Main Discussion Area > Hunting 2021
One more shot
Hawkdancer:
Hang in there1. At least you are seeing game with some semblance of cover! Some places here it is 2 miles between trees >:D (lol)!
Hawkdancer
WhistlingBadger:
Well, I got back out to the ranch last night. I spooked a couple of does almost before I left the road. I had to walk across a half mile or so of open fields, avoiding most of the ponds, to get where the deer were likely to be, so I decided to just walk in the open, casual-like, since ranch deer are probably used to seeing people walking around and they were going to spot me no matter what I did. Pro tip: This strategy does not work well with wilderness deer. ;D It did work OK here, though: A few deer and a big herd of antelope were out feeding in the big alfalfa field across the creek, and they paid me no mind whatsoever. Unfortunately, there were several deer bedded in the immediate area of trees I was making for, and of course they saw me before I saw them. A couple does and at least one buck spooked out as I approached. Dang. But I got in there, found what I though was a decent ambush spot, and sat still for a half hour or so, waiting for everybody to forget I was around.
Shortly before sundown, it seemed obvious that nobody was heading through. The deer were out feeding, just not where I was. Same as last night, there were at least a couple dozen deer, and that big herd of antelope, grazing over across the river, though. There is decent cover all the way over, so I decided to sort of still hunt/stalk that way and see what happened.
It took some quiet walking and a bit of crawling to stay out of sight before I got to the edge of the river valley. There were five or six bucks, including that nice one I'd seen last night, and a whole bunch of does. That's a lot of eyes to avoid, but I was taking my time, using the available cover, making like a predator. The deer were feeding actively and moving around a lot, so I figured if I could slip up into the brush on the edge of that hay field, I could just stay still and wait for somebody to come into range. I had crossed the fence and was just about to slip down into the river bed when all of the sudden heads came up, tails were waving, and that whole herd of speedgoats was stampeding up into the hills across the field. What the heck. I was sure they hadn't seen me; I was being silent, and the wind was with me for once. I stood up and looked around. Guess who? Sure enough, here came the neighbor guy, tramping obliviously down the opposite edge of the flood plain, carrying a rifle but paying no attention to deer or antelope or anything else. He was going the opposite way tonight, back toward his house...maybe he went and camped down in there somewhere and now he was headed home? No idea, but dang. This is gettin' old.
But wait. A small group of does jumped the fence and dove into the river brush, heading my general direction. A few seconds later I heard them splash across the creek, so I whipped off a broadhead cover, got an arrow on the string, and took a knee behind a handy clump of bushes. In a minute, sure enough, here they came...sixty yards down the fence line from me. They were moving too fast to make any kind of play on, but they were starting to slow down and act like they wanted to start feeding again. They hopped a fence into a pasture full of cows and trotted out of sight behind a big old grain bin, following a very similar path to the bucks I spooked the night before.
Well, I wasn't excited about trying to shoot into someone's cow herd, and besides, there was a fairly unfriendly looking bull in the bunch, but what the heck. Maybe they'll be feeding along the fence where I can pull a sneak on them. The light was fading as I crept up to the grain bin, an arrow on the string, and started to slink through the tall weeds around it. I herd a small sound, like the sound of a small animal, on the other side, and thought maybe I might at least get a shot at a rabbit. Ready to draw, I slipped around the side just in time to see a great big skunk dive under the bin about ten feet away from my feet.
Now, I'm not a big believer in omens and the like, but I do think sometimes the land kind of lets us know when it's time to call it a night. This seemed like one of those times. ;D The deer were nowhere in sight, that big bull across the fence was giving me the stink eye, and in another ten or fifteen minutes it was going to be too dark to shoot anyway. So I headed out, back across the field. Seven p.m. I was home eating dinner with my girls. They're a lot cuter than that skunk and a lot happier to see me than that bull, anyway.
It's always kind of an empty feeling when the season passes without a kill. I don't like that feeling one bit. That's the trouble with hunting as opposed to many other pursuits. It's so binary. You can hunt well, make great memories, but in the end you either make a kill or you don't. As much as we all say that it's about the hunt, not the kill, well, it's still an empty feeling and an empty freezer. I kind of wish I had brought my rifle last night--I could have taken my pick and probably would have killed one of those does right by the highway and been home before sundown. At least I'd have some meat, a hide to play with, and that wonderful, top-of-the-food-chain feeling. But I really am not complaining. It was a very eventful, animal-filled, extremely memorable hunting season.
So, that's that. Thanks for letting me share it with you.
Pappy:
Sorry you didn't connect WB that is always tough, I love the woods and being out hunting also and enjoy the time out kill or no kill but as you said it is always better when you get something. Like i said I enjoy being out there but when I head to the woods with my bow my plan is to kill something, if not I would just take a walk with my camera and maybe some judo's and bow. I hear people say that all the time, " I don't care if I kill something or not just enjoy being out there" To each their own , not sure they are being completely honest , but HA I can't read their mind, I just know it is good all the time but much better when I fill my tag. ;)Good luck on your next adventure.
Pappy
PaSteve:
Good read. Thanks for taking us along. Agree with Pappy "when I head to the woods with my bow my plan is to kill something." So true. Best of luck in the future.
Hawkdancer:
A good tale, even without a kill! The object of hunting is to make a kill - the enjoyment of just hunting is after the fact. Maybe next
year, or late season? I hope to get some scouting in next week, we have seasons choice tags, so we are good for whatever weapon is open, we can hunt with! Got busy restocking the firewood in the shop, at least I will be warm working on bows and guns this winter (lol) (=)!
Hawkdancer
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