The week leading up to the opening day of deer season had been frustrating and challenging, to say the least. All I wanted to do was be in the woods but the days kept dragging on and on. By the time 6:44 a.m. rolled around Saturday, Nov. 2, I had been awake for hours and had been settled in my spot for quite some time.

A tuft of deer hair – and a few stories – was all this hunter came home with opening day. Dee Menear/Franklin Journal

As we drove along an old logging road earlier that morning, my friend and I used our hushed “November voices” to whisper our plans to meet up later. The truck might have been noisy but you wouldn’t hear our conversation unless you were sitting between us.

It was still dark when she dropped me off near my spot to head to her own favored hunting grounds. I grabbed my gear, quietly shut the truck door and peeked at my compass to get a bearing. I left the gravel road for an ancient twitch trail. As I headed into the woods I left every worry of the prior week behind me.

I used the time it took to get to my spot to become acquainted with the woods. Every sense was tuned into what was happening around me.

The walk in was quiet and deliberate. The pre-dawn air was crisp. Low-laying vegetation was cloaked with frost. Deep puddles left by recent rains were covered with a thin glaze of ice. My intended trail was blanketed with crunchy leaves. Each silent step had to be well thought out before my heel hit the ground.

I settled in, hyper-aware of my surroundings. I was more than blended into the forest with layers of camo. My entire being was in harmony with my setting.

I watched the sunrise, something I hadn’t purposely done in quite a while. I listened as the forest came to life. Beech leaves rattled on their branches, a fox screamed in the distance, coyotes yipped from somewhere even further along the ridge, and birds rustled as they descended from their roosts. Squirrels started their day’s work, collecting seeds and nuts as they scrambled through fallen leaves. On this day, they mercifully decided not to give my location away by chirping loudly at me from overhead.

For me, November brings a different and deeper meshing with nature than, say, backpacking or snowshoeing. It brings a feeling of being one with the world … a feeling of absolute belonging.

As I headed back to the truck for a mid-day break, I made note of the details I missed during my early morning trek in. I identified game trails, antler rubs, buck scrapes and animal tracks. I spotted a tuft of deer hair on a broken branch.

I silently laughed in mild frustration as I came across my first track from earlier in the day. Imprinted in the mud next to my eastbound boot mark was a newer westbound deer print. From the looks of the few tracks I followed the deer had made quick work of leaving the area. I had walked into the woods and it had run out!

That evening my friend and I reflected on our individual experiences and shared our “hunting stories”. We wouldn’t be filling freezers today, but we still had plenty of stories to tell.

It had been a remarkable day. As much as I had been looking forward to the season, what I really had been craving was a disconnection from my day-to-day world and a reconnection with nature. On the first Saturday of November, I found exactly what I was looking for.