Sunday 27 November 2011

Dad's deer, Dad's style

This past Saturday, Dad, Mom, a couple friends, and I spent the morning hunting at another friend's property. We left later than we had wanted to and so it was already fairly light as we made our way to our different spots. We were hoping that because this property hadn't been hunted as hard as most others, we would have a better chance of finding some deer but things hadn't been sounding good. There are very few deer around this year, whether because of the flooding or the increased coyote numbers, or what, we're not sure.
As Dad and I walked to our spot we spooked up five deer. I only saw the one but Dad said that he saw five white tails disappearing- it was too dark to see anything else.
Dad sat a little ways away from me so that he could see in a different direction but none of us saw anything from where we were sitting. I thought that I heard a couple of grunts but it was hard to tell because the wind was making everything creak and groan. Plus I was concentrating on a squirrel right about then. I was quite nervous that he was going to jump on my head! He was in the branches above me and if I had been standing I could have reached up and grabbed him. After a few tense moments, he decided that the tree two yards behind me was a better vantage point. Let's just say that I was close enough that I could see reflections in his eyes and watch his nose twich!
Later, after Dad had come and got me, we walked through the bush for a ways before splitting up and pushing bush towards Mom. All went well- except for the fact that we weren't seeing any deer- until I saw Mom and we were directly opposite each other. That was when the deer decided to make their grand entrance.
A doe and a nicely-antlered buck ran directly inbetween Mom and I. I'm no good at running shots and neither of us wanted to shoot the other so we didn't even have our guns levelled at the deer. I did just about get the buck in my crosshairs when he stopped just for a brief instant out of Mom's line of fire but he took off again before I could get in a shot. Mom and I were both a little bummed out. She kept exclaming over how high his rack was (although she seemed to be exagerating it a bit!).
While we were talking, two shots rang out from Dad's end of the woods but we couldn't tell if he had hit the deer. You can sometimes tell because instead of just a "bang" there will be a "bang-whump" but we only heard the bang.
Dad caught up with us and said that he didn't think that he had gotten them and that he wasn't surprised. He could see them running through the brush so he had aimed for an opening between trees and when he thought that they were there, he pulled the trigger.
After we got back to the truck and talked to the owner of the property for a few minutes we went and picked up our friends and dropped them off at their truck. Afterward, seeing as we were going in that general direction anyways, we decided to drive along the bush where Dad had shot at the deer.
We wanted to make certain that Dad hadn't actually hit the deer (Mom couldn't believe that he missed completely). Sure enough, as we were driving along, Mom suddenly hollered out that she saw him!
It turns out that Dad HAD hit him! Right behind the ear! Because he had dropped so fast, Dad just assumed that he was running slightly beside and behind the doe and had run through a dip and out of sight. We were all happy about that!

well, I tried to put pictures on but I seem to be having technical difficulties so I'll try again later! God bless you all!

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