see the woods again next week! There are times you can’t simply quit!

From: Rich Walton
Sent :Monday October 6, 2003
To: Susan V Lagazo

Well, I have to hand it to you. You are hell for stout. There is nothing worse than hunting in the rain, unless it hails. If you don’t get a deer it won’t be lack of trying.

Good luck and please be careful. Falling out of a tree stand is not the way to get a deer.

From: Susan V. Lagazo
Sent: October 6, 2003
To: Rich Walton

Yeah! I wouldn’t like to see the headline: “Susan Lagazo, Bowhunting.net columnist strangled by her raincoat” Ha Ha not most likely. The worst was I could have had  several broken bones. My fellow hunters were scratching their heads. How in the world could I have done that….yap only “moi” I will be careful next time.

Rich Walton wrote:

Well thank God for the raincoat snagging. I just got done bragging about you on bowhunting.net, I sure don’t want to run your obituary…be careful!

Susan Lagazo wrote:

       I will be there in the woods hunting again this rainy weekend! The deer are waiting for me! I will be there!

From: Rich

Sent: Oct 3, 2005 Rich:

     Good Luck!

To be continued…