We had been out the previous afternoon / evening and saw a moose on our trek through the mountainside. He wasn't very old, just a yearling, but was pretty interested in what we were doing. Just stood and watched with his lanky legs. We stood for a few moments, I snapped his picture and we moved on.
We finally made it to the truck without a deer sighting to be had. We loaded up our stuff and started to drive off. Just as we were getting to the bottom of the "road", I spied 2 does and a fawn behind an old, what I would assume to be, miner's log cabin. After carrying my 22 all day, and then holding it up to shoot at one of these does, for a good 5 minutes, my arm was getting extremely tired. When the biggest doe finally turned so I had a good shot, my arm was running circles, but I took a deep breath, slowly exhaled and shot. I missed and off they hopped. Boing, boing, boing across the creek and up the mountain they went. So much for that and my great idea of shooting off-hand!! Lesson one.
The next morning, we got up very early (5:00 a.m.) and were on the road by 5:30 a.m. We drove all morning long and saw nothing. I could have kicked myself for missing the doe the previous evening. But, we still had a couple days to go, so I tried to stay positive. That night we returned to our spot and just as we were rounding the last corner, and about 500 yards from the gate, I saw (what I thought) was a doe. I told my husband to stop and back up real slow. He did and there she stood, snacking on some leaves. Just stood there and stared at me with ears three times the size of her head. I didn't see any other deer with her. So, I pulled up my 22, got the back of her shoulder in my cross-hairs, said "Sorry sweetheart but I gotta eat" and fired.
She jumped about two feet in the air and took off. I knew I got her because I could see the bleeding wound and she was running awful gimp-like. We slowly got the hunting bag out of the truck and took off walking. Following a blood trail is a little harder than I thought. I figured you shot them and they just fell down. Nope. They run. So, once we found the blood trail, we followed that and my husband spotted her after about 10 minutes.
I looked at her and said, "Huh. Not very big." My husband said, "No. But that's okay. Its your first deer." Upon closer inspection, I saw that she was really a he due to the little "buttons" he had growing in front of his ears and some other obvious body parts. Oops. I just shot myself a 7-8 month old buck. Which, in Montana, does not qualify as a buck, so I had to use my doe tag on him. Rather disappointed he was so small and young, I now know that you should really inspect a deer before you shoot it to make sure that it is an adult. Its hard to tell when they aren't standing by another one and you have no experience. But, I know for next time to take a little more time to check them out before you fire. Lesson two.
The good news is, is that my shot was perfect. I shot him right through his lungs and the bullet shattered his shoulder. So, for those of you who hate the thought of "Bambie" being murdered, know this little guy didn't suffer long. We found him only 50 - 75 yards from where I shot him and I would guess, given his running rate and the distance, he didn't live for more than 2 minutes after I pulled the trigger. It was quick.
After a long day of hunting, my husband and I stopped by the local bar for a celebratory beer. This particular establishment had a little dog that appeared to be the greeter for all the patrons. He was a really small dog, some sort of "Heinz 57", but really cute. I leaned over to my husband and said, "You know that deer I shot tonight?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "I think it might be just slightly bigger than that dog." Oh how we hooted. That was funny.
So, even though my first kill was only a "Three Steak Deer", it was still a good shot, meat in the freezer and a memory I'll always have. Until next year.
0 comments:
Post a Comment