This is the second part of a two-day hunting saga. You can find the beginning of the story and the context for this article in the Deer 11/17 entry. While the events on the 17th were disheartening, sad, and exhausting, the 18th was overwhelmingly positive. Nevertheless, I was unable to recover the lost animal.
Arriving home on the night of the 17th, I was beat. I had made a bad shot, blood trailed a deer for hours, and finally found evidence of the animal crossing onto private land. I needed to get in contact with the landowner, but it was past 11 pm. I was glad to see my wife and get some rest. I knew Friday would be a long day.
Hardly after I had finished relating my tail of woe to my wife, she flipped her phone around to show me the landowner’s Facebook page. He seemed like a nice guy. I pursuaded my wife to send him a weird message, which in summary read: “my husband shot a deer that ran onto your property, can give him a call? Sorry to bother you.” With that, we went to bed and hoped the landowner would reach out.
I woke up early the next day to no messages on my phone, so I kept searching. I didn’t have much information on the guy, and, critically, no contact number. He also didn’t live on the property that I was inquiring about, nor did he live at the tax address listed in onX. Thankfully, using my basic internet skills I was able to figure out where he worked. I reached the receptionist, who transferred me to his department. He wasn’t in the office yet, so I left a message and decided to call back again around 8 am. In the meantime, I drove out to the area where I had shot the deer.
I called his department again at 8:15 am. This time he picked up. I gave him the short summary of what happened and requested permission to search his property. He was extremely gracious and gave me permission right away. He wanted to know why I was searching so hard, and if it was a big deer. His only stipulation was that I send him pictures once I found it. I hadn’t expected a warm reception, and it really helped lift my spirits as I started the day.
Landowner no. 1, we’ll call him Jeff, was kind enough to share the contact information of the adjacent landowners as well. I got in contact with a 2nd landowner of a different property, we’ll call him Rob, who granted me permission to park and search on his land. Rob was very kind to me. By parking on his land, I was able access the fence crossing where we had lost the deer directly. This cut a whole two miles off my route. My buddy from the night before also drove out to meet me again. We picked up the blood trail easily and were off to the races.
The blood trail started out easy and quickly became convoluted. I won’t go into every detail. Basically, it led us in what seemed like a circle. We started spreading out to see if the deer had doubled back, only to stumble upon blood 75 yards away in two different directions. We trailed, circled, and backtracked for four hours before finding the tiniest drop of blood beneath a barbed wire fence crossing over onto a different property. As far as we could tell, the deer had crossed onto Jeff’s property from public land, milled around on Rob’s property, and finally crossed over onto an adjacent hunting perserve. This came out to another 300 yards from the original public-to-private-land crossing, or 500 yards total from where it had been shot.
Jeff was once again kind of enough to provide me with a contact for the hunting lease. It was a last ditch effort. The deer was showing no signs of slowing down after 500 yards, and we were certain we had bumped it the night before. The blood had all but stopped. As luck would have it, two hunters from the lease were driving down to hunt that evening and agreed to meet me at the gate.
The two hunters, we’ll call them Mark and Jim, were also extremely kind to me. They thanked me for requesting permission instead of tresspassing, and Jim lent me his muzzloader to finish off the deer in case we found it wounded. They listened understandingly as I led them to the last spot of blood, regretfully reminiscing times when they had lost a deer. “If you hunt long enough, it’s going to happen,” Mark said. It’s a risk we take as hunters.
We didn’t find any blood on the other side of the fence, so I can only guess what happened to the animal. It’s distressing to think that I caused the animal to suffer unnecessarily, and extremely disappointing to lose the meat. It’s hard not to berate myself for botching what should have been an easy shot. I repeatedly have to choose to think positively and be persistent.
Despite the regretful situation, there are a few silver linings. First, I grew as a hunter, both in my tracking skills and in my understanding of the pursuit. I now have visceral grasp of what’s on the line when I pull the trigger, and I think that understanding will make me a better predator in the future.
Secondly, I was shown immense kindness by my friend, the landowners, and the other hunters who helped me along the way. Where I expected a cold shoulder, I was greeted with warmth and generosity. It was truly inspiring to meet these people because they provided such a positive example of how I ought to treat others. Someday, when a stranger calls me asking for permission to track an animal across my little piece of private land, I’ll know exactly how to respond.
Persistence Outdoors 