Deer Season 2018 Part 6

Suspicious Sally

In my last installment of Deer Season 2018/19, I told you about showing mercy to a yearling buck that had been hit by a speeding motor vehicle.  I also shared my concerns about a peaceful skunk who never threatened me in the least, but raised my nervous energy quite a bit.

This time I will be telling you about experiencing more success and a bit of disappointment too.

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One interesting aspect of Missouri’s deer season is that it starts with archery season (currently beginning on September 15).  It then switches to firearms season for about ten days in November, before changing back to archery.  Later comes alternative weapons (some of us old-timers still call it black powder season) around the end of the year before going back to archery until the middle of January.  Yep, that gives all-around enthusiasts like me about four months to enjoy their beloved sport. 

NOTE: That is a general rundown for the purposes of this blog only.  See Missouri Department of Conservation rules on their website (https://huntfish.mdc.mo.gov/huntfish/seasons/deer) or one of their handouts (available in stores) for more specific and correct information.*

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So firearms season (I usually call it rifle or gun season) approached and I relished the idea of being able to cradle my .300 Winchester Magnum and be able to hit pretty much any legal deer within sight.

When the opening day of that season arrived, I climbed up into my ladder stand with my faithful “three hunnit” well before legal shooting hours and settled in to wait. 

I heard a few deer moving before I could identify them and, believe it or not, enjoyed it.  Yes, I love pretty much everything about being out in the woods, except bug bites and extreme heat and cold. 

While not extremely cold then, it was quite chilly…enough so that I was glad I’d caried the extra weight of a coat, hat, and glove-mittens.

Opening morning ticked away without a big-buck sighting.  It was nearly 8:00 a.m., the time when I would have to climb out of my stand and go home to fix breakfast for my 92-year-old mother, and give her the medicines she was prescribed.

I saw deer, lots of deer, even some bucks.  There were spikes, fork horns, sixes, and a few small eights.  I was tempted…but not too much. With only one any deer tag for gun season I didn’t want to use it on a little guy.  I also had an anterless tag that I could use to put more meat in the freezer, but I didn’t want to do that on opening day.  Besides not wanting to scare the big boys away there was another reason I’ll tell you in Deer Season 2018 Part 7.

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At 8 I looked around to be sure there were no deer I could scare away, then stood slowly and turned.  I unloaded my rifle and prepared to climb down.  As I turned, I caught movement through the brush at one gully to the southeast.

A doe ran into my view and was followed by a buck…THE buck!  She was sleek and beautiful, but him; he was muscled up, with a swollen neck engorged with the onset of the rut.  And he had antlers!  From side to side they grew out past his ears (I estimate 16-18 inches) and the tips were about that tall…all ten of them.  Not a monster, not even record-book quality, but he was the best I’d seen in the photos I’d gotten off my game cameras.

He was THE buck I had set my mental sights on.  Now I needed to set my rifle’s sights on him too, but I had to reload it first.

I reached out to grab the weapon.

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All this happened in about three seconds.  I swear it could have been no more than that.  The doe never saw me, I’m sure of that, and the buck never saw anything except the doe.  She wasn’t as far along in the breeding cycle as he was so she wasn’t as interested in his friendship as he was in hers.  She dodged like a runningback dodges tackles, so fast that the buck barely got into my view before she turned and ran back the way she had come.

My fingers wrapped around the .300 just as the buck disappeared from my view behind the brush.  I reloaded and waited a few minutes for them to come back in sight…but they didn’t.  I unloaded the weapon again and climbed down before reloading, then I walked carefully, slowly, my nerves at a fever pitch of alertness.  As I neared a spot where I could see the portion of the field where they had disappeared, I scanned it.

Nothing. 

I looked and looked and looked, trying to make a deer out of every shadow, weed, or tree branch, but it didn’t work. 

Nothing.

As I made my way back to Mom’s little house to fulfill her morning needs, I continued to look for the buck.  No luck.  I had missed my chance, if you can call it that.

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Sitting in the stand again later that day I heard a doe blowing the alert signal.  It sounded like the same doe I had heard several other times that year.  She had a way of blowing the signal, not once, not twice, but over and over, often with no apparent provocation.  She blew often and so much I started calling her Suspicious Sally.

I’d even seen Suspicious Sally blowing the alert in the middle of a group of deer, and realized they usually just ignored her, kind of like the little boy who cried wolf.  Nobody took Suspicious Sally seriously most of the time, but sometimes she’d blow suddenly and everyone would immediately run for cover.  Eventually they’d come back out, moving slowly and looking around, on the alert for any justification to take off running again.

These were times when I had to be especially careful not to move or make any noise that they might notice.

In other words, she could easily ruin my whole season if the other deer decided to take her seriously and started avoiding the clearing where I sat.

I mentally started a list of deer I’d like to take for meat, with Suspicious Sally at the top.

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A day or so later, two yearlings came out of the brush in an unusual place.  In fact, I’d never seen deer come out from that spot, and I haven’t since.  I needed to get some more video for the season, so I started my camera.  A doe came out of the same spot and walked along, grazing.  She was limping.  The limping wasn’t really bad but I made a note to keep an eye on her for the rest of the year.  If she got worse or didn’t get better, she would go on the meat deer list.

And I did want some more meat…but not yet.

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*In Missouri, weapons allowed during bow season include bows, crossbows, and atlatls.  During firearms season hunters can use any allowed weapon up to a modern, cartridge-firing rifle.  Alternative weapons season allows everything else allowed during firearms season, except modern cartridge weapons.

I don’t claim this list to be 100% accurate, plus, there are other rules and restrictions that YOU are responsible for knowing and following.  READ AND FOLLOW the Missouri Department of Conservation’s regulations.

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