At 15 years old, a veteran of the hunt

DULUTH, Minn. Venus shone like a beacon in the east before dawn on a recent morning. But it’s a good bet that Caleb Mannon didn’t notice.

Caleb, 15, was pulling on layers of camouflage clothing by the red beam of his dad’s pickup taillights. It was opening day of Duluth’s city bow hunt for whitetails. He and his dad, Phil Mannon, were gearing up to slip silently into the woods and climb into tree stands.

A sophomore at Duluth East High School, Caleb had been anticipating this day.

“That’s pretty much all that’s been going through my head,” he had said a couple of nights earlier at his home north of Duluth.

He knew this pre-dawn routine well camo pants, camo jacket, camo harness that he would clip to his tree to prevent falling. The Mathews Chill bow. A rack of arrows. Rubber boots.

With the truck idling quietly, Phil Mannon spritzed his son with scent-masking spray.

“Text me when you get on your stand,” Phil Mannon said.

Caleb nodded. Then he vanished, through a yard, beneath some maples and down a trail into the woods on private property in eastern Duluth where the Mannons have permission to hunt.

Across town, many of the 375 hunters in Duluth’s city bow hunt were doing exactly the same on the opener. This is the 11th year of the hunt. Phil Mannon is chairman of the board of the Arrowhead Bowhunters Alliance, which organizes and conducts the hunt for the city.

Caleb is not new to the Duluth city hunt, nor to bowhunting. He has been shooting a bow since he was 6, and he’s been bowhunting for five seasons now.

“My dad has done it,” he said. “I thought I’d try it out and see how it would be. I fell in love with it.”

He shot three deer two does and a buck in last fall’s city hunt. Those were the first deer he had ever taken with a bow, although he has been hunting in the city hunt since he first became eligible in 2012. The state of Minnesota allows big-game hunting by youths as young as 10, but city hunt regulations require a hunter to be at least 12 years old.

Caleb also has also taken a deer with a rifle.

His dad has shot many, many deer in the 10 years of the city hunt. On Saturday morning, he was hunting about a block away from Caleb in the same patch of woods.

Phil had happened onto this property through the man who owns it. Coming out of the woods from a nearby hunt one day a few years ago, Mannon had encountered the man in a pickup.

“He stopped and asked me, ‘Are you hunting?’ ” Mannon recalled. “I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Get your butt in the pickup and come with me.’ ”

Like so many Duluth residents, the man was tired of deer mangling his trees and shrubs. He told Mannon to shoot them all. The Mannons haven’t done that, but they’ve taken several on the property.

“This has been a good spot for does,” Phil said.

Daylight came fast on this clear morning. The temperature was 46 degrees. It felt like hunting weather. Caleb climbed into his stand and pulled his bow up on its haul line. He clipped his harness into a safety restraint. He settled in and let the morning present itself.

As much as he enjoys the hunt, he also appreciates just becoming an unnoticed part of the forest.

“I just like sitting in the woods and the rush you get when you see a deer. It’s a cool rush,” he said. “It’s lucky if you see a deer, but you also get to witness nature. The animals don’t know you’re there. You get to see them in their natural habitat.”

That’s exactly the kind of morning his dad was having from his stand.

“It was ‘Wild America,’ but not of the deer kind,” Phil would say a couple of hours later. “I saw two raccoons, five squirrels, a gray fox and about 6,000 thrushes.”

Caleb figures he sat in deer stands 40 times during last fall’s deer season. He shot three arrows. Deer hunting, even in a higher-probability hunt like Duluth’s city hunt, is still primarily a waiting game. That’s especially true for bow hunters, who must get a deer within about 20 yards for a reliable shot.

Deer hunting is woven deep in the fabric of the Mannon family’s life. This fall, Caleb and his dad are hoping to take four deer in the city season, where hunters are permitted up to five deer. The Mannon family relies on wild game for much of its meat.

“All we eat is deer and bear,” Phil said. “We can go through four deer and a bear every year.”

The Mannons already have wild game in the freezer. Earlier this fall, Caleb shot a bear with his bow in the woods behind their home. He likes the idea of eating wild game.

“We know where it comes from,” he said. “The store-bought meat there’s so much stuff in there.”

When he’s not hunting or doing homework, Caleb is often volunteering at Chalstrom’s Bait and Tackle and Chalstrom’s Archery north of Duluth. The shop sells archery gear and has a popular indoor shooting range where Caleb has spent many hours. He hopes to work there in a more official capacity once he turns 16 in late October.

“Fishing and archery he’s into it all,” said Sue Chalstrom, who owns the shop. “He’s a very impressive young man. He’s real good with people.”

Like most bow hunters, Caleb shoots regularly to keep his eye sharp.

“I try to shoot two to three times a month during the summer,” he said. “Then, closer to the season, it’s every night.”

“I’ve always instilled in him that you owe it to the animal to be the best shot you can be,” his dad said.

The first crackling of leaves that Caleb heard Saturday morning were the footfalls of a skunk, about 20 minutes into shooting time.

“I was hoping he wouldn’t spray,” Caleb said.

The skunk obliged and trundled off.

“Ten or 15 minutes later, I looked out into the yard and saw a deer near the trail that goes to my stand,” he said.

That deer was about 35 yards away.

“Looking closer, I saw three of ‘em,” Caleb said. “I’m pretty sure it was a doe and two fawns.”

Now he was feeling the familiar rush the cool rush. He watched them moving through the woods.

“It was looking like they were going to come my way,” he said, “but they walked off across the street.”

He let out a quick exhalation of frustration, retelling the sequence to his dad. That was it for the two-hour sit. But it was enough to buoy his hopes for the rest of the season, which will continue through December.

“I think it’s going to be a good season,” Caleb said. “There are a lot of fawns. It wasn’t too terrible a winter for them.”

Phil Mannon planned to hunt again that evening. Caleb planned to sit again soon after. The hunt goes on.

(c)2015 Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, Minn.)

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