It was cold even in the midday of December some 20 years ago in the swamp the locals called Deep Bottom. My best hunting buddy, Mike Taylor, and I had driven to Ruffin in the predawn just as we had done hundreds of times before after he and his father (Robin) Bo had introduced me to deer hunting in 1970.

We waded across the widest creek (or run) over a fallen log and kind of wandered across the other two runs by finding the narrowest spots. It had been very dry and most of the back runs were just dry sand. As we walked down one of these runs, we spotted a scrap line. In each of the scraps was a hoof print of a large deer that was twisted. The front hoof was widespread and one of the (toes) on the front right hoof was turned in like a crab claw. He was not difficult to follow and figuring that we had already spooked him, we trailed him up and down the runs until we established a pattern and found the laurel thicket where he would wile away the middle of the day.

The buck had a trail of rubs running right through the middle of the thicket and as we followed a trail in one side, he exploded out of the other. We couldn’t see his rack, but it was obviously a very large deer judging by the width and height of his rear end as the brush closed behind him.

Mike and I decided to trudge the half-mile back out of the swamp and to his truck to give the woods a chance to settle down. Back then the nearest store was back toward Williams and we frequently stopped at the old N&W grocery to pick up lunch meats and snacks. Vienna sausage and Nabs along with a Mountain Dew would pretty much tide us over for the afternoon. Often we would pull the truck under a shade tree and take a siesta on the warm hood until about mid-afternoon when it was time to pick a stand for the witching hour.

This afternoon we were too excited. If I knew then what I know now, we would have not gone back into the swamp. Once a big buck is spooked, he seldom comes back for days until he knows it’s safe. Fortunately, I wasn’t as smart back then. We planned our strategy out very carefully. We had both heard of the magic of scrapes and read plenty in magazines about it but were more fascinated by huge rubs than wet spots in the sand. We decided to give it a try though.

Mike would sit on the back line next to the thicket. I would sit on the dry run about 100 yards away near the buck’s scrape line. It would take a long time to slip back into the third run as it involved crossing creeks and winding our way through thickets, so we left right after lunch. We knew enough that we realized that the wind was in our favor, but we also knew it would be tough to keep it that way. We planned our approach carefully. After we tight-roped a log across the first major creek, Mike stopped and liberally spread Doe In Heat scent all over his boots. I declined. I think I already had some acorn scent on mine. We silently worked our way to a point where we had to split up. We made sure of the shooting angles to avoid a terrible accident and went our separate ways.

It was a beautiful winter afternoon in the Lowcountry. I nestled up between a couple of large cypress trees and backed into the shadows with the wind as my ally. If the deer came the way we envisioned, he would he would have to skirt around Mike to get to me, which was not an unlikely scenario. As the afternoon began to darken, I was startled by a very near-sounding blast. I waited a few minutes and then hooted at Mike (no cell phones in the 1980s, thank God). He whistled me over and told me this story.

He had backed up against a tree as well and sat for a couple of hours. After a long time it appeared our plan wasn’t working and the Vienna sausage started working on him. The only thing he could think to do was to back off in the woods a little and heed the call of nature. He leaned his rifle against a tree and was in the most vulnerable position a sportsman can find himself when he looked up and saw the massive buck standing 10 yards in front of him with his head down and snorting. Apparently the doe in heat scent Mike had doused himself with was working well … too well. He slowly reached over from this half-crouched position, grabbed his rifle and without any unnecessary movement shot the deer. There, on the ground, when I reached a somewhat stunned Mike was a very old, massive, 7-point buck. Mike told me the story and I was so awe struck that I forgot to laugh … for awhile.

It was now dark and the only light we had was Mike’s small two-cell flashlight. We didn’t want to gut the deer there because all sorts of stuff would have gotten into the body cavity on the way out. We had about a half-mile drag ahead of us over creeks, through thickets and up hills to get the 180-pound deer out of the woods. If we weren’t in our 20s, we never would have made it. We would shine the light about and pick a path and then blindly drag the deer for about 10 yards or so and repeat this process over again. It got very interesting when we had to cross water, but thankfully the deer floated and we pushed him from one side to the other.

That was a first in a lot of ways for both of us. That day we learned how to trail an individual deer through his haunts by recognizing a peculiarity in a hoof print. We learned about rub lines and scrapes. I don’t know about Mike, but I learned that day NEVER to put an attractant-type scent (especially a sex scent) on my person.

Orangeburg dentist Dr. John Rheney has been writing an outdoors column for The Times and Democrat for more than two decades.

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