Diaries of a Deer Hunter - Chapter 2

Diaries of a Deer Hunter... Why Not Deer?

Chapter 2

The land I hunted on had just about everything: quail, ducks, turkeys, and it was

absolutely loaded with deer. I could hunt whatever I wanted out there except deer as the

owner had family that comes in for rifle season. One particular deer, though, is probably

responsible for turning me into a deer hunter. The first time I saw him, he was probably

three and a half years old. He still had a relatively small body, but the left side of his

rack had seven or eight points, and the right side was one single giant spike. I would

see him almost every time I went down there to quail hunt. Early on, I didn’t think much

of it. He was just another deer. But that little flickering light inside me for deer hunting

started to brighten.

I began researching deer and genetics and learning what I could. By this time it

was late in the season, probably January, and I was still quail hunting. I regularly

spooked him out of the CRP. After the first of the year, the landowner brings in a trapper,

so I was staying hyper vigilant, making sure my dog didn’t stumble into a trap. I had

spooked that oddball buck out of a draw earlier that morning, and while scanning the

ground for traps, I came across a shed. It was a single 10½ inch spike, and it may or

may not have been his, but it sure looked like it. More on that him in the next chapter.

Duck and quail season came to an end, and so did my 2022 hunting season. Or so I

thought.

In late January, I got a phone call from my buddy Noah. He had a friend he

played college football with who now managed a piece of land for an old family friend.

The property was guided for hunters from Pennsylvania and New York, and their season

had come to an end. All their target bucks were already tagged out, but the land

manager had a problem: too many does. He offered Noah and me the chance to come

out and help thin them out. This immediately reminded me of my first pheasant hunt. I

had no idea what I was doing then, and I didn’t really know what I was doing now either,

but I was going anyway.

It was late doe season and all I owned for cold weather gear was my duck

hunting clothes. Nothing that made sense for sitting in a stand. So, picture this, I

showed up wearing my fire station duty boots, a pair of 1970s coveralls I got from my

wife’s grandpa’s house, my biggest duck coat, and my pheasant vest for blaze orange

since it was rifle season. It was not exactly the sleek, high end hunting gear you see

today. The land manager never said anything out loud, but he had to be laughing inside

when he saw me. To top it off, the only rifle I owned was a .30-30 lever action with a 9

power scope that had not been sighted in since about 1985.

He dropped me off on a dirt road and told me to walk south until I hit the tree row.

Thirty feet into the trees there would be a stand. He had also dumped about two

hundred pounds of corn the night before. That was my entire rundown on how to deer

hunt, find the stand and do not shoot anything with antlers. I started the walk across the

frozen wheat field. As soon as I hit the trees, I spooked what sounded like deer out of

the timber. I knew they were deer, but in the dark you cannot see much, so it might as

well have been a monster jumping out. I found the stand and got settled in about forty

five minutes before sunrise.

This was also my first exposure to how loud the woods are before daylight. Every

crack, rustle, and thump sounds like something coming for you. I toughed it out until the

first hints of sunlight began to show. That is when I heard it, a freight train barreling

through the woods behind me. I knew better than to look, thinking it might be some giant

buck walking right toward me. It felt like forever before the sound moved off to my left

toward the corn. When I slowly turned my head, all I saw was a possum eating

breakfast. I still don’t understand how something that small can make that much noise.

About thirty minutes later, a much quieter animal slipped in. I heard it behind me

and held perfectly still. A flicker of motion off to my left caught my attention, and there

she was, my first deer, thirty yards away, nose down in the corn. This was the first time I

ever felt that surge in my chest when a deer is close and you know you are going to

shoot. She was a monster in my mind at the time. The rule was simple: shoot anything

you want as long as it did not have antlers. So, I slowly raised that old .30-30, looked

through the rings under the scope since it was not sighted in, and pulled the trigger. The

deer folded instantly, and just like that, I had my first deer.

Noah was still hunting on the other side of the property, so I had about another

hour of just sitting by myself in the stand. I kept listening for his shot, but instead I heard

more footsteps coming my way. When the next deer came around the corner, I realized

what a mature doe actually looks like from a stand. It turns out the one I shot was

maybe a year old. I sat there and tried to justify tiny deer on the ground to myself for the

next hour. All I could come up with was “at least she still doesn’t have spots!” Eventually

Noah gave up and called it quits. The land manager came back, helped me load my

“giant” doe, each of us easily lifting it with one hand, and I took her home. I haven’t

heard from him since that day!

Once I got home Chris (owner of CopperStag) came over to show me how to

butcher a deer. The look on his face when he saw a deer barely bigger than my dog

was both embarrassing and hilarious. I tried to blame it on inexperience, but the truth

was I knew better. I had just never felt buck fever, or doe fever, until that moment.

Between a few meals at home and one at the firehouse, that deer was gone in about a

week and a half. The little light that had been flickering inside me for a long time was

now a flashlight after that hunting season.