Big Fat Deer

[footfootfoot]

Yesterday was opening day of "regular" (read rifle) season. I got up at 4 and went to my tree stand where I spent the better part of last season being taunted and tormented only to finish out the season with track stew to put in the freezer and my door prize deer.

It seemed like it was going to shape up like another three weeks of disappointment. Nothing, no sign, no tracks, no beds. What had been a thriving deer community last year had become a ghost town. At sunrise (6:30) you could hear the guns going off all around the valley and by 9:30 I despaired at there being any deer left.

At 11:00 I heard some crunching in the leaves over my shoulder and in the corner of my eye I saw a very cautious doe (they are usually blithe and oblivious) creep past my stand. It was looking at me but I was still and looking at it through the side of my eyes. I was also de-odorized and downwind so I don't think it really knew what I was. I could hear another deer behind it and wanted to wait until they passed by me in order to position my rifle and get a bead on one of them. I also didn't know if the deer in back was a doe or buck. Eventually after a few minutes they both passed, does, and then slipped behind trees, in and out and finally when I had one in my sights for an instant I hesitated and she was gone. In retrospect it was a good thing since she was at the bottom of a very steep hill and I would have had to drag her back up.

Break for lunch and head to my hunting mentor's house which functions as a deer camp. Warmed up a bit and headed back out to the stand. (about 2 miles down the road) Enroute, I saw a huge flock of turkeys who outwitted me again this season and in the corner of the same field were my two does. I didn't have permission to hunt that field so they were safe.

Back in my stand I decided to close my eyes and have a little snooze, I concentrated on listening to my environment and following the narration of my daydreams. After a while I was able to tune into sounds more easily than with my eyes open. There was a slight breeze that rustled the persistent leaves of a young beech right next to my stand. The same beech that obscured my shot last year at a magnificent doe on the last day of Muzzle loading season. I made a note to bring my saw next time and cut it down, then display it on a pike as a warning to the other trees. Carried away, there, sorry. Anyway, I dozed off again and shortly heard another bit of determined leaf crunching, a coyote ran past my stand and I thought for a moment that a nice coyote fur hat would be fetching for the little daughter this winter, but I debated and before I could decide the coyote was gone. I wasn't really there for coyote and hadn't decided my position on unexpected game.

A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment.

That ran through my mind as the field I was in embrowned itself and the first day of rifle season was drawing to a close. I was cold, tired, and a bit hungry and was debating (yet again) packing it in for the day before deciding I should cowboy up and ride out the day until dark.

About 20 minutes later I went through the same discussion with myself, as though we'd not already settled the matter. Shifting from foot to foot I glanced left and right for some compelling reason to leave I saw some movement in the field, about 100 yards away, through the brush and saplings at the edge of the field. A big ass deer! I shouldered the rifle and got the deer in my sights, a buck! He would take a few steps, then stop. Another few steps, a short run and stop. He was moving across my field of vision fast. I knelt down and rested the rifle on the shooting rail. I aimed for his heart and squeezed the trigger. He leapt at the sound and took off. WTF? How could I have missed him? Unbelievable. Damn. 30 yards later he plopped to the ground.

Monstrously big 4 pointer. I got close and could see no wound, no blood. wtf? I poked around some more and still couldn't find the entry wound.

I called my mentor who was at another stand on another hill and told him I shot one but had no idea how to gut it. He laughed and said he'd come by to show me. When we gutted him saw that I had hit the heart and liver. He's hanging up in my buddy's barn.

Monstrously big.