Sunday morning, Amanda left home before dawn to bow hunt the buck we have seen on occasion on the south place.
My son and grandsons were having a guy's day of sleeping in, eating a big breakfast and doing guy things while mommy went after the winter supply of meat.
I planned to be in the timber, not too far from where she planned to be, but the bed was warm and there is more than a week before the rut gets into full swing. I could get an extra hour or two of sleep and still go out in the afternoon.
I was wondering if Amanda had stuck with her plan to go out early when the phone rang. Damon and the grandsons were having a leisurely morning and planned on going to the farm shortly. Amanda had indeed headed into the woods before dawn's early light. Drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, I was feeling somewhat guilty about not being a dedicated hunter or being where I said I would be when the phone rang again.
This time it was Amanda. "I do not know where I am," were the first words spoken. Fortunately, I had looked at the caller ID or I would not have recognized the quiet, somewhat quavering voice. I thought better of making light of the situation. I have been lost before, and it can be quite unnerving. A person does not want humor or ridicule when they are lost. They just want help.
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I asked where she parked her truck and which direction she walked. She had come in the south gate, parked by the big oak tree and walked toward her favorite spot by the ravine that goes by the new pond. She had sat quietly there with no activity and started following a deer trail that snaked through the timber. When she got to the top of a heavily wooded hill, she suddenly discovered she had no idea where she was. She had cell signal on her phone but Damon did not answer. She thought I might answer and be only a few hundred yards away. I answered, but was a few miles away eating French toast and drinking coffee.
I asked if she had crossed any fences. She had not. She was somewhere in less than two hundred acres of trees, totally confused as to the way out. Nobody is going to be lost forever in a small timber like this, but this was not the time to go into detail on straight-line walking.
I knew she had walked east to get to her spot by the new pond and no matter how far north or south she had traveled, she needed to travel west to come to her truck or the road she would recognize.
The sun was shining brightly. I told her to get away from the trees where she could see her shadow cast upon the ground. Using her body as a sun dial, stand where her shadow would show ten o'clock, since that was the current time. She would now be facing north. Since she needed to go straight west, all she had to do was make a quarter turn to the left and see where the shadow falls. Keep the shadow in this position and a person can travel in a relatively straight line for an hour or so before making an adjustment due to change in time.
In less than a half hour Amanda called back. She was again safe and sound at her truck. This system of getting out of a tense situation works well as long as there in enough sunlight to cast a shadow. If it is a cloudy day or blizzard conditions, other measures are required and under those conditions we will not send Amanda to hunt alone.
Walter Scott is an outdoors enthusiast and freelance writer from Bloomfield, Iowa.
