Chatter in the woods............

Last Sunday morning found me in the woods of south Georgia still hunting parallel to a scrape line moving very slow and occasionally getting my rear on the ground and hitting my rattling bag and grunt call in the hope of enticing a mature whitetail buck to come in close to see what the fight was about.

I happened on a large oak tree and a flash above caught my eye as I heard a grey squirrel chattering very loud above me in the same tree. In the old tree sat a red-tailed hawk and the squirrel, both close to each other, both hungry, both making no attempt to hide their presence and both wanting the tree to "feed" them, the squirrel eating the fruit of the tree (acorns) the hawk wanting to eat the customer of the diner called an oak.

I took a seat on the ground for a view of what might happen, knowing that squirrels are great barometers for the finest in falling acorns, which are surf and turf to a deer herd and thought I might get to witness a solid hit on a squirrel by one of North America's better aerial hunters as well as harvest a hungry buck.

Looking up waiting and wanting to see death instead of squirrel noise I got to thinking of some parallels to the market beast..

First, no shortage of chatter and noise in the market, the algo's are here to stay. Two, death isn't far away if you hang out on a limb without watching for who might take you. Three, don't hang with excessive leverage. Keep your foundation under you unless you are sure of the weather conditions. Four, you can't eat the obvious under your nose because you may die a quick death. There is always somebody around to feed on you. Somebody bigger, faster and just as hungry. And fifth, when danger flies away, don't relax. Eat quick and put some food aside for another day.

For the day, I saw a couple of young bucks but let them continue on to maturity. You can't eat big horns (and I hate squirrel as a food source) but they sure look nice hanging in my cabin when feasting on a big thick juicy Black Angus filet!!!