I've been hiking, hunting and fishing

I've been hiking.

I've been hiking, hunting, and fishing the New Hampshire wilderness my entire life.

It's a small state, but 83% of it is covered in forests.

There are no big cities here. The population of the 10 largest city

combined does not equal even a half a million people. Mostly it's miles and miles of woods

with no signs of humans.

In late spring of 2017, two of my friends and I

were driving a back road somewhere in Stratford County. We were using a spotlight to look for deer and other

wildlife that inhabited the area. We were not illegally poaching the deer.

We were just looking for them. By the way if you even shine a

light down here in Mississippi you're going to jail whether you have a rifle with you or not. You can't

spot light down here.

I don't know what the laws are up there.

Nobody rides around the woods shining lights and fields and woods around here because

you're going to jail, brother.

Anyway, on with a story. At around 11.30 p.m. we came to a valley where we could get out and stretch our

legs next to a swamp surrounded by young oaks, maples, beech trees, and pines.

My friend, Dan, had to relieve himself and went over to the edge of the swamp out of sight.

My other friend, Andrew, and I were considering pranking Dan by driving off and leaving him in the dark for five minutes when we heard something rounding the other side of the swamp.

It was clearly walking on two feet and we thought it was Dan. Why the

heck did you go out that far? We shouted and the walking stopped. I'm only over here, Dan answered, as he approached us from the opposite direction.

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