Sumter Item outdoors columnist: The big woods

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The mixed timber of pine and oak towered above me. There was some underbrush, but it was not thick. I stood still in the cold morning air taking in the scene before me. The sky above was clear and bright. I had walked in from a woodland road along the top of a long ridge. This was new land to me, and I had to explore it.

There was a gentle slope downward. After walking a short distance, the underbrush thinned, and I could see for some distance through the big woods. My pace was slow and careful. I wanted to drink it all in.

The ground was carpeted in a thick layer of brown leaves and pine straw. There was a thin layer of understory hardwood saplings, then a canopy of mixed hardwoods and pines. I walked slowly and stopped often to look and listen. The hardwoods gathered into a bottom along a natural drain. The pines kept to the hillsides.

There was some older orange flagging tied along a nearby property line. The other property was easy to discern, as the timber was smaller and made up of only pines. At the bottom of the slope, I noticed a giant pine with three flags tied around its girth. I knew it was a corner tree.

Slowly, I started up the next slope. Here there were scratchings in the leaf litter. Turkeys! Just ahead more scratchings, and they were fresh. Farther up the slope, I noticed a few strands of barbed wire and a post or two. The wire was sagged, and some of the posts had fallen over. It was an old fence line. Just beyond the fence, I could see barrels. I counted a dozen. It was the site of an old whiskey still. I knew there should be another old road at the top of this slope, and I pressed on.

At the top, I almost stepped into the road before I recognized it. The woods had almost reclaimed this dim road. There were limbs and rotten tree trunks across the road from recent storms. In the roadway, turkeys had scratched through the pine straw looking for grubs and hidden insects. I had not yet seen any deer sign and no game trails.

I had driven into this site a couple of times before the deer season but didn't do much exploring. This time I noticed something that I had not seen before. There were some old rusted metal posts standing just off the old road. Four of them made a square. I walked over to get a closer look. Within the square, I noticed a raft of rotten logs, and through the gaps I could see wire. Below the wire, a black void. This was an old well. It had been covered with wire and logs, then surrounded by metal posts. I made a mental note to come back and tie some orange flagging around the posts.

The casual observer would think that these woods had never been disturbed by man, but that is not the case. Almost everything in our world has been disturbed. The well was here because there was a home site here at one time. Now, it has reverted to a magnificent forest. Home only to deer and turkey, wildcat and 'coon. I stood thinking about the people that had lived here at one time. I wondered who they were and what they did. Those secrets are unknown to me.

I knew the old road would lead back to the ridge top where my truck was parked, but I turned back down the slope to look at more of these big woods. A game trail was visible through the timber here. It was easy to follow, and I could see deer tracks punched through the litter into the soft, moist ground. I had hoped to see more turkey sign, maybe a feather or even a small flock at a distance. But there was none in this section. Instead I saw a buck rub on a small sapling.

There were more woods to explore on this property, and perhaps I would find some turkey sign there. I had spent a beautiful morning on a gorgeous section of land in the big timber.

Reach Dan Geddings at cdgeddings@gmail.com.