Howard's Buck

Yesterday, a good friend of mine named Howard came by for the afternoon to do a little hunting with his son. After a couple of hours the boy got antsy and ended up in front of a television screen playing video games. Howard, on the other hand, persevered.

I sent Howard to the stand closest to the river where I have seen several bucks this season. Within 5 minutes I see a group of turkey running liked they've been spooked, and then I hear "bang". I radio Howard on the two-way and he says "I got me a buck!". Ignoring for the moment his grammatical error, I got very excited and soon joined him over this nice, little 4-point. This was Howard's 4th deer, but his first experience with field dressing an animal. He did really well and we were soon back to the ranch where Howard got to tell his son "the story".

The story, that's what it's really all about. Those little details, the suspense, the mistakes, and the eventual triumph. I love hearing these stories, and as you know by now, I love telling them.

The interesting parts of this story? The turkey, and this buck, were spooked by some kayakers on the river (it was a very warm day, about 60 degrees). The buck ran right in front of Howard, and then came to a stop only about 30 yards out. What a gift. (I wonder if the guys in the kayak ducked when they heard the shot?)

Pay Dirt!

Well, after 54 days of hunting, after several missed opportunities, and after my wife started praying that I would finally get a deer so that we can get on with our lives, (and save all that money on counseling, lawyers, etc.) it finally happened. Here's the story.

I was in the stand (closest to the river) before sun up this morning. It was cold and calm. Didn't see a thing outside of squirrels and chipmunks for the first couple of hours. And then I glance back to the feeder (close to my other stand and the fort - which is a tree house for the kids that gets commandeered each fall) and I see about 5 deer milling around. So, I flip around in the stand to get ready for a shot and wait. After about 15 minutes a small doe walks past me at about 50 yards, but she is really little and I decide to hold off and see if a bigger deer might follow. Another 20 minutes goes by - nothing. I am now watching a lone deer still at the feeder, and she looks like the biggest one of the bunch.

After a few more minutes I see two toms (male turkey for the uninitiated) making their way to the feeder. They strut on over like they own the place and guess what? They chase the doe away from the feeder and towards me. She only comes as close as 75 yards or so, but she offers me a good shot and I take it. I can see right away that she's been hit, but to be sure I fire off another shell as she runs toward the river. At this moment I am cautiously optimistic.

I wait about 20 minutes or so and start tracking her. There is a good trail and I can see she is heading toward the river. As I come up to the bank I hear some noise and look across - and there she is standing on the other side. I position myself for another shot (my last shell) and she goes down. But now I've got a problem: how am I going to get to her? The river is high and the current moving pretty good. So, I decide to ask my neighbor for help and the use of his canoe. About 45 minutes later we come paddling down the river, me and our 14 year old neighbor. I have my shotgun with 2 more shells just in case. We go to where I last saw the deer - and she's gone. (This is when I started feeling like my entire hunting season has been secretly taped and being made into one of these reality TV shows. I can just hear the voice-over "and now let's see how Tom reacts when he can't find the deer. Will there be more tears? Will he throw his shotgun into the river? Will he forsake hunting for a calmer, gentler sport such as lawn bowling?"

Well, I get out of the canoe and follow the trail on the other side. And guess where it leads? Yep, you guessed it - right back into the river! Now I am in real trouble. The river is murky and deep and I can't see 6" below the surface. I didn't even know where to begin... So, we get back in the canoe and I am going to take my neighbor home when something catches my eye. There's a funny looking rock about 100' downstream, and we decide to check it out. But that's no rock, that's my deer! She crawled back into the river and floated downstream into a snag. I was so happy to shoot, and then actually locate a deer.

But now I've got another problem: how am I and my 14 year-old neighbor going to haul this deer (which we now see is a big deer) into our canoe? My first idea was to tie a rope around her and tow her upstream. Gong! Bad idea - we end up doing a weird version of the canoe-treadmill and get nowhere. My next idea is to take her to the bank and toss her into the canoe. And this we did with much difficulty and some very soggy socks, pants, underwear, cell phone and (well, you get the idea). Once we got her into the canoe she was sprawled out on top of the front seat (which in all of the excitement I thought was the back of the canoe). So, I climb in, and having nowhere else to sit I end up sitting on top of the deer. We then begin paddling upstream with the canoe oriented backwards, and end up going helter-skelter all over the place. What a sight we must have been! You talk about some red neck exploits! My ancestors would have been so proud. (There has to be a joke in here somewhere for Jeff Foxworthy, don't you think?)

Well, in the end we manage to get her back to the house, I manage to get dried off, and I can finally exhale. I tell you - nothing has come easy for me this hunting season, but I finally have something to show for it!

Close, but no cigar (so far)...

Well, I got a new toy this hunting season - it's called a "spy cam". The basic idea is that you hang this digital camera on a tree and when a deer, turkey, or even raccoon waddles on by it snaps a picture. Here is a nice 8-point buck I got a few pictures of in late October. I share this with you because it is the closest I have come yet to actually producing a real deer.

And once again, it is not because I have lacked opportunity. In fact, opening day I shot at a buck quite a bit larger than this one - missed clean at about 100 yards through some brush. I see him again a few days later (long story...) and end up very close to him. I wont say exactly how close, but let's put it this way, if I had a good squirt gun I could have doused him. I take the shot - I miss again. (This is the part of the story where I get a little weepy and consider selling my hunting equipment and diving into scrap booking...) I take my muzzle loader to the range the next day - just like I had done a couple of months ago - and discovered that I am 10" high at 100 yards! I don't know what happened to my scope, but my best guess is that some of my under-achieving hunting buddies are at work behind the scenes.

So, here I am with only a week or so left of firearm season (plus 17 days of muzzle loader in December - thank you God!) with an empty freezer, and a stomach full of humble pie. The only good thing that has come out of this season so far is an idea for a new book - "101 Ways How Not to Kill a Deer". It would be sort of like "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" except with guns, tree stands and some doe pee...

I wonder how many hunters out there have ever had such a dry spell? (I'm not talking about not seeing deer, I'm talking about having them walk right up to your stand, putting both hooves in the air, yelling out "I surrender!", and then somehow still blowing the shot.) This sort of thing makes me ponder some of the deeper things of life. Questions like, "Does God really hear the prayer of the deer hunter?" come to mind. Along with the follow up "do deer pray - and if so, which prayer is God more likely to answer?" I realize these are the types of questions philosophers and theologians have debated down through the ages and wont be resolved anytime soon, but I can't help but wonder.

But my most urgent question - will I get one last opportunity this season? And if I do, will my prayer get answered first? I guess we'll find out soon enough...

The World's Smallest Whitetail...

Well, deer hunting season officially opened on October 1st in these parts. That means I have had 5 full weeks to fill my tags during our archery season. But the truth is that I have had a miserable hunting season so far. Oh, I've seen lots of deer. And yes, I've already seen a few decent bucks. In fact, I've let an arrow or two fly... but have nothing to show for it.

I would talk more about this, but my therapist has advised me against what he calls "obsessive-compulsive speech" when it comes to my hunting addiction. (You would like my therapist, he dresses in camo head to toe and answers all questions with a grunt call...three grunts for "yes", one grunt for "no", and two grunts for "I need to go potty".) We get along just great!

Where was I?...Oh yes, this is all leading up to my one great achievement of this bow season. I shot a turkey! Yep, as I was busy striking out with all of those bucks I kept noticing this group of turkeys coming to the same spot in our woods each morning. So, one morning I loaded my shotgun, waited in my blind, and squeezed off a "turkey load" at the first bird that stuck its head high into the air. This took all of 90 minutes, and we had some delicious turkey jerky in a few days. (Notice the peculiar look on my face in this picture - my facial muscles were a bit frozen and I couldn't quite eek out a decent smile... but I was happy on the inside!)

If only hunting Whitetail with bow and arrow were so simple...

Opening Day Impossibilities!

Here is a picture of the first buck I ever killed with a bow. And here's the story...

It was October 1, 2003. As all of you Michigan hunters know, that was opening day of archery season. I had just gotten interested in bow hunting a few months before. I bought an old Browning compound bow from a friend for $50 (I think the bow was vintage 1975ish, you know when bell bottomed jeans were in style...there first of many appearances!). Once I threw in another $50 or so for a sight and a release I was ready to head to the woods (and yes, I did practice with the bow first, I was actually quite good at 15 yards at that point).

I had never seen a deer up close in the wild, much less a buck. But a friend had given me a couple of deer stands which we leaned against two big maples in the woods behind our house. So, about 45 minutes before daylight on opening day I headed out to the stand nearest the river and dutifully sat still until sunrise. It was a beautiful morning, cold and crisp. And with my stand facing southeast I got a great view of the slowing emerging oranges and pinks as the sun made its way up to the horizon.

Another friend had also given me some camo to wear for this momentous occassion. He even threw in a camo face mask - you know the type the are supposed to cover everything up on your face except for your eyes. I say "supposed to" because I didn't quite know how this new fangled stuff worked. I wore the mask too low, so that it only covered my mouth and chin...I was in effect, the "great bearded hunter"! I must have looked ridiculous.

Well, about an hour after sunrise I hear this noise down on my left. It was the first sound I had heard all morning, so of course I looked down. And there he was - this pudgy 8-point buck just standing there, looking right up at me. He was probably thinking "hmmn, a white guy up in a tree with a camo beard, very interesting". I was thinking "oh man! Is that a deer? Why is he looking at me with that smirk on his face?"

For several minutes we just stood there looking right at each other. And then he turned to his left and began slowing walking away. For some reason he didn't feel too threatened by me - apparently he knew more about hunting than I did. I remember thinking as he walked away - still only about 15 yards off, "I guess this is when you are supposed to shoot". What comes next is a comedy of errors. Instead of standing up to take the shot, I continued sitting down and tried to turn my body in the stand, bumping my bow in the process. The deer turned around to look at me again, but soon lost interest and kept walking away from me ("quartering away" I would later discover). I brought my bow into position and pulled back. No luck, couldn't pull the 52 lbs. back, my arms were like rubber. I tried pulling back again...almost. A third time, yes - I managed to pull it back (this is a bit harder when seated and twisted to the left, especially when your heart is stuck in your throat and your muscles are quivering and not responding). With my bow pulled back I put the deer in my sights, but something didn't feel right. Oh, I forgot I am supposed to look through this little peep hole thingy in the string. OK, much better. So there it was, the moment of truth.

I don't even remember squeezing the release - it just sort of happened. The arrow flew down and hit the deer about half way back between his shoulder and hip. The deer ran off to the east and I lost sight of him. At first I panicked thinking that I had made a bad shot, the arrow looked like it hit the deer too far back. My stomach was in knots as I waited 20 minutes or so before climbing down the stand (I had read that somewhere in a magazine...). I walked over to where the buck had last been seen, and within about 90 yards found him laying on his side, dead as the Detroit Lions in January.

I was in utter shock. It was truly an out of body experience - like I was watching it all happen from some high flying blimp-cam. I called my wife and gushed out "I shot a buck!". She brought our 4 year old son out to the woods (we only own 3.3 acres) and we took this great picture. My next call was to my friend Jimmy, "now what do you do?" After convincing him that I had actually shot a deer in my back yard with an antique bow, and then found him within a 100 yrds. he graciously came over and showed me how to field dress a deer (an experience I will never forget and one that made me think twice about being a hunter - ugh!).

That day was the beginning of a passionate pursuit of the sometimes not-so-elusive white tail deer for me. It was also the day I entered a brotherhood of hunters that I never knew even existed. And it was the day that my son and I connected with one another in the woods and began our journey as outdoorsmen that will be ours to share for the rest of our lives.

Have you seen one of these guys?

Hey - I need some help here! Have any of you seen of of these birds strutting around in your back yard? If so, do you mind if I come over with my shotgun and...well, let's just say, take care of a little business?

I have been out twice and haven't seen a feather yet. Only one week left in the season, time's a'wastin.