Post #17 - Wet times, Dry Deer
**Disclaimer: Due to unforeseen events years ago there was no whitetail taken my second year in college, nor was their any photographic evidence to depict "tag soup”. Instead, it is lost to the essence of time.**
The times were flying by and being the ripe age of 21 that fateful September, the beers they were a flow’n. Being 21 is an odd time I feel like now that I think back on it, where nothing changes really, but you’re now allowed to buy liquids to alter your sensorium. As if that’s not odd enough, it also comes with having to go down to the local DMV and stand in line to get your photo taken, of which you’ll be having to show to others every time you want to purchase said liquids. I can only think back to mine and the rough nature of looking like an individual who shouldn’t be allowed within 100 yards of an elementary school…… Yikes.
Regardless of all of this, it also brought with it new circumstances and life experiences being placed into an on campus apartment with 3 UK soccer team students. It afforded me to view into how different lives can be from a mere ocean away, and also got me into watching lots and lots of soccer. During this time as well, it also got me into chewing tobacco this same year, and would hold with me for a daunting 4 years (as of now writing this it has been 27 months and 11 days since my last lipful). It was wild times in college, it was also my first full year being a single man as well and the year of my first smart phone (previously rocking the old flip phone and getting all the looks from it as people were unaware they still were in production). So to say this year changed me in a multitude of ways is an understatement.
Despite all this changes and new life experiences, it also meant that a new season of deer hunting was coming upon me fast, and none too soon as the rigors of academic life sometimes wears hard on a person. To escape it all and come home to hunt was like finding out you aced your Finals, something that could only be dreamt about. Thankfully for me, it did not take much dreaming as finally November was here.
Toting my .243 out to the ladder stand and hoping my fortune would change after coming off a disappointing last season, in which opportunities were presented, but unforeseen circumstances prevented any whitetails from being hung up in the pole shed. Once again, more powerpoint slides would be studied while up in the stand, as it seems that teachers are all in the business to accost hunting students from fully enjoying the short MN rifle season. I believe the topics at hand were Pathophysiology and Embryology, all excellent topics unless you’ve got a tag burning in your back pocket.
With the grand coming of Opener Saturday resulting in early morning stand sitting, and an equally grand but sadly disappointing evening sit. I was now reduced one full day of hunting, but felt that despite that that the season was far from over. I was in it to win it, and not continue the downtrodden quest for another year of “tag soup”.
With a few hours of sleep and a restless one at that, I awoke Sunday morning and climbed out of bed and headed out into the cold darkness, complete with bleary eyes and cold hunting clothes. Sadly, nothing was to come of my efforts that morning, but in for the middle of the day lull and some more studying/homework time. Seeing the morning change into afternoon, it was now time to gear back up and head out for the evening sit.
This sit felt different for whatever reason, I’m not sure how to explain it but there was a feeling that things would be different that sit and did it ever. While the vast majority of the sit was uneventful, the “Golden Hour” I call it, which is the last hour of legal hunting, tends to be the sweet spot for me. That Sunday would be no different. Watching a doe work her way across the field towards the backside of the pole shed, to the almost identical area of the last doe shot 2 years ago right in front of the old garden. I had ample time to get my rifle unhitched from the stand railing and up resting atop and the butt tucked tightly against my shoulder, I waited for her to slow her advance.
Coming to a final stopping point and presenting a shot, I went through the typical movements of finding her in my crosshairs and slowed my breathing down. Gently, I worked my left index finger inside the trigger guard, and found the trigger. Pulling smoothly, I applied pressure.
“Blaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmm!!”
She took off running like a bat out of Hell, and back almost to the very entry point into the side field. As she got closer to the far edge of the field I could see her slowing down, to an almost uncertain speed that prompted possible fears creeping over me that could spell a miss on my part. Waiting a few minutes an ringing the parents to let them know that I’d connected, I gathered my things and clicked on my headlamp as I made a somber climb down the ladder and onto the forest floor below.
Giving the doe about half an hour, my old man and I decided to head off to where I’d last seen her, to start off a beginning point in which to find where she could have possibly gone. Thankfully, we did not have to search far and wide, as upon going past the lone pine tree just off the field lay my doe. Her back towards us and the grey ashen colored hide shining against our headlamps.
Taking the advantage of being away from the house, we quickly got about to field dressing her and then took turns dragging her back towards the pole shed. Whitetail #8 was no mine for the meat pole (or rather, meat hanger).
Ty G. Anderson
January 17th | 2020