What a cool subject...Yesterday morning, I got to the land I was hunting an hour and a half before daylight. I walked the first 300 yards by starlight, then stopped and loaded my Remington 700. I felt instantly safer, but I had another half mile to go in the dark to my stand. I crossed a broad meadow, where the grass seemed to glow pale green in the light of the stars. The land I was familiar with in daylight, now seemed like an alien landscape and had quite an unreal quality.

My blind was set along a long thin treeline and I refused to use a light to find it. I walked along in near blackness, passing it by thirty feet or so, then instinctively stopped, walked slowly back and stopped where I felt it should be. I extended my hand and there it was - the thin mossy oak material I had stretched between two small bois d'arc trees. I moved to the back of the blind and sat, feeling now like the predator instead of the prey. As I had plenty of time before first light, I lay back on the cold ground and looked up at the stars. I felt like the only human left on the planet - but my rifle laying across my chest told me not to worry.

Was I afraid, walking through the blackness? Yes, but in a totally exhilarating way. Of course, we don't have brown bears in Texas. Just cougars, coyotes, bobcats, feral pigs, wild dogs and bigfoot. How can it be so delightful to have the hair stand up on the back of your neck for twenty solid minutes?

God, I feel sorry for peple who don't hunt.