A harvest technician, plain and simple, the solitary woodsman would do what it took to fill the larder. Snares, nets, and all manner of like gear that we don't even remotely associate with deer hunting would have been preferred, as they could be expected to yield the most reliable outcomes.

So is it even remotely possible for us in 21st-century North America to hunt as they did in 1400s Europe? The short answer: no -- at least, not in most details. A lot of the phenomenon simply can't be replicated, because the Western world is far too different, socially and politically, from the Europe of a century before Columbus. Not that any of that cold-reality stuff was going to stop me.

MY MODERN MEDIEVAL BOWHUNTS
My first ground rule: Hunt the area nearest my home -- just as virtually any hunter in 1400 would have done, regardless of class or circumstance. As noted above, that turned out to be Allen Creek WMA, just outside of Gainesville. Lucky me: Success rates are perennially low at this archery-only area. (In fact, as the Wildlife Resources Division's Kevin Lowery informed me in a post-season e-mail, preliminary data indicate that the WMA's 2006 season saw bowhunters scoring a wan 2.75 percent.)

Here's where my project went a little off the rails. Some smokepolers don't merely hunt, but also reenact the era in which their rifles were the last word in technology, dressing up like Dan'l Boone as they give their flintlocks a workout during the primitive-weapons season. Like them, I took it into my head that I was going to go the whole nine yards into the 15th-century thing by attiring myself for the field like a middlingly prosperous yeoman of the epoch.

While the effect is at least arresting, I suspect that I might have been better advised to go a little more with the modern program in this regard. But of that more later.

Thus costumed, I managed to get in a couple of long afternoons during the last week of the season, which at this particular WMA runs Sept. 15-Dec. 31. A day of scouting back in August had revealed a good bit of sign (tracks mostly, some sparse droppings) on a woods road running through a forb-rich site between a creek and a small lake, and I had identified three or four plausible hides along the route.

My first outing was on a sunny, windy Tuesday that was appreciably cooler than had thus far been the case in December; my second took place within a foggy window that opened up late in the day on a soggy, warm New Year's Eve. The Tuesday I spent as described at the beginning of this story: shrouded by brush, my back against the oak. That vigil came to nothing, as did the Sunday expedition, which I passed wedged into a wild tangle of branches and other vegetative debris piled on the fringe of a burned-over area. On both days, as far as I could tell, I had Allen Creek all to myself.

A pair of WRD conservation rangers whom I encountered on my way out of the WMA on Sunday told me that bucks sniffing out unbred does had been sighted moving through the area. Needless to say, they were more than a little interested in both my weapon and my outfit.

No whitetails of either sex passed my station on either day. I suspect that my lack of scent control -- the wool and leather that encased me transmitted not only my aroma but their own as well -- may have contributed substantially to my failure even to glimpse an animal.

So in 2007, my crossbow will still be of ancient design. But I'm pretty sure that if I'm going to have any chance of having even a rut-crazed buck wander by at the close range necessary for my antique-pattern weapon, I'll need to lose the natural materials and don some space-age plastic!

FOR YOUR INFORMATION
If you decide to have a medieval crossbow made for you, choose your bowyer with care, as some are appreciably more adept at their craft than at doing business, and selecting an established builder with good references will render the whole process a lot less nerve-wracking. The most celebrated fabricator of medieval-style crossbows in the U.S. is David Watson, whose company, New World Arbalest, handcrafts a wide array of models, each bow customized to your specs. His Web site's URL is www.crossbows.net.

If you're the handy type, you can go the do-it-yourself route and build a bow. Start with Kurt Suleski's impressively informative Knight's Armoury Web site, http//:198.144.2. 125/ (scroll down and click on "Medieval Crossbows"). There, all the steps in the process from the forge up are outlined in superb detail.

If you'd like to skip the blacksmithing part (I'm guessing you'd sooner pass on that), all the hardware you need is available from James Koch at Alchem Incorporated, www.alcheminc.com online (click on "Crossbow Components"). Easy-to-follow plans for a couple of different configurations of bow are provided at no cost on the site, and a woodworker of average skill can put a very acceptable weapon together with comparatively little difficulty.

Find more about Georgia fishing and hunting at: GeorgiaSportsmanMag.com