Once again, in my middle age, I’m finally catching up with something many children in Perry County experience by the time they’re ten — in this case, hunting from a tree stand.

The stand in question belongs to my neighbor Buddie, who has hunted successfully from it for many years — including this year, when he took a monster buck from it with a crossbow.

Since he already had his 2014 buck, the deer stand was going to be empty the first day of rifle season; thus his kind invitation.

I’d hunted from a tree house before, but never a stand. Tree stands intimidated me. The height; the tiny perch; the way a hunter standing in one reminds me of a military sentry — all of these things had conspired to keep me away until the temptation to use Buddie’s stand, which is located along a well-used deer trail, overcame my reluctance.

We’d seen several bucks this year on Pine Hill, so I felt my chances were pretty good, but before I hunted from the stand, I wanted to know about property lines; the etiquette of tracking a wounded deer; lines of fire to avoid for safety reasons; etc. Buddie kindly tore himself away from the first quarter of the Steelers game to walk me around the stand and answer my endless questions. He even climbed the ladder and shimmied around the tree trunk to show me how to get in and out of the thing.

After that, we walked the woods for a while, looking for antler rub. Eventually we got to a hollow where the deer coming down from Blue Mountain along McCabe Run like to climb Pine Hill. Apparently, it’s a deer superhighway. Buddie pointed out two new tree stands that appeared this year. The stands were perfectly oriented to intercept the deer coming up from Sherman’s Creek.

He suggested that I be up in his stand no later than 6AM, even though it wouldn’t be legal to shoot until 6:47. That way, the woods would have a chance to settle down after I arrived.

The next morning found me padding up our shared road, rifle on my shoulder and field dressing kit in hand, my headlamp illuminating a foggy cone of woods in front of me as I approached the stand. It was an unusually mild morning for early December, but gusty, on account of a front blowing through.

I followed the safety protocol for raising a rifle to a stand: i.e., tying it off and waiting to retrieve it until I was safely situated. Then I clambered up the ladder, lighting the trunk in front of me and the bare branches all around with my jiggling head-beam, horror-movie style.

I reeled up my rifle and settled in. Finally I was hunting from a tree stand!

It was dark, but the lights were on at our neighbor’s dairy farm, and a steady stream of headlights — presumably hunters like me — traced the convoluted road down Blue Mountain from Waggoner’s Gap. I checked my watch every few minutes, tracking the subtle changes around me against the time.

By 6:15, I could see about twenty yards, but there still wasn’t enough light to illuminate my scope. The ridge of Blue Mountain was visible as a faint outline, and there was a new sense of altitude as the lowlands across Sherman’s Creek were slowly revealed.

I sat silently like a god of the forest, rifle in hand, as the splendor of morning rose up around me.

And then — boom! — a shot from one of the neighboring stands. Instantly the peace of the day was gone. An ugly feeling welled up in my belly — envy. Another hunter — not me! — had taken a shot. There were no follow-up shots. Given the low light, which meant close range, there was only one conclusion: someone else had gotten his buck.

Out of curiosity, I checked my watch. It was 6:30, seventeen minutes before it was legal to shoot. Suddenly, I was filled with righteous indignation. That hunter had broken the rules! If he’d held back the way he was supposed to, maybe I would have had a shot at that buck.

Of course, I had no way of knowing what had really happened. Perhaps it was a mistake, a sudden cramp of the trigger finger. Who knew?

More to the point, could I honestly say I wouldn’t have been tempted to bend the rules if that buck had wandered past my stand instead of his?

About half an hour later, there was another shot over in the hollow. My spirits sank. The buck population of Pine Hill was presumably down by two. And, as a matter of fact, I didn’t see a buck all day.

Nevertheless, I owe a debt of gratitude to Buddie for the use of the stand. Let’s set aside the petty territorial squabbles of man for a moment. The sight of dawn breaking over Pine Hill — with ancient mountains ringing the horizon, and a lone osprey skirting the treetops, hunting from a height just like you — is something you won’t soon forget.