Deer Hunting 2017, Part 6

 

In the last installment of the continuing saga of my 2017/18 deer season I explained my latest bit of bad luck.  My black powder rifle had slipped and banged the rear sight against the stand, frightening off a whole herd of potential summer sausage.  When they’d returned the following night I had lined up on a fat doe and squeezed off a shot…and missed.

How much bad luck could one hunter have?

I was about to find out.

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Just in case, I checked the clearing twice, once with help from my sharp-eyed youngest son, Patrick.  We did not find even a hint of a hit.

Not even a hint.

I was pretty sure that, after scaring off the deer twice in one night, they wouldn’t be back out there the next night, at least not to that clearing.  I’d alarmed them once by yelling at a dog and once with a gun shot, then I’d spread human scent all over the clearing and much of the woods beside it looking for some evidence of a hit.  So I didn’t go out to the stand the last day of the alternative methods season.

Stupid decision.

I have told my sons many times, “You may not get a deer when you go hunting, but I guarantee you won’t get a deer if you don’t go out.”

I should have listened to my own words of wisdom.

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Bow season returned the day after black powder season ended.  I wouldn’t have time to hunt for a few more evenings, so I made a quick trip out to check the game cameras.

Back home I looked at the memory card from the camera nearest to the ladder stand.    Before I’d even opened the pictures in the viewer, the icon from the first one jumped out at me.

“No way!” I said to myself. “NO WAY!”

Yes, way.

I opened the picture.  It clearly showed six deer standing in the waning light.  Two of them were close enough to my stand that I could have shot one, even with my rear sight off as much as it was.  I could have just POINTED the rifle and hit one.  Heck, I probably could have THROWN the stupid thing and hit one of them…except for one thing; I WASN’T THERE!

The picture was from the evening of the last day of alternative methods season…the day I’d chosen not to go out.

More bad luck.  When would it end?

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The weekend after black powder season ended I went out both nights and saw lots of deer.  I even had a couple button bucks and spikes.  No trophies showed themselves but there were plenty of opportunities to fill both of my tags and take up a lot of space in my freezer, except for one thing – the wily creatures stayed outside my abbreviated range.

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The next to last day of bow season arrived, which also meant that my opportunities had dwindled to just two days.

We’d just had a rain, followed by another drop in temperature, then sleet.  It was slick out there.  Still, I crept out across the field to the woods, then moved as quietly as I could through the crispy leaves on the trail.  A slow trip up the waterway got me to that last steep uphill climb to the ladder stand.  The side of the waterway was coated in a sheet of ice which was, in turn, covered with fine balls of hard-frozen sleet.

Imagine a sheet of glass.  Now, pour out a few million BBs onto it after coating it with just enough Vaseline to keep them from rolling off.  Tilt that creation a little above 45 degrees and you’ve got something almost as hard to climb as what stood before me.  Almost.

I was within ten feet of my stand and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it the rest of the way or not.

Pretty quickly I was thinking not.

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The only other way to get to the stand without climbing the side of the waterway was to go back downhill to the pond and enter the clearing, where I’d have to walk in plain sight for about 50 yards to the stand.  Not a good gamble to take at that time of the day.  So it was climb or go home.

I planted my foot and started to put weight on it only to have that foot slide back down.  I jammed one foot on the stub of a small sapling I’d cut to clear the path, and stre-e-e-etched out to grasp another tree I’d left growing farther up the slope.  Then I pulled myself up to stand unsteadily beside the little tree.

That’s where the hillside got really steep.

I tried to reach up for another hold, but nothing was within reach.  The ladder was just…barely…out…of… reach.  Finally, by kind of throwing my hand and jumping forward, I managed to snag a grip on the ladder with just the tips of three fingers.  I strained to curl the fingers, pulling myself up just a little more until I could wrap the digits around the cold steel tubing.  Then I moved my feet slowly up under me.  I started pulling myself up the steep, icy hillside entirely by the strength of my left arm.

That’s when it happened.

Both feet slipped backward and I went down on my knees.  Then they slipped out from under me too.  Luckily I didn’t lose my grip on the stand but my right hand automatically caught me before I could smash my face into the frozen earth.  My right hand was the one I’d been using up until then to hold my crossbow sling and keep the weapon from slipping off my shoulder.  The bow celebrated its freedom by spinning around the shoulder and down my arm and onto the hard-frozen ground, landing first on the scope-sight.

Even after all I’d been through this season, my first thought was that, surely, it hadn’t hit hard enough to knock the sight off.

Ri-i-ight.

I muscled myself up the rest of the way and stood beside the ladder.  I couldn’t see any damage to the sight.  Had I dodged a bullet, so to speak, with my bow?

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How do you make bad luck into worse luck?  How about by having a little good luck?

You’re about to see what I mean.

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I got up into the stand and turned the seat pad over to knock as much of the built-up ice off as I could.  No need to have potential prey frightened off by ice falling from the pad when I adjusted my position for a better shot.  Good thinking.  I do that sometimes.

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Before long I heard something moving through the woods.  Awesome!  It was earlier than the deer had been coming out into the clearing.  There was still plenty of light for a shot.  Great!

A deer entered the clearing.  A healthy button buck.  I eased the crossbow up and in place for a shot.  But I heard another deer in the woods.  No…more than one.  I recognized the forkhorn that came out next as the one Patrick had passed up the first day of rifle season.  He was followed by another, then another.  Before long five four pointers had joined the knobhead, and they were all within range of my crossbow…barely.

There wasn’t a nickel’s worth of difference in the racks of all five forkies, not that it really mattered.  They were all big enough to provide plenty of meat, but young enough to be really tasty.

I lined up on the one I imagined to have the least amount of good luck, hoping his bad luck would overcome mine.

It didn’t.

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I squeezed off a shot and immediately heard the bolt hit and skitter off across the icy, frozen ground, then ricochet off some trees in the woods.

My banged-up scope had failed me.  I knew before I re-cocked the crossbow that there really was no point.

I did it anyway.

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The six bucks evacuated the clearing, but they really weren’t in any hurry.  They seemed to know that the safest place to be was right where I aimed.

They never got into range again.

After they left my little herd of nine slick heads filtered in.  They never got within shooting range either.

After the slicks left, I climbed down and went looking for blood…again.  I found no sign of a hit…again.

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The next morning I shouldered my backpack and crossbow and hiked back to the clearing to search again for evidence of a hit.  It was snowing and I didn’t find any sign of blood.  I didn’t find my bolt either, but that really wasn’t a big surprise.  A dark gray bolt with white and dull red fletching would be hard to pick out in the thick, snowy underbrush.  Still, I looked and looked.

Then I gave up.

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I used my cell phone to get the video clips that I posted with my blog post, “Soft and White,” then took a circuitous route home, taking up two of my game cams and exchanging the memory card from the one I left, just in case it had caught a picture of a wounded deer.

The snow continued to deepen, so I didn’t go out hunting that night, the last night of the 2017/18 deer season.

There’s always next year.  But then, I said that last year, didn’t I?

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We’ve all been told, “All good things must come to an end.”  Well evidently the same can’t be said for all bad things.  Apparently bad luck can go on and on and on.

Just kidding…I hope.

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I had a lot of bad luck this season.  My always dependable rifle misfired for the first time EVER, when I’d tried the only chance I got at MY buck.  I’d knocked the sight wacky on my black powder rifle so that I missed the only shot I’d tried with it.  I had misjudged the distance the first time I’d tried for a buck with my crossbow, then knocked the sight caterwampus on it just minutes before I tried my last shot of the season.

OK, OK, it wasn’t all bad luck; there was a little stupidity mixed in, just to keep things interesting, I guess.

I didn’t get the trophy I’d been waiting for.  Heck, I didn’t get a deer at all, except for the one I felt like I HAD to shoot, as a favor to him, and he was inedible.

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Bu-u-u-ut, all-in-all, I still consider it a very successful season.

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Actually, I got just about everything I could have hoped for from the deer season just-past.  I spent a lot of time in the stand.  Much of that time I was watching or videotaping deer or coyotes.  I saw the bobcat ghosting through the woods on a couple occasions.  Most of the rest of the time I was listening to the sounds of the woods and its wildlife.

Patrick did take his biggest buck this season.  Any father will tell you that witnessing your kid’s success is more valuable than just about any accomplishment of your own.

The main reason I didn’t get a deer was that I didn’t really try.  If my family had been hungry, I’d have tried harder for some meat.  We’ve eaten a lot of venison in the last 35 years.  Instead I’d ignored a lot of perfect opportunities to fill my tags…until it was too late.

Yes, I’d have liked to get the big buck.  To tag a specific deer you have to be willing to pass up anything short of that.  In the process I’d passed plenty of chances to take the meat I also wanted.  As the saying goes, “If you want to get a trophy, you’ve got to be willing to risk eating ‘tag soup’.”

I took that chance.  Now, guess what’s on the menu.

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I’ll be back out there next year.  Hopefully I’ll finally bring that big buck home with me.  There’s a good chance I’ll collect some delicious meat for the freezer.  If not, well, killing a deer is only one small aspect of why I hunt, and it’s far from the most important part at that.

In the meantime I have about eight months to put out mineral supplement to encourage healthy deer and antler growth; monitor my game cameras to keep tabs on who made it through the year; and bank a little good karma to earn some good luck.

I could sure use it…next year.

 

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(above)  I’m pretty sure this is what my woods looked like the day after deer season.