News, Woodlands and Waterways Echoes- The Saga of Saville Poole, LaSalle
Parish, La.

By Jack Morgan Willis

Submitted by: Pat Ezell

From the Jena Times - Olla Tullos Signal, July 25, 2001
 
Thank You to Jack Willis and The Times -Signal for allowing the following to
be added to the Archives. 




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Woodlands and Waterways Echoes


The Saga of Saville Poole

In answering critics of his build-up of the U.S. Armed Services, U.S.
President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was credited with a statement that's been
immortalized, when he said "Walk softly and carry a big stick!" James Seville
Poole embodies that same concept when he's hunting. Except in his case, he
carries a weapon instead of a stick, whether it be a compound bow, a .50
caliber
muzzle loader, or a rifle or shotgun, and he uses them with maximum efficiency
in the refined art of hunting.

Saville Poole was born in the Nickel community northwest of Jena, Louisiana on
March 9th, 1927. His early school attendance was at Aimoch School near where
C.C.C. Camp #1495, also known as Camp Swan, was located. After finishing his
schooling, he went to work for the then Louisiana Highway Commission. His
father Auther Poole, was a master politician and an old crony and bosom friend
of Governor Earl k. Long. The elder Poole was the Police juror from what was
known back then as old Ward One, a position he held for 30 years. Saville got
a chance to go to work for the Police Jury when they lost their heavy
equipment operator. He stayed with this job for 11 years until the La. Dept.
of Highways beckoned again. This time he went to work as a heavy equipment
operator with them in 1964. He held this position until 1994 when he retired
with over 30 years service.

During the time Saville was maturing as an adult, never lost his love of the
great outdoors he had developed as a child. One thing he stresses today is
that he does not need a constant association with people to be happy. Saville
maintains that there is no better therapy in the world than getting outon the
backside of now where in the woods. He says there is no worry, stress,
telephones, or traffic jams to contend with, and he firmly believes in the
curative powers of the woodland quietude.

Saville: My first deer hunt was in 1951 when they had a two-day hunt in
LaSalle and Caldwell Parishes. It was the first hunt they'd had in over 20
years. My first deer was killed was during this hunt, and It was a six-point.
That incident gave me the "fever" and changed my life forever.

Saville is a natural-born woodsman and hunter, and has refined this God-given
anointing to a fine degree. And as one fellow hunter bragging about his
hunting prowess stated, "He has the horns to show for it."

And indeed he does! During my visit, we adjourned out to his barn and there
are two walls covered in racks of trophies he has slain in the past. When
asked about the number he's killed in his life time, he modestly stated," I
figure some where around 130, more or less ".

Seville: I haven't ever wore no kinda camouflage clothing in my life. I hunt
in my everyday clothes.

According to Seville, the secret to deer hunting, or turkey hunting, which he
also does with great finesse, is being still. You just have to outthink and
outsmart them. The idea is to make the deer think that there's nobody in the
woods but him. He's been known to check several known deer crossings on his
way to work. This way he learns the deer's migratory habits. Then he says it's
up to him to bring home the bacon, or in this case, the venison.

Saville : I know this sounds strange, but I hunt by feelings. I lay in bed the
night before the hunt and it just kinda comes to me as where to hunt the next
day.

He states that anytime he ever went hunting, he was in the woods by 4:30, made
no difference what happened. But one particular morning Murphy's Law was in
full operation. Everything that could conceivably go wrong, did! To begin
with, when he crawled in his Ford Broncho on the carport that morning, he was
going to holler at a crony on his C.B. radio and tell him he was about to
leave, and his radio was dead as a hammer. He started troubleshooting, trying
to find out what was wrong, and finally determined his main antenna wire,
referred to in CB jargon as his coax, was old and rotten, causing his signal
to short out. The temperature was so cold, and his fingers so numbed, he could
hardly work on the radio. Finally, by about 10:00 he was ready to go, and
headed for the deer camp. He got there and was still upset about being late.
It was the first time in his life he had ever been late for a hunt. One of the
hunters from Olla wanted to know why he was so upset? He told him that he knew
where a deer was going to be. It had been revealed to him the previous night,
and he felt like he had missed his appointment with the buck. Well, this
hunter went to laughing and ridiculing Saville about his nighttime revelation.
Saville wouldn't be dismayed and assured them he knew what he was talking
about and drove off. There's a hill in the Rosefield-Nickel area known as
Stapleton Hill and from the top of it; it's like Jerry Clower once said, "You
can see for a while". He drove up on the promontory and halted the Broncho. He
got out with his rifle and started telescoping down the side of the hill where
he was parked. And lo, and behold, down the hill about 350 yards away stood a
fine eight-point buck. He steadied his aim on the hood of the Broncho and
downed him with one shot from his 30.06 rifle. He carried the deer back by the
camp and the hunter that had made so much fun of his revelation wouldn't even
talk to him.

Saville: You know, some people go through all kinda special preparations to
hunt, like not washing their hunting clothes in detergent, and putting apple
juice on their pants legs. I hadn't ever done none of that.

Saville related about one time when he decided he was gonna use some deer lure
scent made from doe urine. He put some on a bush beside a trail that led to
his stand. He had just taken his seat in his tree stand when along comes a doe
and two yearlings. She got a whiff of that scent, went to pawing the ground,
snorting and acting crazy and if a buck deer had been anywhere around, he
would have been long gone. That ended his attempts at deer luring.

Saville : I made me a tree stand one time out of a cutout 55-gallon drum.

Recalling what happened gave him cold shivers because he found out snakes
could climb trees. Saville had prefabricated this tree stand out of an old
barrel. He mounted it up in a tree one spring after hunting season was over,
in preparation for the coming fall hunt. He went out a day before season to
check out his barrel stand. As he lowered himself feet first into the barrel,
he noticed that the bottom of the barrel had accumulated a pile of dried
leaves. When he moved his feet they snapped and crackled and made a lot of
noise. Well, he didn't want to make a racket maker that would run every deer
in the country off, so since he had on a pair of Red Wing pull-on boots, he
just started crushing the leaves with his feet so he could gather them up and
throw them over the side. He was just about ready to reach down and grab a
double hand full of leaves when he felt something brush against his boot top.
Leaning over and peering into the dim recesses of the barrel he saw a snake
about two feet long beside his boot. Trying to keep from jumping straight up,
he put one foot on the snake's middle, then located his head and put the other
boot heel on it, and went to grinding him into the bottom of the barrel. When
he was sure he was dead he broke off a nearby limb and fished him out. He
determined he was a species of rattlesnake, and the tail looked as if a rattle
or two were beginning to form. How the snake climbed the tree and got into the
barrel Saville did not know. Needless to say, he no longer enters deer stands
without first checking them out.

Saville : I started bow and arrow hunting in 1980 and hunting with a .50
caliber muzzleloader in 1997. Why? For one thing there are more open seasons
to hunt in than the regular seasons of still-hunting or with dogs.

Savile has killed about 25 deer with the"stick and string" as the professional
archers state the descriptive term concerning their sport. These were mostly
does in a "kill anything almost" that go with archery season. But he says he's
also killed coyotes, rabbits, raccoons, and even a turkey. He recanted that
the best turkey he's killed so far was a huge tom that weighed in at 21 lbs.
and sported a 101/2" beard. He started saving the horns of his deer kills in
1978. Saville says he gave away about a dozen sets of horns to Mr. Lonnie
Evans. He would use portions of them to repair horns broken off or shot off
trophies to be mounted in his role as a top-flight taxidermist. He figures of
he lost about thirty racks of horns before he started saving them. His prize
trophy is mounted and hangs in his den. It's a beauty with 16-points and a 21
inch spread.

When asked about the greatest hunting thrill he had ever experienced, his
answer came as no great surprise, "Why, that's easy, "he replied, "It was when
my oldest boy killed his first deer at 10 years old.

So if you're a deer hunter and you get to the hunting woods, get settled down
and feel like you're not alone…You may not be! Saville may already be there
ahead of you in pursuit of one of those "nighttime revelation" trophy bucks!

W&WE(July 01) Jack Morgan Willis