The season started with a tough lesson - last year's I shot this beauty on a friend's 1300 acre private hunting preserve near Quincy.
The rules of this property are established for quality deer management and they are apparently working - as we found this in the woods while we were tracking another deer my buddy shot. Massive 11-point.
So, it was with visions of these two babies in my head I was sitting in a stand early in the season and I was determined to shoot a doe for meat - bucks weren't even on my radar but then one walked into the field. One of his antlers was clearly goofed up. As I stared at it through my scope I could see this gnarly knuckled up antler knob about half-way up the main beam and I figured it was a genetic deformity - I texted the land owner and described what I saw and after a couple back and forth questions about the deer's size and approximate age, I was given the green light to shoot this buck...the shot was about 180 yards and he didn't run more than 30 yards before expiring, but as soon as I got my hands on him, I knew I had messed up...the gnarly genetic deformity now looked more like it had been broken-off in velvet and healed over.
Major oops.
No glory shot of this guy - but I did save the antlers to use as a teaching tool. Here's what they look like.
The buck weighed about 160 lbs and my host was very gracious about my mistake. The buck was recorded as a "cull" and I was spared some embarrassment.
A couple weeks later I was invited back and informed that I'd be hunting does the rest of the season. I said that was fine - I wanted to shoot the most girly deer on the property. They had about 25 tags for the year and I was determined to help them thin their doe population.
In any case, I was up in a stand looking over a bigger-than-average food plot when a small doe walked out about 200 yards away. I aimed and fired and she ran off into the woods - I was pretty sure I hit her so I gave her a couple minutes and went searching. I found nothing - no blood in the field, no blood in the woods - I searched for 20 minutes and found nada and returned to my stand frustrated that I had missed. About an hour later, two more small doe walked out much closer to me, less than 100 yards - I picked the bigger of the two and fired - went looking, and again, found NO blood...this time I knew I had connected - I KNEW it...so I walked into the woods on the path I thought she had taken and got 90 feet or so in and found a single drop of blood...ok...I kept on the track and found nothing...confused I turned and walked back to the one drop and looked around...turns out the doe had gone into the woods, made an abrupt u-turn and buried herself in the very thick brush at the edge of the field...all told she was about 30 feet from where I had shot her. What a process!
As I stood there in the fading light I thought back to the first shot of the day - and the fact that I didn't find any blood from this one within 90 feet of the edge of the woods - so I walked down to the bottom of the field again and looked some more...I walked to where she was standing when I shot, then I walked to the spot in the woods where I saw her enter - and I walked on a straight line for 60 feet...it was getting dark now and I was just about to give up - looked down and saw one single drop of blood on a dead leaf. I couldnt believe it. Long story short, I found the cold dead doe 50 feet away from that one drop of blood. No more blood was found.
Here are these two rabbit-sized doe:
A couple weeks later I had the opportunity to take my father-in-law (not a hunter in his adult life, but did spend many a spring picking off squirrels and rabbits in Alabama in his youth) - he and I went for a sit one morning and I got another doe. She was walking and partially behind a tree so she got a little gut-shot. Still though, she didn't run but about 40 yards.
Another day and another opportunity later I was sitting in a different stand at the far end of the property when I heard a ton of rustling and grunting in the woods and thought I was going to get some deer action...but no deer showed. Instead, 5 little piggies trotted into the field and started rooting up the food plot. Bringing up the rear was the momma sow. She hesitated to come out into the open but her piglets got farther and farther away so she trotted out. As soon as she did, I shot her right in the heart-lung area. She ran toward her piglets, did about a 10 foot circle and fell over and died.
Now at this point, the piglets FREAKED - they started running in circles and I lined up a bead on a pair who were close together and shot one, sending him cartwheeling - racked the bolt and shot the second (also on the run at about 90 yards) - dropped him in his tracks. At this point my phone starts buzzing. The land owner is asking us via group-text who's doing all the shooting - I text back the following: "It's me, I'm KILLING PIGS!!!" to which he replies "NICE! GET 'EM!"
I reload my gun and look for the remaining 3 piglets - there they are, nuzzling under their dead momma - trying to hide. I got two of them with 1 shot and missed the 5th as he was running into the brush. Five out of six ain't bad - and the group was sufficiently impressed with my shooting skills that I've since become something of a legend. Every time I meet somebody new out there it's "Hey, this is Brian - the guy I told you about who shot the baby pigs!" followed by hand-shaking and me doing my best "awe shucks" routine.
Anyway, here is the evidence of that expedition:
We've already had roasted and shredded hog tenderloin chili and it was fantastic.
At long last, the last Saturday of the season I got a very special opportunity - my mom had the kids for the weekend and I got a last minute invite to hit the property one last time - my wife and I had planned to spend the weekend together relaxing and I asked if she would be interested in sitting in a stand with me for the afternoon...of course, I also told her that if she wanted to skip it I would decline the invite and we'd do something else. It's been a long and very active season for me and I would have understood if she preferred me to stay home - instead she said she was up for it and we headed out. around 4:00 we had two spike bucks walk into the field - they hung around for about 45 minutes and munched the food plot - during that time I got this pretty cool picture through my scope on my iPhone 4S. Lining this up took a LOT of patience but the picture was pretty cool I thought:
Those two young'ens calmly left the field with their tails down and it was quiet until about 6:15 (almost dark) when three nice, big, mature doe walked out of the woods - In the fading daylight I tried to decide if they were shooters...it was very strange because through the scope they looked small but with my naked eye they looked very big. I told my wife to cover her ears because I was going to shoot one. She put on her ear muffs and whispered "I dont know if I can look..." to which I calmly said "you dont have to, but I'm shooting the one on the right...here we go."
It was perfect quartering-to shot and she dropped in her tracks - to my wife's credit she watched the whole thing. We waited a couple minutes, got our stuff together and walked down into the field holding hands to see what we had done.
This doe was the biggest of the year - 140 lbs. Once I dragged her up the hill my wife said "Can I take my picture with her?" so of course I obliged:
As we stood there and waited for our ride to pick us up we shared a pretty awesome conversation about what a blessing hunting is and how awesome it is to have the opportunity to harvest game in this way. I'm not sure I've converted HER into a hunter but she definitely has a renewed appreciation for why I love it so much. I told her this and it's true, hunting that doe with her by my side was the best day of hunting I've ever had.
I've never turkey hunted before but she's already talking about how awesome it would be if I could shoot our Thanksgiving turkey this year.
All told, I've got a freezer full of meat with plenty to share among friends and family and a bunch of lessons learned and memories forged that will last a lifetime. That's a win all around.
