It was a nice morning, but there was a bit of a ruckus going on to the east of me. Someone had deer dogs running where they shouldn't have been, and they made a heck of a racket, echoing through these still-hunt-only sandhills. The growling of an ATV engine suggested that someone was trying to head them off. After an hour or so, that finally ended and the noise faded away.
Call me a slacker, but when I go out to see nothing - er, I mean to hunt around here - I sometimes take along something to read. I'll read a few lines and then look around, and repeat. It keeps me sane... or as sane as I can get anyhow. So there I was, reading The Two Towers, strolling through Fangorn Forest with Merry and Pippin and Treebeard, when I looked up and there was a deer.
Hey, That's a Deer!
The deer was standing mostly behind some tree trunks, and I realized his attention was all aimed southeast - at the sound of some joker who was just then riding an ATV along the road I'd walked in on. I laid the paperback on my knee and slowly raised the rifle. Sure as heck, the deer had legal antlers! Now I was getting somewhere. But he was certainly bothered by the sound of the cycle, and he appeared ready to bolt.
Now dadgum it, I did not hunt all these hours and work so dang hard to finally see a legal buck and then let some goober scare him off! So I aimed at the buck, figured I'd try to break his back, and I fired.
Down he went, just as he should, as I chambered another round. But then he got up and left! Obviously I had missed the backbone. Within a few steps, the buck disappeared into a bunch of thick brush and crashed on for a few seconds. I had no chance for a follow-up shot, and now he was out of sight. Dammit!
The Waiting Game
I waited and wondered, but I knew from the sound that he hadn't gone far into the thick stuff. All I could hope and pray for was a blood trail with a buck at the end of it! Then I heard another crash in the brush, and no more. After a bit, I went ahead and lowered my pack and started climbing down the tree as quietly as I could, with many a glance over my shoulder at the woods where the buck had run.
It felt like an hour had passed, but I glanced at my watch when I got on the ground, and only twelve minutes had gone by since I'd fired the shot. I started easing over to where I'd knocked him down. What the heck! No blood at all, not even a drop. I was a bit of a nervous wreck by this time. But it was obvious I had hit the deer hard, otherwise he wouldn't have gone down.
All I could do was start easing towards the landmark I had picked out to mark the direction he had run, which was a dead pine tree, broken a ways above the ground and lying with its top on the forest floor. I scoured the brush and the ground for blood as I went, but it was no use - there was none to be found.
I kept on moving slowly forward through the brush as stealthily as I could, scanning the ground in all directions, trying to be ready in case he suddenly jumped to run. Then I saw him! Lying nice and peaceful-like, about ten feet past my landmark tree top. He was dead, he was mine, and by God I was one happy hunter!
Now the Work Begins
After sending many thanks towards Heaven, I happily marked his fall with my GPS, then started dragging. Then I marked where I'd shot him - which was within about ten feet of a rut scrape. The buck had only run about 40 yards after the shot. I went and secured my stand and went about the business of getting him out of the woods, to the check station, back home, and into a cooler. As usual, it was a lot of work, but entirely worth it.
He was no monster buck by any stretch, just a nice 2.5-year-old whitetail buck that weighed 117 pounds according to the check station scale. But he was MINE, and I had put in a lot of sweat and effort and time to get this public-land whitetail. I'd say I earned him. And there was no doubt that I'd be heading back out there hunting before long, to start earning my next deer.
- Russ Chastain
