A refreshing day in the stand can help you unwind
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Stand therapy.
Sometimes you just need it and it happens at the right time of the year.
I needed a bunch of stand therapy about a week or so ago. The last three out of four weeks left a lot to be desired.
Stand therapy unwinds what the stress of life wound up.
I climbed into the stand about 30 minutes past noon. I set things up. Used a compass to coordinate which direction my scent might blow. I chose which way I would face and I settled in for a long sit. 4:38 p.m., shooting light. I had a little over a four hour sit.
A large deer ran away from the stand site as I approached and I decided not to wing a shot at it. I figured that the deer might come through about an hour later. It didn’t.
A flock of cardinals worked through, feeding on seeds. Downy, hairy, and red bellied woodpeckers pecked at a dead aspen 20 yards away throughout the afternoon. Juncos skittered about, a chickadee landed on my hat, and a blue jay glided by. The colors of all brilliantly shown in the binoculars. Several times a gray squirrel jumped from limb to limb and looked like the movement of a deer in the distance. Each time some glassing found just a gray squirrel. The wind masked any noise I might make and the same for deer and squirrels. I focused on nothing but the hunt. Scanning 360 degrees for deer. Not just any deer, but an antlerless deer. I hunted the statewide antlerless season. The dogs needed running the weekend prior so I didn’t hunt the muzzleloader and I don’t like cleaning guns enough to hunt the muzzleloader season. A good friend plugged a very decent four and a half year old seven point buck with 17 inch spread on the last day of the muzzleloader season with five minutes of shooting hours left. If you recall that day the temperature dropped to sub zero with a strong northwest wind blowing. He didn’t break a sweat on the three quarters of a mile walk out with heavy bibs, coat, and boots on. He needed some serious stand therapy to hunt that.
The wind blew from the southeast all afternoon. I hunted on. Watching chickadees, woodpeckers, and juncos fluttering around, looking for sustenance – the breaking branches didn’t bother them.
About three in the afternoon the wind switched from southeast to east by southeast. A better wind for me, but the call of nature arrived. I descended to the ground and once again climbed up into the stand.
I heard several shots that afternoon. I heard several bluejays call out with a warning, that usually announces a deer walking my direction. Not that afternoon. False alarms all.
I hunted not for my freezer but for a friend’s. If I hunted for my freezer, I might not have even loaded my gun. I hunted just to hunt. To get lost in the hunting. To forget. The hunting, despite the exposure to weather, the uncomfortable positions, the effort required to get there, the vigilance – the hunting is the easy part. With deer hunting, the work starts after the after the kill.
I checked my watch again, 3:50 p.m. and looked up. A movement ahead and to my left revealed a deer. How did it get to 65 yards without me seeing it? It walked in on a blind spot. I raised the rifle and adjusted the scope. The doe saw my hand move and stood facing me at full attention. I settled the crosshairs on the center of her chest about the top of the heart and slowly squeezed the tripper. Bang.
I looked up to see her first bound and saw blood pulse from her chest. I watched her run 10, 20, 30, then 40 yards . . . how could a deer hit that hard run that far? I rechambered a round and the deer died on the run at 60 yards, less than 10 seconds from the shot.
Stand therapy, I needed that. I will recall that hunt with every meal of venison all year.
The late archery season continues on. A friend killed a 180 some inch 10 point on Christmas morning 35 years ago. Keep the faith, keep hunting. Coyote, fox, and bobcat seasons lure some from the warmth of a house. Enjoy, but please remember, Safe Hunting is No Accident!
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!
CHUCK BY
K OLAR THROUGH A
LOCAL OUTDOORSMAN
