The first year of my retirement from the Navy was a huge year of change for me. I was newly divorced but I still owned a house with my Ex-wife which required me to interact with her more times than I would have liked. With the exception of one time though, I remained civil. I have some very good friends that opened their house to me until my own home sold; little did I know it would take 2 ½ years for that to occur! Then there was my new career and that wasn’t going as I had planned either. All in all it was a very disjointed time in my life. Normally when I’m feeling out of sorts with myself I would head to the water to go fishing but with my new living arrangements I had my boat in storage so I didn’t have that to go to.
My recent success at hunting had me longing for the fall again and my thoughts often wandered to it. In the meantime, I spent my time “hunting” two-legged Bambis! It had been over 17 years since I was dating and I was completely clueless on how to do it! My lack of success that year (and subsequent years) had me shaking my head for quite a long time.
As the year went on I prepared for the upcoming season by studying overhead maps of my hunting areas to gain insight on where good stand positions would be. One stand location really stood out to me, it was in a funnel area between two fields and I was absolutely drawn to it. As opening day was approaching I couldn’t get my mind off of that location so I decided that I would commence my season by hunting there.
Opening morning I awoke a couple of hours before daylight and quickly showered to descent myself. For my non-hunting friends, scent control is a big aspect of hunting because a deer’s sense of smell is much greater than what we possess and they use it to find and avoid danger. I got dressed in my camouflage, grabbed my bow and equipment and made a very slow walk to my stand as to not break into a sweat (ruining all of the de-scenting I just did). I climbed up to my tree stand and situated everything for the morning hunt and settled in to wait for morning to break. I don’t think I can properly convey what a glorious feeling it is to be relaxing in your stand before daybreak and watching the woods wake up in front of you…absolutely amazing! Fifteen minutes after settling into my stand I heard a noise…something of size moving through the leaves towards my stand! It is still over an hour before it will be light enough to be able to shoot but out in the darkness something is coming. I don’t get rattled easily but it is somewhat unnerving to have an unseen animal coming towards you and to have no idea what it is. I strained my eyes to try to see the intruder that was making its way to me down the same path that I took. The animal came right to the base of my tree…17 feet below me was something that knew I had come by and was trying to figure out where and what I was. Then I heard a sound I had never heard before…a grunt! Deer can communicate with each other and a grunt is a way of saying, “here I am”. I relaxed a little after hearing it because I knew I wasn’t going to have a bear try to climb up into the stand with me! LOL! The deer milled around at the base of my tree for about five minutes before moving away, then it returned as to make one last check to see where the human he had smelled had gone to and then disappeared for the rest of the morning. Forty-five minutes later there was finally enough light to actually shoot but the show was over for the day, nothing else materialized.
This following weekend I found myself climbing a tree in the afternoon to a particularly good stand that overlooked a field edge. Two of my hunting partners were hunting other areas of the farm so I chose the field edge as to put some distance between the three of us. It was a rather warm October day so I had taken my time again to keep from sweating and spreading my scent around. I had been up in the stand about an hour when I heard something approaching from my right. I looked down to see a three point buck about 35 yards away working its way towards me. I slowly stood up when his head went behind a tree and I readied myself for a shot. The buck continued perfectly to a slightly quartering away shot at 19 yards…I drew my bow, anchored the site on the vitals and released the arrow. I watched as the arrow flew straight through the buck and out the other side! The buck whirled around trying to figure out what had happened but it couldn’t see anything. I was overly excited but I should have realized by his reaction that it was not as good of a hit as I thought it was. He walked to the edge of the woods, looked wobbly to me, then stepped in and disappeared. I was on cloud nine, my first buck! I waited until what I thought was 30 minutes and I climbed down to retrieve the arrow. It was covered in dark blood, not the bright red frothy kind that we bowhunters want to see…but I didn’t know any better yet. I should have backed out and headed over to the house and let the deer bed down and die…I made a huge mistake that still bothers me to this day. I walked over to where I saw the deer go into the woods and when I did I thought I heard something move off into the woods. I went back to the house to gather up my hunting buddies to help me track and recover my first buck. Instead of waiting four hours like I probably should have, I was back with my friends less than 30 minutes later and we started to track the blood. After about 30 minutes it became apparent to us that the deer was not hit as bad as I had initially thought and we backed out to give him time to expire. I mortally wounded animal will push on from adrenaline if pressed where as an animal that isn’t pressed will bed down and expire. We came out and I headed to the store to get a good flashlight for a night tracking expedition. We went back out at midnight and after a couple of hours we lost the trail…I was devastated! The thought of mortally wounding a deer and not recovering it was almost unbearable to me! The next morning we went back out and actually found the continuation of the blood trail (on our hands and knees no less). Unfortunately it eventually petered out and we were left to do a grid search of the area. Three of us combed the area but no sign of the deer could be found…I was officially distraught. I realize that the deer was recycled into nature but the thought of me causing his demise still bothers me to this day.
I hunted sporadically throughout the rest of the season and I passed on two shot opportunities…one because I was still spooked over losing the buck and the other because I had to follow the landowner’s rules. I was not allowed to shoot “young” deer and despite having a young of the year within 5 yards and completely unaware of my presence, I had to turn down the shot. My season ended without me releasing another arrow and I still had a heavy heart over the buck earlier in the year.
Next Blog: Open the floodgates
Suggested reading: The Daily Coyote by Shreve Stockton
No comments:
Post a Comment