DEEPWATER DEER HUNT
O pening day 2013. After ten hours, f inally, 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 s he 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” i