Buckshot's Article

A Deer Hunting Tale

So, there I was in the pre dawn darkness waiting for the warming glow of the morning sun. I was sitting in my blind hoping for a big buck, but I hunt for the food and will take the first legal deer I see. The dawn starts to break. Dark areas that could be a deer are soon light enough to see a stump or clump of ferns.

The first movement I see is a red squirrel starting his morning food gathering activities. A pair of raven fly by and land in a tree about 100 yards down from my stand. I tossed a road killed deer there 2 weeks before. They must be doing the final clean up. The raven flew down to the bones. When a hawk flies in and scares off the 2 raven. They sit up in the tree complaining loudly. 30 minutes later 12 raven fly in and 4 of the larger ones gang up on the lone hawk driving him off. An hour later the raven fly off and silence returns. The hawk flies back for one last look around and leaves.

At 11:30 5 black cap chickadees flew in and I watched the tiny birds feed. No deer, but heard shots all around us. At noon we meet back at the farm house for lunch and discuss the morning. One blind seen 1 doe at 8:30 and a doe and fawn at 10:03. The last blind and myself never saw a deer.

By 1:00 we are back in the blinds reading a book to pass the time. I scan the area and read a couple of paragraphs. The afternoon wears on until around 3:40 I hear a deer walking in. I place the book down and along the edge of the stream is a deer. At first I thought it was doe. It walked over and takes a drink. Then when it stood up I saw the spike horns. He was on my right side walking away from me. I slowly open the Plexiglas window. It scraped the wood and the buck froze and whipped his head up looking right at me. I froze and after a few minutes he looked away then whipped his head back around trying to see in the blind. Satisfied he started feeding away from me.

When his head was behind a tree I eased my rifle up and out the window. Not wanting to make a lot of noise by standing up to shot right handed I decided to shot him left handed. I settled the crosshairs on the deer that was starting to walk faster away from me. I kicked the bottom of the blind and the deer swirled around to get a better look at the area the sound came from. A perfect broadside shot at 75 yards. I calmed myself down and settled the crosshairs just behind his shoulder and squeezed off the shot. The bullet hit perfectly knocking him to the ground. A nice good eating spike horn.

 I went down and tagged and gutted him. Dragged him back to the blind. I had my second deer tag and sat back in the blind waiting for another buck. No more came out. That was first deer I shot left handed. Meat in the freezer. I can now relax and calm down and enjoy the rest of hunting season.

Bruce "Buckshot"