The last rifle hunt with my better half
I looked at my watch and I saw 4:37. One minute prior to the close of shooting hours on the last day of the statewide antlerless season. I started buttoning things up in the blind and coached my blind partner – my better half – on what we needed to do. For her it meant nothing more than handing me my pack. The rest is what I did.
It was the first time she went deer hunting with me since the fall of 1987. We hunted ducks, grouse, pheasant, and geese together many times, but not deer since then.
“I can help,” she said. “There really isn’t anything to do,” I replied. “I’m coming back tomorrow in the daylight to pack everything up. I’m just glad you came along.”
“It was fun! It would have been really cool if you could have gotten a deer though,” she told me.
It would have been. But earlier when I told her that if we saw a deer we needed to make sure that it wasn’t a buck or a fawn. I didn’t want to shoot a fawn. She knew fawns were legal. She’s taught Hunters Ed for over 25 years and we discussed the finer points of deer hunting many times.
She put her hand on my arm and looked at me with those eyes. You guys know the ones, the ones that they know you can’t say no to.
“Come on,” I said. “All that work for not a lot of meat.”
“It would be so cool to get a deer,” she said “A deer yes, but a fawn really isn’t a deer. It’s a fawn,” I pleaded my case. My plan was to not tell her if I saw a fawn without a doe and hope she didn’t hear or see it.
Before we left for the stand, I was debating even going at all. There are a lot of projects that need doing. I already smoked salmon that I’m supposed to bring to the Christmas gathering next weekend.
My better half convinced me to go hunting. “If you don’t go you’ll just work too hard on something that can wait or you’ll drive me crazy,” she said.
Once the decision to go was made to go all I thought about was getting to the stand, setting up, and then the hunting. I never thought about a project again that day. Hunting has a way of washing away the stress.
After getting set up, I explained what we wanted to be aware of and sounds in the woods. Squirrel warning squawks and blue jays calling were on the top of the list. I continued to scan all directions I could, glassed the gaps that provided a glimpse into the distance, and listened for footfalls that could be deer.
I get lost in the hunting. I honestly stop worrying about the stuff that needs to be done. If work calls or sends a message I have no trouble ignoring it, because I’m focused on the hunting? Why hunt if you don’t focus or take a nap. Work did send several messages that I saw once I got home. And I almost got a short nap, but just as I was drifting off I heard blue jays calling followed shortly by a turkey yelping. Shortly after that a nice flock of jakes and toms walked by at 50 yards.
The blue jays called three times, one for something I never saw, the second for that group of jakes and toms, and the third time for a group of four gobblers that all walked by the stand at 10 yards. I thought about taking a shotgun along but didn’t. To be honest I never do.
We watched the squirrels scampering around the stand. More than once the squirrels faked her out. “I think I just heard a deer,” she would whisper.
“It’s a squirrel,” I would reply and point out where it was. The four toms put me on high alert. They approached from a blind spot created by trees. I heard them with 40 minutes of light left and they were still in shotgun range 20 minutes later.
When you’re deer hunting, turkeys walk by at ten yards. When you’re turkey hunting, deer walk by at ten yards.
And suddenly owls were hooting all around us and it was 4:37. A good hunt, a fun hunt, and the last rifle hunt this year.
“I’d go again. It was fun,” she told me.
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