On Deer Hunting

Hi guys! Probably my all time favorite part of November (or else a very close second to Thanksgiving) is Deer season. Most other hunting seasons I could take or leave. Dove hunting is fun, if the migration is just right, and pheasant can be fun if the population is up for the year, but deer hunting is always a good time. 

This year was my first time hunting out of a tree stand. Typically me and my dad or sisters just kind of hunker down in some tall grass at the bottom of a tree or something and that's how we hunt, but Jarod has lots of river ground where the trees are thick, and he's got quite a few tree stands set up. 

So, season started on Saturday morning. We got up at six and got dressed head to toe in camo. Which was really fun. I'm pretty sure deer are color blind, because my whole life I've never wore anything special, and have been successful, but full camo is always fun. 

We parked in a little clump of trees and hiked across the pasture up to the river and climbed into the stand. It was cold, so I had on two pairs of socks. My cowboy boots wont fit with that, so I had to wear my snow boots, which didn't feel good, since they are pretty much shot and do more harm than good. But I survived. 

It was definitely a different experience hunting out of a tree, and I can't say I necessarily love the idea. My rifle has a scope on it, so there were a lot of branches to contend with while trying to sight in on anything. Not to mention you're in the heart of the Nebraska jungle along the river, and you can't see a deer coming until they are right underneath you. I prefer some forewarning. That morning we saw four does, and two little spike bucks. Nothing very interesting. 

When we were done for the morning and heading home to do chores we got a call that one of the guys who was hunting on their land had fallen out of his tree stand. Apparently he has a habit of doing that. 

He was fine, but he wanted help dragging his deer out of the brush and loading it in the pickup, so we went and helped him out. It was a pretty nice buck. 

After chores we went and hiked into some of our pastures and crept up to some ponds and such to see what we could see. We saw some does. Nothing very interesting. 

At about three o'clock we went back to sit in our tree. For some reason, this time we parked at the gate to the pasture, and walked, not through just the one pasture, but two. Apparently there was a deer stand further in than the one we sat in that morning. 

Lemme get this straight. I'm four months pregnant, almost fifteen pounds heavier than I've ever been in my entire life, bundled up in like 93 layers of camo stuff, packing a gun, with boots that weigh thirty pounds and don't fit, and we're going to walk across two pastures???

Jarod likes to hunt 'the real way'. That translates to lots of walking. I like to hunt the fat old person way. Which means you drive as close as you possibly can to where you are going to set up, park behind a tree or a hill and go with it. It is just as successful. And quite a bit smarter, in my opinion. 

Anyway, we hiked in, crawled in the tree, which oddly had some old deer bones at the bottom of the ladder, and settled in. I traded guns with Jarod since he didn't have a scope on his, and this was much closer quarters than the first stand we sat in. And we waited. And waited. I saw a deer cross the river a long ways away from us, but it got into the trees before I could see what it was. It was heading our way though, so we kept waiting. We heard it long before we saw it. I've never heard a deer make so much noise and I was starting to think that it wasn't a deer at all but some city slicker crashing through the brush like a bowling ball,

but finally a little spike buck popped out of the bushes. The reason he was making such a racket was he was down to three legs. Looked like he had a wire scratch on his leg, so he was pretty ginger with it, which made him a bit clumsy. We watched him for a little bit, and he meandered around down below us for quite a while before hop crashing his way back into the trees. I could hear him on his way out for a long time, so it was hard to listen for anything else that might be coming.

It was starting to get dark, and we were thinking about heading back, since you can't hunt at night, when I see a deer off to our left just walking along, about a hundred yards out, along the edge of the trees. It was dim enough I couldn't count the points, but I could see his horns reflecting and knew they were tall. Jarod looked at it through my scope and said it was big, so we hurried to trade guns and I shot. I was shooting across Jarod, trying to get the deer before he got back into the trees behind us, and I must have flinched, because I hit him but not dead center. So he ran a little ways, back into the open thankfully, and turned back and looked at us. I shot again and that time he went down for good. 

That's the picture of him up there, once we got him gutted. He's a five by five, and the biggest deer I've ever shot. His brow tines are huge, and his base is about as big around as my fist. I was thrilled. 

We hung him up in the shed before hurrying home to watch the Nebraska Huskers lay down the laws of football to the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Sunday after church we went and skinned him, and cut up the meat. That was totally new to me. A little bit icky, but not bad at all. So we made steaks out of him, and then the meet that doesn't make good steaks we put in a grind category. Later this year we'll grind it up and make jerky and hopefully bologna, and hamburger. So yummy.