10 Best Base Layer For Hunting

Best Base Layer For Hunting in 2023

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Close Encounters of the Alien Kind

While deer hunting in a remote area of Kentucky one season, my outings turned into a cat and mouse game where the hunter turned into the hunted.

My family and I own a family farm that we commute to during the summer for weekend getaways, fishing, and hunting during the fall. It is in a place that most of the old timers in the area call Hell's Canyon due to the lack of air movement during the hot summer months. It is on a lonely single lane gravel road that is about 7 miles long with no current residents, a couple of lonely old Kentucky homesteads that are used for hunting purposes and the owners are descendents of family that once lived there and farmed for a living. Surrounding this road is miles and miles in any direction of small pastures and forests.

I inherited this farm of about 120 acres many years ago and have spent countless days and weeks hunting and fishing the area where this lonely gravel road travels through, and more times than not, haven't seen a soul for days on end during my stays. It is absolutely one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I have been to in my life.

I live in another state, but commute religiously each fall for the start of deer season, rifle season in particular during the onset of the peak breeding season which usually starts around the middle of November. I head down the day before to get the house warm and cozy with the wood stove, have a big steak and couple of cold beers and celebrate the good life. Sometimes my wife and kids go with me, this time they chose to stay home and Christmas shop. So it was just my faithful dog and me on this trip. Now you have to understand what kind of dog this is and how protective of me she is to fully get the full effect of this story. She is a pit-bull/black lab mix, probably the most intelligent dog I have ever known. The most loving and truly loyal animal I have ever owned.

She was given to me when she was a puppy at about 6 weeks old. I raised her and trained her to be my protector. Where I go, she goes. And she was with me on this cold November night of 2020. Her and I had got the house warmed up, had our steak dinner (yes I fixed one for her too), she had some water and I drank a couple of beers. We turned in early to get some rest because I had to get up to be in the woods before dawn. She was lying right next to me when I fell asleep that night, where she always does when my wife isn't around anyway. Around 230am in the morning I was startled awake by my dog with her standing over the top of me, growling, barking, and acting more ferocious than I had ever see her act. Now she weighs 110 pounds and is solid muscle, very stout and very strong. So it took me a couple of seconds to get my bearings straight and figure out what the heck was going on with her. I actually thought someone had broken into the house for a few seconds, but then I heard the sound over the top of the house. I managed to get up from under my dog, got to my feet and heard a solid humming sound which sounded like it was right on top of the house. It just hovered for what seemed like an eternity, all the while my dog going absolutely nuts looking straight up at the ceiling of the room. I grabbed my handgun (which I'm sure wouldn't have done any good) and just stood there trying to figure out what to do next and what the heck it actually was that I was hearing. It wasn't a helicopter for there was no thump while it hovered; it just had loud humming sound while it hovered over the house.

After what seemed like an eternity, it began moving away from the house. At the time, I thought of the usual pattern an aircraft of this world would take which would be away. I ran to the back porch and looked for telltale lights of a helicopter and there was absolutely nothing in any direction, just the stars and the cold dark November night. It moved away slow and deliberate, steady but not fast and was completely out of hearing shot in a matter of seconds.

It shook me up pretty bad and I loved on my protector the rest of the night. I went hunting the next day and everyday for about a week. I had seen no sign of any wildlife in my area for the entire week. No birds, no turkey, no deer, no animals of any kind the whole week. This seemed a little odd, but I didn't really connect the dots until about a month later.

A couple of weeks later, my Dad and I came down for a quick weekend hunt. And even though my Dad really doesn't enjoy hunting as much anymore due to his age, he still likes coming down with me on occasion to rest next to the fire and just hang out with me. One of the mornings we were there he decided to sit on the back porch of the farmhouse while I was out hunting.

After sitting there for a couple of hours, he noticed something odd shaped about 40' up a white oak tree. The tree was positioned just inside the wood line and the distance from where he was sitting was around 100 yards or so. He studied this shape for quite some time, seeing it move from time to time. But he was able to identify the dark odd shaped form.

When I arrived back later that morning, my Dad pointed out the tree to me and asked if I had installed a deer stand in the area. I informed him that I hadn't but had been doing some scouting in the vicinity of that particular tree, due to the heavy deer traffic in the early fall. The early fall and the acorns dropping from that tree had become an instant deer magnet, so I had pondered the thought of putting a stand in the area.

Dad told me that he watched this odd shape move around in the tree for about an hour or so and then this figure simply disappeared. Now my Dad has better than 20/20 vision and while his age has caught up with his body, his eyes are as sharp as an eagle's talon and there is no doubt in my mind that he saw something in that tree. He explained this figure to be approximately 4 feet tall with an odd shaped head and torso. At the time, I was baffled and really didn't have an answer for any of the unusual events so far.

A few weeks later during a different segment of that deer season, I was back down for black powder season for the five days. And for those of you that are reading this and don't know what black powder rifles are, they are basically a rifle that is capable of 1 shot while they are loaded. It is more of a challenge, but that type of rifle tends to be very accurate for shooting.

I had gone down the night before, nothing out of the ordinary happened. I had my dog, had a steak and beer/water. Everything seemed normal except I had forgotten to bring my handgun that I carry for protection. But I thought it was no big deal at the time, I didn't want to turn around to go back home to pick it up and decided to keep heading towards the farm.

The next morning, I got up couple of hours before daylight and had some coffee. I loaded my goodies, snacks, drinks in my backpack and my single shot rifle and headed out for a day of hunting whitetails. I hopped on my four-wheeler and headed up the gravel road to my favorite hunting stand. To get to this stand, you have to travel about a mile down the gravel, cut down a manmade equipment path back into my property. I always pull just inside the gate and walk about 300 yard into the deer stand which sits it the middle of a 12 acres field, completely surrounded by woods. It is an easy walk with a full moon and most of the time, never turn my flashlight on to avoid scaring deer.

Well, I am walking down the manmade path, heading towards the field where the deer stand sits and as I am walking along in the dark, trying to be as quiet as possible. I sensed something watching me just inside the woods, but since animals utilize the path frequently, I didn't think much of it and just continued on down the path. After about 50 yards, I realized something just inside the wood line was pacing me, when I stepped it stepped. This I knew from 30 years of hunting experience, wasn't normal for any animal to do, except maybe a large predator which we don't have in Kentucky, per say, at least none that I have seen. I realized at this point it was time to turn the flashlight on and move a little quicker toward my destination. It just didn't feel right to go back to the four-wheeler, it was very close quarters with woods on both sides of the path, and I had already reached the edge of the field. So I moved towards the deer stand, at a much quicker pace might I add again. I think back now and I am pretty sure this would be called evasive maneuvers by military standards. I was being stalked; I was trying to evade capture from whatever this was that was following me.

As I stepped up the pace, whatever this thing was did too, just out of sight with my flashlight, but it was there. I could hear it move with me every step of the way. I didn't panic, probably the only thing that saved my life, I just moved as quickly as possible towards the deer stand. This deer stand is about 25 feet high, sniper tower, home made by my Dad. It has windows, door, ladder and a roof. A good place in my mind set at the time, to make a final stand against whatever this or it was.

I was within 20 yards or about 60 feet from the ladder and my last stand (no pun intended), the last step I took, my stalkers step sounded closer to me than all others before. I stopped turned my flashlight towards the last sound heard, and just inside the woods was something with two big eyes, glowing in the dark it seemed, but the figure was about 4 feet tall, eyes about a foot apart and motionless. I stomped my foot and yelled at it trying to scare it off, forgetting about being quiet for my deer hunting adventure, it blinked its eyes one time and stood there motionless. I began to raise my gun and take a blind shot in the dark at it, it was close enough and I could make out the outline of its body, then I remembered I only had one shot and I needed to make it count. My common sense stepped in and told me to wait, after all I might miss in the dark and then I wouldn't have a fighting chance with whatever this was standing in the woods. I turned, sprinted to the deer stand, climbed the ladder like a squirrel and shut and locked the door behind me.

After a few minutes, I opened the windows on all four sides trying to be ready, listening, watching, and waiting to see any movement on the ground. At this time, I had about an hour of dark still left so all I could do was listen and wait for daylight. While it was dark, this thing or whatever kept circling my deer stand, just out of sight, but could still be heard in the quiet still of the night. I was ready and I wasn't going without a fight, I had one bullet and intended to use it if this thing climbed up my ladder. It never happened, I don't think it could figure the situation out because it certainly wasn't scared of me, I wish I could say the same.

I didn't stay after daylight; I left the woods and didn't return until the next day. This time I didn't walk in, I rode the four-wheeler the whole way to the stand. I hunted for a week and again no sign of any animals whatsoever on my property. I checked with a friend of mine later that week, who owns some property down the road. He also reported no animal activity for the whole week as well.

I have hunted in these woods for 30 years, practically all of my life and never experienced anything like this before or since. I never spoke of this to anyone but my wife for a very long time. While I have always believed that there is intelligent life beyond our galaxy, I never dreamed that it would come this close to my little world. Many years have gone by now and reflecting back on that deer season, I believe the creature(whatever it was) was studying human or possibly animal behavior in the area. What better place to do such experiments? My property is very remote and isolated, just perfect for trying to perform their experimental testing on humans or animals.

While I will never know what exactly this being was, it left an impression on me that will last a lifetime. Thankfully I am still here to write about the events that took place, but I will never look at the woods the same again.