We’d been hunting this particular piece of property for just about a week. We were looking to fill our freezers, knowing there was no way that we’d fill our licenses. After all, none of us expected – or even wanted – to kill the dozen deer that Georgia's regulations allowed.
That was a good thing, too – because we weren’t seeing many shootable deer anyhow. Does were at the top of our list, for their theoretically superior numbers. Problem was, we kept seeing small (read: illegal) bucks instead.
But there were two does, apparently mother and offspring, who liked it down by the shooting range. The roughly circular drive wound through a stand of oaks, which yielded some of the few acorns to be found in the woods that year. And they got used to feeding there, despite occasional disturbances.
We first discovered those deer when we headed to the shooting range to burn up some ammo. Richard was ahead of us on his ATV, and as he rounded the turn into the range driveway, two white tails waved good-bye to him, much to his dismay.
I believe it was the next day when Jim jumped them. The following morning, Dad headed down to try an ambush. He jumped them, too.
So far, the deer were getting the best of us.
On Thursday, we left the property in the afternoon, heading to Elaine’s, where they serve the most delightful fried chicken imagineable – in addition to quail cooked several ways. All we can eat, to boot. On the way out, the two does were seen feeding on the other side of the main grade, just across from the range road.
They won out again.
The next morning – our last day of hunting – I suggested that Dad slide on down there and ambush those deer. I knew it was on his mind anyhow, and it was always our routine to help each other out in any way we could. Then I left camp, heading out to set up my climber in a new spot.
It was a chilly morning, and Dad drove my truck Ezmerelda down towards the range. He took his "stump" (a light folding chair) with him, and after parking well short of the range he approached and set up off to one side of the magnetic oaks. He sat down and started his watch, the cold settling on him to bite with the chill that comes with bored inactivity.
But not for long.
Pretty soon, here came the deer. They were moving slowly across the neighboring land, which had been clearcut the year before. They meandered towards the stand of oaks that seemed to draw them slowly but irresistibly towards itself. They were firmly entrenched in their routine, and nothing was going to keep them from their morning feed.
Or so they thought.
Dad watched, putting the scope on them to ensure that they were does. They were coming; he let them come. The initial adrenaline rush was beginning to bleed off, though it was still there, thrilling through his veins and heightening his senses.
Finally the two deer stepped across the property line, an invisible boundary that meant nothing to them, though it meant everything in terms of their fate. They moved in a step-and-pause gait, not yet comfortably within the copse of oaks. The older deer was behind some of the larger trees, and the younger one was not. That made Dad's choice easy.
Dad settled the crosshairs of the low-powered scope on the young deer, waited for her to pause, and squoze the trigger.
The report of the 44 magnum carbine reached through the woods and across the valleys to where I sat in a shag-bark hickory tree, and I just knew it had to be him. YES! I thought, and I turned on my two-way radio, hoping to hear Dad's report of good fortune. It was not forthcoming, however.
At the shot, both deer had bolted. Dad couldn’t believe it – he had never hit a deer with his 44 magnum that had not at least stumbled, and they usually fell like a rock. But this deer did not seem to flinch, and both of the whitetails waved their tall white tails at him as they bounded into the brush.
Incredulous, Dad got up and started to walk over to where the deer had been when he had fired the shot. On the way, however, he found a stump hole. Many of the stumps left from the last logging had rotted in the ground, leaving hidden traps. Down went his foot into one of these, and not even his deer-induced adrenaline high could cause his aged knees to operate well enough to easily pull him out of it.
He struggled a bit, frustrated and angry, before he managed to drag himself free of the hole. Now he was even more flustered. All his life he had heard that a hit deer will not run away with its flag (tail) up. Yet he knew he should have hit that deer.
