... and sometimes they aren't.
Last year I spent weeks in my Deer stand. I was out there in the predawn and stayed until sunset. Several times I took all three meals up in it. I kept a detailed log, and listened to two entire learning company history lectures to keep from nodding off. I was a devoted and determined predator who did everything right and still didn't get a deer.
What's worse, I had two shots, but missed with both. One was simply my fault, and the other, the deer 'ducked the wire' as they say in bowhunting parlance. (He moved at the last second in reaction to some noise I must have made.) It was a ton of work where I tried and tried, but to no avail. Then there was this year.
A few weeks ago I was lamenting that I wouldn't have any time for Deer hunting this season. I'm overloaded with household chores that need to be finished before the snows and I've been traveling a bit lately. But I had an hour or two to kill so I took my bow and hiked out to my stand with the idea that I would at least have a chance to relax a little and tune out the world for a bit. It's very early in the season and I wasn't expecting ...really anything.
This guy showed up so quickly after I got there, that I can't believe he didn't see me climb my stand. If that's so, future generations of Deer hunters should be cursing my name for taking such a guileless and trusting creature out of the gene pool. Not 45 seconds after I stopped settling in, this guy wandered over to where I had sprayed a little buck lure - with his smaller brother hot on his heels.
He's not a huge deer; smaller than I would like in most cases. But given my lack of available time this year and the wanton way he all but threw himself on to the end of my arrow, he was just too good to pass up. He's a perfectly respectable six point buck, who I hit cleanly and who ran less the 30 feet before giving up the ghost. He's no record breaker, but he should cook up nice.
Sometimes no matter what you do, things don't seem to work out for you. And then there are other times when it all comes so easy, you wonder what all the fuss was about.
2 comments:
Well written; and nice job on the buck. I had no idea
Thanks, I appreciate it but...you had no idea? You had no idea I looked so good in woodland Camo? that they had Deer in suburban NJ? that I could shoot an arrow well enough to actually hit something? (I wondered about that last one myself occasionally).
Not every second amendment, pro hunting, ultra right wing northeastern blogger is all talk. I really do hunt, and I really do eat what I kill. In this case, I think I'll be experimenting with sausage recipes.
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