My Deer Hunt
11.30.2006
Okay, here's an account of my hunting experiences this year...
This year I had a particularly pleasant and enjoyable hunting experience. The weather was not so cold (but not so warm that the deer didn't want to move), most of the days were sunny and it was just nice to be out in the field. I have always loved the hunting experience, but I think as I get older and hunt more and more, I continue to gain new appreciation of it. I think I also gain more patience and, with that, the ability to sit still for longer periods of time without fidgeting (it also helps that I have proper cold weather clothing these days, so that my feet and hands don't get so cold!). Also, I think as I get older and gain more and more responsibilties (wife, kid, house, job) I treasure more and more those days where I can let the worries of everyday life behind and "get back to nature" through hunting. I often tell my wife that the outdoors is my "church," and my hunting trip this year was that to me more than ever before.
I've probably mentioned my absolute favorite part of hunting before, but it is something that most people just simply never get to experience. More on that in a minutes.
On hunting trips, I love to get up early (this trip were were getting up around 4:30). That first early morning pee is invigorating... not only because I usually am just in sweats and a t-shirt in 40 degree weather but also because the sky is often as clear as you can imagine, and I often see a shooting star or two in the process. Then a light breakfast with my hunting partners, typically of eggs of some sort or a pop tart. We clean up after break, then I dress myself for the weather. This usually consists of sock liners and wool socks, warm, waterproof boots, long underwear, insulated hunting jeans, long sleeve t-shirt, short sleeve t-shirt, camelbak, insulated hunting overalls, hunting coat, blaze orange hunting vest and blaze orange ski mask. Then finally I gather my few pieces of equipment (and some trail mix of some kind) into a fanny pack, check my rifle and ammunition, and generally make sure I have everything I need before wishing my buddies luck and setting out before first light.
When the moon is out, I just let my eyes adjust and don't even use a flashlight on that walk out to the tree stand. The crunch of the leaves and frost underfoot, the crisp coldness in the air, that unique forest-in-the-Fall smell, and the anticipation of what the day's hunt may bring makes walking about in nature as it sleeps a wonderful, interesting, humbling, and exciting experience.
Once I get to my stand, it is still very dark, not quite first light. I make sure my weapon is unloaded and safe, then tie it to a rope that's been suspended from the tree on or above the stand. I climb up into the stand, take my seat, and strap myself into the safety harness (both legs, both arms, and a strap across the chest). I then hoist my weapon up to me using the rope I tied to it, untie it and then fully settle in. (As an aside, climbing in and out of a tree stand is probably my least favorite part of hunting, for the simple fact that doing it safely is quite a pain but, of course, well worth it to avoid accidents).
I may have mentioned this before, but it is this part of the hunt that I love the most. There is a bit of anticipation about the day's hunt, but mostly I love watching as the forest - the world - slowly come alive. First light, that point at which the sun is not yet risen but light has begun to filter of the edge of the Earth, brings with it the day's first breezes. A song bird twitters off in a distant tree. A squirrel crunches leaves for the first (but definitely not the last) time that day. The knocking of a woodpecker. The last hoot or screech of an owl. It's an utterly beautiful experience.
Then, as the sun peeks over the horizon, I load my weapon and begin the hunt.
Okay, enough generalizations and waxing poetical, now for some specifics of this year's hunt. :) As most or all of you know, I have been hunting for years at the "Andrews Ranch," a private recreational "farm" property owned by Greg Andrews (Steve's brother) located in rural north-eastern Missouri, about 40 minutes west of Quincy, IL. This year I joined Steve and his nephews Eric, Tom and Caleb. Greg himself was unable to hunt due to spinal surgery this year (fun, fun!), but he expects a full recovery by next hunting season. He did, however, accompany us all out at the property; he's mobile, but his spine just can't take the abuse of firing a high powered rifle just yet.
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Above is my hunt map. Click the map for a larger view. It shows my two deer stands and where I saw various deer during the hunt. Use it to follow along with my account below, or wait until after reading for clarification. The two red numbers are my two stands, 1 being my first weekend stand, 2 being the stand I was in the second weekend. Yellow shows where I first saw each deer and their respective paths of travel. The red spot is where my buck was when I shot him. Camp is indicated in the upper right corner.
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Steve and I drove into the area late Friday Nov 10, and we got settled into the hunting "lodge" (aka Greg's camper). During this weekend, despite pretty good success with the same tree stand over the last few years, I decided to try out one of the new stands Greg had setup along the southern edge fence row of the property, facing north.
On Saturday the 11th, I saw a buck down a hill in some thickets about 70 yards away to the north west; he was too obscured by brush to take a shot, as I couldn't tell anything about where his body was, etc, just seeing the head and antlers. He seemed to wander away, as I lost sight of him. However, HOURS LATER, he comes up out of the brush suddenly. I quickly realized that he had not, in fact, wandered off but had nestled himself down into the thicket and probably had taken a nap! This was why he appeared so suddenly, and in fact by the time I saw him I had no time to bring my weapon to bear before he was stopped and looking STRAIGHT AT ME, like, "Hey! I don't remember seeing THAT there before!" I stood stock still, hoping he'd give up on me and go to grazing or something, but I was only partially successful. I didn't spook him - his tail did not "flag" - so I'm pretty sure I didn't bother him, but after he decided I wasn't a threat he was still in a hurry to get somewhere. He trotted (just short of a run) up the hill, passing within 15 yards of my stand. Now, were I a more confident shot with moving targets (especially scoped), I would have taken the shot, but as things stand I wasn't comfortable just winging shots at him hoping for a good hit. As a matter of comparison, he was about the size of the buck that I ultimately got the next weekend. And, while I heard a distant shot across the road from Greg's property in the general direction that he ran sometime shortly after I saw him, he was so similarly sized in fact that it's possible that he may have been the same buck. But I suppose the shot could have been at a different deer, or the other guy could have missed. No way of telling, I guess. I saw no other deer that day, and others in the hunting party saw some deer that day. However, nobody got anything.
On Sunday the 12th, I saw a nice sized doe all by herself coming down a hill from the west. She came down along the fence row, then hopped the fence and ran off into the neighbor's property to the south. Never had a good shot at her at all. No other deer that day, but again others saw deer that day as well. But still nobody had harvested anything.
Thus, the first weekend ended with nothing but good memories to show for it.
Same basic plan the second weekend. We arrived late Friday the 17th. In this case, we got to the "lodge" earlier and watched half of the movie Patton before hitting the sack.
That next (Sat) morning I had breakfast and was feeling fine. This second weekend I decided to hunt out of a different new stand, on the south-western edge of the property, that looks north over a field and a nearby small pond. Got out to the stand, climbed up, hoisted my weapon and got settled in.
As soon as I had done so, however, I felt a strange gurgling in my stomach. And then another, and another. Suddenly I had to poop... really bad! Not a great thing when you're 12 feet up a tree, all strapped in and waiting for sun up to start a hunt. Extremely aggravating, to say the least, especially since that first hour after sunrise is often the most productive hunting time of the day, as it's often when the deer move from where they've bedded down over night to wherever they're going to eat, play, and chase each other around during the day. So, I decided to just grin and bear it, and so did... for about an hour. By then I knew if I didn't do something, my body was going to do it without my permission :)
So, I unloaded, scrambled out of the tree, and headed back to camp. Now, I could have squatted right there or somewhere nearby, but I didn't want to spoil my or anyone else's hunt by crapping out there for the deer to smell. Peeyoo! Okay, so think of the most desperate poop you've ever had. Now, walk like that for 10 minutes. That was my experience. Had to stop and... erm... clench a few times along the way. :) But I did in fact make it back to camp without disaster, did my business, re-equipped myself and headed back to my stand.
Got back in my stand and all settled, assuming I had totally ruined my hunt. It wasn't 40 minutes later, however, when I saw antlers coming up out of the woods to the north-west. The buck came into view, heading more or less straight toward me at first. He had, apparently, not a care in the world, and I was easily able to bring my weapon to bear without so much as a flick of his ear to indicate he had seen me move. Head popping casually up and down, he slowly moved, grazing on grass, and then turned 90 degrees, still grazing. It was at this point that I realized this was my best opportunity for a shot as he was nearly broadside towards me and, given his new path, he was only going to get farther and farther away.
At this point I put my eye to the scope and began getting the deer into my sight picture. But my nerves at this point were getting the best of me, an over-rush of uncontrolled adrenaline, "buck fever." Thus, my sight picture (and thus the front of the gun) was jumping all over the place. Even so, my mind came back to the fact that a shot just doesn't get much better than this, that this may be my only good shot opportunity, etc. But I didn't like the fact that I hadn't controlled my adrenaline yet. But this was my best opportunity. But I'm too nervous to take the shot now. But I really want to put this deer in my freezer...
I went back and forth like this many times, in the space of just a few seconds, as the buck moved slowly, grazing. In the end, however, my desire to take the deer outweighed any trepidations about the shot. So, taking final aim, I fired.
After the shot, the deer leaped forward, ran about 20 yards in the direction he had been facing, then did a 180 around a small clump of trees and back down the trail he had come from, crashing through the forest. "Som'bitch," I thought. I hurried the shot. I should have waited. I suck... I missed! Or, even worse for me, hit it but just injured it, causing it to suffer. Crap crap crap crap crap CRAP! I waited 10 minutes before investigating to verify my concerns, cursing myself the entire time.
(For those of you who don't know, you wait a time before getting out of your tree after shooting a deer. Sometimes they are mortally wounded, but run a short distance and collapse. Waiting does two things. First, it allows them to die in peace. Second, more selfishly, if you walk upon a mortally wounded deer before it's fully dead, you might scare it up and cause it to run away really far from you or somewhere that it will be difficult to find.)
So, I get down out of the tree and trudge over to where the deer was when I shot at it. No blood. I look all around, following his path where he went around the trees and did the 180. No blood. No blood. No blood whatsoever. Obviously, I missed the thing entirely.
Frustrated, I got back into the stand for awhile, stewing almost the entire time. Around 11 I get down out of the tree and head back to camp for lunch. I recount my experience, and Greg and Eric say they'll come back with me to see if they see anything I missed. Okay, I say.
So, after lunch the three of us head toward my stand. I show them the spot where the deer was when I made the shot, and describe the 180 degree loop he made after he ran. We all fan out, looking around, and suddenly Eric says, "well, here's some blood... and there's some more." "What?!?!" He's standing no more than 6-10 feet beyond where I gave up looking. Sigh.
So, then the three of us start tracking, kind of leap-frogging each other as we find spots of blood. The blood trail is not a straight line, but swerves a bit, with strong spots of blood here and there, 3-6 feet apart. We get about 20 feet, maybe a bit more, into the woods when I look past Greg standing over the newest bit of blood we've found and there, no more than 15 feet away from him, is the deer just laying there as pretty as you please. We approach, and find the blood trail ends in a chaotic swirl of spots reminiscent of a Pollack painting, and I quickly realize that the "crashing" through the woods that I heard when the buck ran away was him falling over...
Greg then goes off to get the truck while I set to work on field dressing (a.k.a. "gutting") the deer, with assistance from Eric. By the time Greg gets back I'm almost done removing the entrails.* Upon inspection, my bullet entered at the right rear of the rib cage and exited in the front left of the rib cage, hitting both lungs and nicking an upper corner of the heart. So, despite my rushed shot, and my lack of confidence in myself, I actually did pretty darned well! I finish up the work with more assistance, then Eric and I drag the deer up to the truck and lift it into the bed.
After this, Eric goes off to his own tree stand while Greg and I return to camp with the deer. Once there we begin the initial butchering process. We get the meat we want to save removed from the animal and on ice, with final preparation and packaging of the meat to occur the next day back at Greg's house.
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Click here for photos of me and this buck.
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After we got the deer on ice, I returned to the hunt without about an hour's worth of hunting time left, but saw nothing.
That evening, we ate dinner and watched the rest of Patton.
On Sunday morning, I saw two does off in the distance across the field to the north. I found out later they both walked in on Steve at his. They saw him, however, and despite the fact that he froze solid, hoping they'd relax and ignore him, he described how they did a tactical withdrawal, with one watching while the other moved, both always keeping their vitals behind trees, and so on, so that he never had an opportunity for a shot. Deer are pretty smart, that's for sure.
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