friday, 10/14
My manager let me off work an hour early on Friday after a long, slow day with little to do. Small guestures go far in the workplace, and, in this instance, that small guesture significantly altered the trajectory of my evening. Not just my evening, in fact, but also my weekend, hunting season, and the rest of my year. As I powered down my computer and considered what to do with my new-found freedom, I excitably realized I would have just enough time for an evening hunt. I hastily texted my wife, checked the weather, donned my camo, and was out the door.
There was a single truck parked at the access point, which was an improvement over the five or six I had seen a week before. Deer are highly responsive to pressure, and I figured that hunting on a Friday would slightly increase my odds of success. Considering the weather and the soybeans in my area, I decided to hunt a field edge about a mile in from the access point. I set up in a thick stand of junipers with a favorable west wind. By 5:00 pm I was settled in and quiet.
Bow hunting a field is a challenging proposition. In some respects it’s easy: if you know deer feed in the area, it’s highly likely they’ll roll through at some point. But with the limited range of a bow, getting a shot is tough. Unless you have intel on where the deer are going to enter the field, there’s a degree of luck involved. You’re just hoping that the deer will feed in your direction and come into range. So while you have a high likelyhood of seeing deer, getting a shot is hardly guaranteed.
Using the map, wind, and my observation, I positioned myself close to what I considered the most likely entry point. I turned out to be, well… nowhere close. Around 6:00 pm, three deer walked confidently into the field 190 yards away. Thankfully, they entered upwind of me, so as long as I stayed still, there wasn’t much risk of getting caught.
The following half-hour was boring, the kind of footage you would skip in a video. But to me as a predator, it was exhilarating. Suddenly, I was plunged into a state of primal hyper-focus, a state I rarely experience in my normal routine. In the workplace you might call it flow. Or maybe it’s closer to fight-or-flight. As the hormones and emotion washed over me, I struggled to maintain self-control. In those minutes, nothing else mattered. No other thoughts crossed my mind.
Fortunately, I had enough time to experience the rush and sort through it before the deer came into range. Ideally, I’d like to be able to tap into the predator state for increased awareness and precision, while rationally discarding the emotion that might cause me to freak out or rush a shot. I haven’t found the perfect balance yet, but on this hunt it seemed to work in my favor. A doe finally closed the distance to 40 yards, close enough for me to see the strange bulbous growth hanging off her jaw. I had half a mind to wait for one of the young bucks that were still feeding at a distance, but with a bird in hand and an obviously disabled animal, I decided to take the shot.
The doe was feeding on acorns along the field edge. It turned to a quartering away angle, and I knew it was my chance. I aimed for her opposite-side leg with my 40 yard reticle. The shot surprised me, followed by a telltale “plap.” The doe seemed to stagger a bit, then rushed off into some tall grass. I marked her course and only heard her run for a few seconds. I stood, motionless, stairing in the direction she had disappeared as darkness fell around me.
Though by all appearances I had made a good shot, the tension as I waited was palpable. I did my best to suspend speculation until I could examine the evidence. I tried to distract myself by watching the deer, which had gone back to feeding in the field, seemingly unaware of my presence. Two bucks lowered their heads to fight, displaying some of the first rutting behavior of the season. Though I marvelled at the sight, the gravity of the situation was heavy on my shoulders. I could not breath easy until I found the doe.
After 40 minutes, I packed up my bag and headed towards the impact sight with somber anticipation. As I scanned the area with my headlamp, I saw no immediate blood. In unadvisable haste, I started walking in the direction I had seen the doe run, wondering if it could have fallen within sight. After 20 yards I still saw nothing, so I decided to walk back to the impact sight, find my arrow, and make a thorough investigation. Then, while walking back, I glanced to my left and was surprised to find the doe lying dead in a stand of tall grass. I had passed it in the dark, thinking it had run a slightly different direction.
At that point, all my fears were relieved. I celebrated, texted my wife, “I FOUND IT!!,” and took a few photos. I traced the bloodtrail backwards a little just for learning purposes, and successfully recovered my arrow. Upon inspection of the doe, I discovered that I had made an ideal quartering-away, double-lung shot. The doe only ran 20 yards. With a newfound sense of positivity, I sharpened my knife and began the welcomed task of preparing the animal for the freezer.
Saturday, 10/15
Saturday was short and uncomfortable. Here are the sparknotes:
- Riding high on my success the night before, I chose a similar location to Friday’s. (The Saturday location is pictured at the top of this article. I forgot to take a landscape picture the day before.)
- I met someone at the access point who was nice, but very loud. There was another car there, and walking in I passed a popup blind that somebody had left on public land. Already I could tell the hunting pressure was high.
- I set up on a field edge, but swirling winds messed with my confidence. It was hard to find good cover to stand in, so I ended up sitting and squatting uncomfortably in tall brush.
- The location was near water, and as I crouched in the greenery hundreds of tiny airborne phelobotomists sampled my exposed temples. The tiny buzzing sounds were worse than the actual bites. As the light faded, I was getting anxious to leave.
- With 10 minutes of shooting light left, two deer exited the timber 60 yards away. It was so dark I was losing their shapes while staring right at them. I tried to stay undected. They would have had to come 30 yards closer for me to consider taking a shot. I shifted to get into position just in case, and from the darkness an unseen deer snorted and spooked.
- Though the last-light action was exciting, I was almost more relieved than dissappointed when the deer ran. I grabbed my bag and hightailed it out of there to get away from the bugs. Even if the deer hadn’t spooked, I don’t think it would have come together in the low light with four minutes left.
Persistence Outdoors 