Post #9 - "I think you missed her bud"
Striving toward yet another fresh and brand new rifle season in MN after coming off a bleak and desolate season the year prior where technical issues and problems plagued my father and I that resulted in no deer being taken. Determined to not let this happen again, and my father deciding to sit this season out and just provide support from inside the warm and toasty house (that doesn’t seem quite fair but such as it was back then). I was 17 and about to sit my first season solo, and while I was excited I was also nervous to have such freedom in the stand. Where my success would be determined upon my time spent out in the stand scouring the surrounding landscape for any sign of deer movement, and making an accurate shot (hopefully) on target. With that in mind and those thoughts swirling around my noggin, I set out to reclaim some unknown honor and remedy last season’s disappointment.
I don’t remember how the actual first morning of opener went, but I can imagine I was none too thrilled to be woken up early, putting on ice cold clothes, and then tromping out to sit in the stand while my father relaxed in the warmth of the house (I feel I’d drawn the short end of the deal on this arrangement). I know I would have been somewhat thrilled to be back at it, despite opener morning and morning hunting in general never being all that productive for Dad or I when looking back on past seasons. Typically going off history, we’ve been primarily an evening hunt success, though obviously there will always be outliers and distant tangents that set the common rule into disarray. This season however would not break away from that commonality, and the morning came by as fast as usual and the echo of distant shots sprang around the country side and the promise of getting a deer diminished with each additional shot as the number of deer available trickled away.
Suiting up for the evening hunt and strapped with my trusty .243 rifle, I left the warmth of the house for once again another trek out to the stand for another go around. The evening went by slowly and as the light was just starting to fade and the half hour rule was coming close (where once the sun goes down you can legally hunt for another 30 minutes in MN), I spotted some movement coming from the far left corner of my field of view that overlooks the swamp. Immediately my heart started to beat even faster, and I now was having to silently move off my turned over milk crate seat and reach down and grab my rifle. While I take my eyes off this deer coming in, I grab my rifle and click the safety off and rise back up to see where the deer has moved to. I could not spot them, and my heart sank, for a moment. Until when I thought it had left, they stepped out from behind some tree and willow cover and came into view. Raising my scope up and finding them between my crosshairs, I can see that it’s a nice bodied doe and is roughly 50 yards away from me at this point and in the more “open” space where there’s only some taller scrub grass. This area was to my left, and being a left handed shooter I had to contort myself to the extreme edge of the enclosed stand to allow myself to have a stable shot while using the platform to set up for a good and sturdy shot. As my left index finger reached down and felt the trigger guard, I slipped it around the trigger, and squeezed out a round. Immediately the doe took off running heading away from the house and more towards the swamp, and out of sight into the thick willow jungle. Waiting a minute or two I pulled out my handheld radio and called into the house to let the folks know that I’d taken a shot.
It did not take long for Dad to come out fully furnished in his hunting gear and flashlights in tow, as by now the sun had gone away and there was not much time left in the day where any natural light could be useful. Plus, where we were heading into, the willows choked out much of the ambient light and the flashlights would come in handy searching around for the start of a blood trail. The one downside though with my caliber of choice, is that a .243 is not a large caliber and the entry/exit point is smaller and the amount of blood loss that falls is not often visible like it would be if one were toting a 30-06. Explaining where the deer was standing when I shot, my father and I started to look for a small pool of blood from initial impact, and upon searching around we could not find one. It was starting to feel like 2 seasons prior when despite taking what was thought to be a sure shot, no blood was found and feelings of despair and dread slowly started to brew within.
Fanning out the search grid and working into the willows, the amount of doubt and uncertainty of whether or not I’d hit this doe or not was growing to an insurmountable level within my father. To this end, he uttered “I think you missed her bud.” Something that no one wants to hear, especially when it was my first solo hunt/sit and also my first one coming off of a tag soup season the year prior. The search was continuing to become more and more pushing towards having missed, with no hair or blood found and uncertainty as to how the doe entered into the jungle to narrow the search. Nevertheless, we continued the grind and I was crossing all over throughout the willows and moving the tall grasses out of the way while I was shining my flashlight about. Now for whatever reason, and I’m sure it’s nothing that could be scientifically proven with any sort of academic application, but it seems to me that despite deer having reflective eyes when flashed with light, I’ve never been able to flash eyes to find downed deer. Instead, I came upon the tan/grayish colored hump…. of my doe. Her back turned towards me and her eyes pointing out away from any of the light that was being flashed around in the undergrowth.
The feelings of triumph and joy of having stuck to the course and not abandoning the search despite the lack of clear sign of a well placed shot, began to flood over my father and I in that thick growth. Hauling her out of the swamp and into the backyard, we noticed that my shot had cleanly hit both lungs and heart, and upon later on field dressing her out we were drenched with a bloody and soupy chest cavity. Essentially the whole volume of blood being trapped within her chest and now freed by our knife work.
My 4th whitetail, and only the growing start of even more successful seasons to come.
Ty G. Anderson
November 22nd | 2019