“We need more hunters out there!" The radio announcer blared! "Calling all hunters, help us manage the deer population! Too many road accidents!”  With that message echoing in my ears I looked forward to a very good hunting season in '98 !!!

During our turkey hunt in Pennsylvania we met Mallick, a burly man that reminded me of a lumberjack. He looked tough and foreboding, like a huge thundercloud. While he had this ominous look about him, as soon as he started talking, the exuberance flowed and one's initial assessment about him melted away. What emerged was a genuinely warm and interesting man. Mallick is a gregarious man whose dedication to hunting was impressive. On this trip he was teaching his niece Nicole how to hunt. 

Mallick was a dedicated hunter who, every Wednesday afternoon, would devout his time to teens and teach them how to shoot at a shooting range. It was destiny that brought Mallick, my husband and I together. It turned out that we practiced archery at the same range. We said our goodbye's that certain hunting day and knew for certain that we were going to become friends and bowhunting comrades in the future.

We saw Mallick again at Proline range. We watched him  mingle with a bunch of kids half his age. He had  this deep belief  that archery would turn these young kids’ lives  around  and  by getting involved in bowhunting and target shooting and away from violence and drugs. Mallick lost a lot of his friends and love ones from drugs and his phobia of helplessness was ever so great. He felt that if he could not save the older folks, he might be able to influence these kids before they took a turn in the wrong direction.  Mallick’s world was work (he works for the horse racetrack) and hunting! Every Wednesday, Mallick gathered his nieces and a bunch of kids to practice at the range.

 A young lad (15 yrs old) named John Czech who works part time at the range, occasionally joined Mallick to practice. He subsequently became a member of our hunting group. He was an excellent recurve shooter like his brother Mike Czech who represented the US in the Olympics in Sweden and appeared on the cover of Archery magazine last year. Mike is currently training with the US Olympic team and his talent trickled down to John. But John wanted to make his own mark too and his interest in hunting was his forte. John harvested his deer last year and the excitement of success was still strong in him. 

Mallick’s favorite niece was Nicole. She was a budding young lady who needed guidance and the best way, according to Mallick was through hunting. She too was pulled into our hunting party.

When Mallick learned that my husband and I had not taken our first deer, he offered to be our mentor. One week-end in September 1998 Mallick invited Armen and I to tag along on a hunting trip to the Adirondacks state land. It was a vast acreage of hunting ground for deer, bear, small game and occasionally elk. The state land bordered Canada. 

Mallick introduced us to his hunting buddy, John Coffee. John, like Mallick has had more than twenty years of hunting experience. John, was a man of patience.  His life has been turned around drastically because he was an avid hunter. There was a point in time when John injured his ankle and had to stay home for several months. Because of his immobility become a virtual prisoner in the house. All he was able to do was eat, watch TV, sleep & rest. His 200lb, weight ballooned to a hefty 700 lbs. He couldn’t explain this incredible occurrence. It just happened and before he knew it, it was too late. As he covered his past to me, he expressed the agony of being fat. The agonizing pull of wanting to eat versus wanting to shed the extra weight. Always, food won as John slowly pushed himself toward death. 

When his fractured ankle healed, it took him time to relearn how to walk. He felt like a freak and his tremendous weight made learning to walk again that much more difficult.  No matter how aware he was of his state of being, he continued to gorge himself with food.  He could hardly walk because of the heavy weight on his feet. Because his mobility was limited, he missed a lot of hunting seasons. Hunting buddies dropped by to show their trophies and relay exciting hunting stories. After an overdose of hunting adventures from other hunters, the hunter in John prompted him to dig up his hunting gears. As he held his bow, he felt like he was holding the “excalibur “ because the realization of how he missed hunting struck him like a bolt of lightning! A voice echoed within him. “ You got to pull yourself together! You need to feel the woods, the excitement of the hunt and the excitement of conquering!”  Up to this day John could not explain the transformation of his body down to 280 lbs! All he knew was his determination was triggered by his love of hunting. I stared at John with disbelief and that prompted him to bring out his “before and after” picture from his wallet! I was speechless and realized how much a man can be moved beyond his capacity because of a “callling”.!

The group was an array of characters. Mallick, Nicole, the 3 Johns (John Czech, John Coffee Sr., John Coffee Jr., Armen and I. In spite of our differences of age and characters we were comfortable with each other. Mallick built a camp near the state land as soon as he set foot in the woods that Friday, a day before the hunting season started. He put up a big tent that would contain the men and a small tent that would be for Nicole and I. Nicole and I convinced Armen to stay guard in our tent. Our imagination ran wild when the men started talking about the abundance of bears around the place. We were out of civilization. We had a campfire, roasted meat, our appetite and our own hunting tales. 

Like a sponge, I listened and absorbed all the new revelations with gusto. A city girl all my life, everything that I had seen so far was all-new to me. When I was a young girl, a family picnic to the woods in the park was the nearest thing I had come to wilderness. My father was a psychiatrist and was too busy to do anything out of the ordinary. Don’t get me wrong, he was a doting father and did his best to give my two brothers and I a semblance of a normal life considering his dedication to his profession.

The day before the hunt, Mallick, Armen & I rode the van to go around the stateland that was also surrounded by private land. Mallick knew the area like the back of his hand. He had hunted the area for almost 10 years. It was Friday night and we had two hunting days ahead of us.

There were deer all around us! They were all over the place. On the road, in somebody’s backyard, in the field -- just all over. The deer were relaxed. I guess months of being left alone made them react this way. My mouth was gaping and I was speechless. The only thing running through my mind was, “ My God, I will finally bag a deer tomorrow!”  That night we saw at least 20. 

The night was unusually silent. The smell of pine trees played with our senses through the occasional summer breeze. I had never slept in a tent in the middle of nowhere and I was excited to enjoy the night. One hour after we have settled in, it began to drizzle. The drizzle turned into rain. The rain turned into a torrential storm!

The wind blew the shed that covered our tents. The lightning came in frequent succession. Teenage Nicole, frightened of the thundering clash of lightning, decided to scoot away in the huge tent that covered her uncle & the rest of the hunters. Armen and I were wide-awake neither of us offered any suggestion until the tent started to leak. The rain was pouring when we ran into the cozy confine of our van. After drying ourselves we finally drifted off to sleep. 

The scurrying of feet woke us up. At 4:00 o’clock in the morning as everyone was trying to get into his or her hunting clothes. The hunting ground was perpendicular to the road and running to the north. A number of land strips, divided by trails going to the north further then the eye could see, radiated from the road. The deer cut across these strips from east to west during feeding time and vice versa during bedding time. The deer had this routine for a while till this first day of hunting. As Armen and I entered the woods in the dark to get to our tree, I heard the rustle of leaves all around me. “ My God" I thought, "The deer are already moving to go back to their bedding area”! Quietly, Armen and I took our position. The wait for sunlight was like a lifetime. In my head I rehearsed my stance to outsmart an approaching deer! I silently nocked an arrow. 

As daybreak came, I peered into the morning light expecting to see the familiar silhouette of deer from where the sounds were coming from.  The woods were bursting with hunters! Every 5th tree seemed to contain a hunter. The combined smell of hunters permeated the air and the mass movement of bodies scattered the deer in all directions. A stampede of deer created a new trail in order to veer away from all the ambushers waiting for them on their regular trail. 

That day only two deer were taken. The rest of the hunters, including us, were scratching our heads with dismay. At 10:00, the tree like clad bodies departed from their backdrop of trees almost simultaneously. The hunt was over that morning. We figured that the deer had reached their bedding area. It would be sheer luck if a hunter who stayed a while after ten to get a straggler.

Late in the afternoon, John, his son John Jr., Armen and I decided to change our hunting ground.

We found an area where trees were around a small patch of open field. The trees were far apart from each other. The deer's habitual pathway was across this field. We situated ourselves opposite each other but not directly across each other, John and son on one side, Armen and I on the other side between the path of the pack of deer. It was 2:00 PM, 2 hours before the deer would start on their way to their feeding ground. 

I could see John and son about a 150 yards away from us preparing their blinds. John Jr. started setting his ground blind. I was settled and watched John Jr. tie the string of the first four corners of his blind. The group saw to it that none of us was directly across each other so we could loose our arrows without the fear of hitting our fellow hunters. John Jr was not quite finishd tying his blind when I saw him freeze. He then took his bow, aimed and let the arrow go. 

In a few seconds, I saw John Jr., his blind draped on his back, flying high like Superman ready to take off.  He cut across his Dad and caused him to scamper and disappeared from sight. John Jr. was running across the field toward us like the wind, his camo blind flapping behind him! I couldn’t make out what was happening. As he drew nearer I still could not identify the figure following him. Before I knew it John Jr. passed my tree stand in a dead run followed by a big black bear! Following the big black bear was senior John scared out of his wits but still in the presence of mind to help John Jr. All four hunters were shouting at the tops of our lungs which apparently caused the bear to have a change of heart about making a meal out of John Jr.

Our combined noise had the effect of sending the bear fleeing back into the woods. Young John’s tongue was literally hanging out, as was his father’s. I climbed down from my tree stand and couldn’t contain my laughter. The image of a hunter with a cape being chased by a bear was no joke, but since both Johns were safe, I thought only of the funny side.

It turned out that the bear had smelled the unfinished ham sandwich that John Jr. had tucked away in his backpack. The bear, doing what bears do, followed the scent of the food. When John Jr. saw the bear coming toward him, he tried to scare him off with a bow shot near his feet. Instead of running away, the bear charged him! John Jr. did what hunters in this situation do, he ran like hell. We ended the hunting day with laughter around the campfire and a well learned lesson! 

Continued . . .