My Favorite Hunting Canvas

My favorite hunting canvas begins where the darkness ends when arriving to my tree-stand in the morning. The beginning canvas is black, no color yet as it is too dark to see anything around you without artificial lighting. You see through the aid of your ears at this point, by only what you can hear and imagine around you. This, as well, has beauty of its own, mixed with the anticipation and anxiety of the unknown sounds. What are they? Where are they? How close will they come? There’s a scratching noise near you, an animal’s voice, and the brush is moving behind you.

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Then as the canvas lightens, you begin to hear the beautiful chirping of many kinds of birds. This is mixed in with the swirling wind, typical of the Hill Country area I normally hunt. This is also when the cold, dark night actually becomes colder as dawn is breaking. For some reason this time of year, that is the time when cold turns to bone chilling many times in the stand. The canvas is now more gray then black, and you can start seeing the shadows of figures moving, and the dark, still images of the landscape. You are not always able to distinguish buck or doe, but usually able to see the bodies moving about.

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Following the gray canvas is the most beautiful, magnificent part of all. The addition of every color you can ever imagine, presenting itself almost all at once. First, the orange glow appears as the sun is slowly creeping over the horizon. The sky turns light blue, sometimes more cloudy with marshmallow-like puffy clouds. Overcast onto this pale, blue sky, the rupturing orange of the sun appearing. Now you can clearly see the many shades of green amongst you. The weeds and grasses, brown, green and tan, are leaning and blowing heavily the direction of the wind. The brown and white deer are now totally evident, along with all the other moving creatures. You notice the scratching noise you heard in the dark canvas was a lizard, creeping in and out of a log near you. The unusual nature voices you heard were that of a raccoon, as it digs curiously in and around a tree and some brush near you, looking for food. The rustling in the brush a little ways behind you is that of a wild hog, nosing through the leaf decay, searching for food as well, and a place to lie down or waller. This is when you start to feel close to nature. Here you are totally silent, taking part in their world. You are an innocent observer that they do not know exists.

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Then, without hesitation, the brightest, most difficult part to actually visualize, the rising of the sun over the crest of the horizon occurs. The orange glow has now become pale blue sky, too bright with the fiery risen sun to look at. Rays of brightness literally shoot out everywhere. Red, orange, yellow, silver, gold, all the colors of hot and fiery you can imagine! It burns to look at, yet you cannot look away. The beams of sunlight are reflecting off of every bit of nature you could see just a few moments before. Even the animals themselves seem to take a moment to notice as they raise their heads and acknowledge ever so slightly, then return back to what they were previously doing. You will never forget that sunlight peaking over a huge mountain or hilltop, illuminating the world around you. It’s truly breathtaking, and why I myself love to spend the morning hunts in a stand. Now, your canvas is a complete, priceless masterpiece.

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Jody