Sometimes Everything Does Go Right
by Ray Zesch
It was the last time I would be able to hunt this year, January 12, 2003, a Sunday evening. Looking back over the season it had been a really good year, not a lot of arrows were loosed, in fact only one which managed to find a tree trunk instead of the deer’s chest. None-the-less, many deer had been sighted and most importantly it has been a safe season. The last hunts of the season have always been some of the best for me. Not sure why, maybe someone can explain it, I don’t know and I really don’t care, but I do enjoy the late season hunting. This would be the last whitetail hunt of the season, even so I was not feeling sad, more grateful than anything I guess. My son and I still have a late January hog hunt scheduled and that should be great.
This evening my son was with me again and we were heading to a spot we have hunted several times before. It was a small wood lot in an area of St. Louis County that really needed to have some of the deer population reduced. A friend of ours has invited us there reduce some of these “bothersome” deer. I prefer to hunt out where there are lots of acres and a guy can’t see any signs of civilization, but it is hard to beat having a place so close by. The last time we hunted here my son was on a trail that intersected a good rub line. Clearly there is a big guy in here somewhere. As luck would have it he did get a shot off the last time we were here at a nice buck. The buck hit the dirt and the arrow went flying over the back. That happen to him twice this year and as you can imagine he has taken a lot of heat about that. Finally, someone else is getting it instead of me!
Over the holidays I build my first recurve and this was the second time I had taken it out. I very nice bow that I was quite pleased with. I chose Bubinga for the riser and action bamboo for the limb cores. I like the warmth and weight of Bubunga in a riser it makes a great bow. We parked the Jeep by the old barn and head down the familiar trail out the back of the yard. From our past experience we knew that the deer had been bedding on the western side of the point we were walking out on. We decided to look for some trails going into and out of the bedding area on the eastern side of the point. We located an oak tree on the ridge top that had a trail coming up from behind it that intersected another trail directly in front of the tree. And even better yet, it had a small cedar growing up on its left side for cover. This was as close to a perfect set up as one could imagine. I don’t think it is possible to spend too much time picking the “right” tree. Trees that can be climbed never seem to be in the right spot with the right cover, but here it is. It looks like as near perfect as you could get. My son headed on down to the spot where he missed “his” buck, you all know what that is like, he wanted another chance at mister big.
Squirrels were running around all that afternoon and the sky was cloudy. Temperatures were great, not to cold not to warm. At that magic time when the deer decide to get up from bedding I heard them moving down the trail behind me. They were moving slow, but there is no mistaking the sound a deer makes. From past experience I knew NOT to turn around and look (the things we learn the “hard way”). I just wait for them to walk in front of me. Man is that hard for me to do. This was too good to be true, now if they would just come on my left side it would be perfect. And that is exactly what happened. I was going to wait for the last one and take a quartering away shot, but as they came into view I observed that it was a mature doe followed by a smaller doe. I decide to try for the larger doe. As I started to draw the older doe spooks and bolts about twenty yards in front of me and gives me a great shoot at her rear end. Oh horse feathers! I have thought about that a lot over the last year. What should I have done differently? I am convinced that deer have some kind of a sixth sense. They just seem to know when they are in danger. The only thing I could come up with is to draw quicker and change my draw so that there is less motion. Anyway, the younger deer looks at mom like, “what the heck is wrong with you?”. I quickly turn at the waist and but an arrow in the smaller doe. I remember several things about this; first how it happened so fast that it just seemed like a blur and second I remember thinking why didn’t that arrow go clean through. Strange the things we remember. I had already decided that size was not an issue and meat in the freezer was my main concern on the last hunt, so there was no hesitation on my part. She ran about 80 years and dropped over like a stone, no motion at all. It is amazing what a deer can do without any lungs. The arrow went through both lungs and the broad head did come out the other side. I am still somewhat puzzled why the arrow did not get a pass through. Thinking back the whole thing took maybe 15 seconds. Sometimes, very rarely, we are blessed with a special hunt went everything goes right and you have a memory for the rest of your live. For me one of those times was on a Sunday evening in January last year.
Topic: Sometimes Everything Does Go Right - Ray Zesch (Read 3264 times)
