DEEPWATER DEER HUNT

Opening day 2013. 

After ten hours, finally, I had a deer in sight. I tracked the doe through silver maples, too skinny for a tree stand or to shield me from view. That same second, she caught scent of me just as I raised my 243 ... I hadn't meant to be in close range, but there she was. I heard her and she knew I was too close, in the same thicket as she stood, silent, barely visible, save those ears twitching. I stopped breathing. She flipped her fluffy white flag up, in five bounds she disappeared beyond the ripe soybean field, into private timber. Had she seen me jerk my rifle to shoot? Or caught a whiff of human? Maybe her radar heard the tiny twig snap under my boot?

    
An island of a dozen sparsely leafed trees shielded me from view, where I sat for two hours on a huge flat oak stump. I watched the tree line for the doe to come back out to feed. I was in no hurry, very comfortable in my short sleeves. The light breeze in my hair, the bluejays “caw cawed” in the tall locust tree behind me. I lifted my binoculars to focus on a Red-tail hawk’s screech. It swooped to the ground, snatched a mouse out of the tall grass, drying into golden fronds with each passing fall day.

Contented. The calm of the afternoon enveloped me; that solitude pulls every hunter into nature's realm. In that spirit, aside from filling a tag, I quietly watched the clouds float across the sky with childlike eyes. Soon, my husband joined me at the stump; he knew I'd found a deer. He sat quietly as well, glassing the terrain every few moments. It'd return if we waited till dusk.

We spent those hours peacefully basking in warmth of a lazy mid-November sun, gazing across the field, feeling nature surround us, with its own noises. The timber's language lulls us out of the city din, that craziness infesting my soul. Sitting together has created an intimacy between hunters beyond being married. Yet, our hunting differences keep it interesting. 

Foxtail with an amber glow outline the trees, a border of nature's painting, light crystal sky its ceiling.

Typical for deer's tentative appearance, as the photo shows, barely enough light to see through the scope, she emerged within rifle range to feed in the soybeans, forgetting any danger. I couldn't see as far as his scope with rifle accuracy. She had to get off the private property to legally shoot. At very last light, I watched her bound playfully, suddenly in the field of his scope. The doe had trotted through the soybeans, eager to feed; Ed’s 30.06 pierced the quiet dusk.

Deer down. Our patience paid off. Within minutes we hauled the doe to the Jeep and headed home. Tired and a tag filled.