I took the day before Indiana's opening day off of work. This was Friday the 13th. The last Friday the 13th was March - which marked the beginning of the bonkers, crazy, insane year that is 2020. I'm not sure it was smart to take Friday off. I tend to obsess about deer hunting, mostly the negatives - about the weather, about how I don't really like the mayhem of opening day, about how the deer hunting in the area I hunt doesn't seem to be as good as it used to be. I was also slightly over-caffeinated in the morning which didn't help. But taking the day off did allow me to put up my stand the day before. This is an extra intrusion right before hunting, and I'm not sure whether this is better or worse than the trouble, noise and sweat of putting up my climber in the dark on opening morning?
In marked contrast to snow and last year's early November frigid temperatures, the weather earlier in the week was record high temperatures. Things had moderated down to more typical conditions. So I did need to bundle up in my hunting snowsuit. This made the decision to put up my treestand feel a little more right.
After waking up I stared at the clock for too long before finally getting up with tons of time to get ready. The dogs were cooperative although the younger one really wanted to sit with me in my chair while I watched TV, but I didn't want to have even more dog scent on me. I was out the door near 5:45 headed to Mikes. Temperature was in the mid-20's which was tolerable with the light wind.
With my stand already set up I got my stuff together and hoofed it down into the woods. I was sitting quietly with an easy 20 minutes before shooting light. While I don't really like the fracas that opening morning sometimes is, the still darkness before shooting is one of my favorite times (and favorite times in life, frankly). The night animals are drawing down for the day; the day animals are just waking up making an interesting mix of noises. I thought back to my 2019 deer hunt and how different the world seemed now looking back. Covid infections are skyrocketing. The election from over a week previous is over even if not everyone wants to acknowledge it. People are being told to do Thanksgiving virtually - and the last thing I need is another online meeting. But sitting in my treestand waiting for daylight is just right.
As it started to get light I began to look and listen for anything. I heard a couple squirrels before hearing the unmistakable scrunch scrunch of something else; it was a little hard to pinpoint the direction. One doe was walking close behind me with a really small one following a short ways behind. I thought about the bigger doe in front, but the angle was awkward (behind me to the right) enough that I wasn't going to try on a doe so early in the season. After all the work that goes into getting ready for hunting, I wasn't in a hurry.
The two does worked their way into the ravine. I heard more scrunching which I thought was the same deer circling in front of me. I was mentally rethinking about the bigger doe when I saw antlers breach the hill. Looking closer as the buck kept coming on the deer trail that originally put me on my opening day stand so many years ago thought, "I have to make this happen."
The buck was calm - he must have passed within a few yards of the does but they were headed to who-knows-where. He paused about 50 yards in front of me to the right giving me a chance to get my gun up. Taking a few more steps, I didn't want to give him the chance to smell me or for his deer brain to decide to go back to the does. With a clear site of him I let a bullet loose. I knew he was hit hard and he ran forward around 75 yards and stopped. I fully expected him to fall over then, but he just stood there. My ammo was in a fanny pack (don't judge, my snowsuit doesn't have many pockets) and I dropped another .243 into the TC. Still an easy shot I hit him again. He ran forward, stopping again in some thicker brush. I watched a few more seconds, again expecting him to fall over. Another Hornady SST was sent his way, although with the brush I figured (correctly) the chance of hitting him was almost zero. Then I lost sight of him.
I was sure he was dead at the first shot, just not real sure he knew it. I climbed down and reloaded and headed over to where I last saw him. I didn't see much blood, so slowly walked in the direction he was headed - feeling a little unease. After a few minutes I saw him at the base of a small cliff floating in creek. If the bullet hadn't done him in, he would be drowned by now.
Working around to him I pulled him out of the water. He was a huge bodied deer and while his antlers weren't very wide (inside spread later measured at just over 14"), he had some of the tallest thickest brow tines I've ever seen. I drug him farther into Mike's property before resting and heading up to pack out my stand and grab my knife. Back at the truck I took off most of my underlayers of clothes to cool down. I laughed as I took off my snow suit and started steaming like a Thanksgiving turkey in the still-freezing morning.
The deer had my first two bullets, both fatal, within a few inches of each other in the onside shoulder - utterly destroying it in the process. After gutting him I began the long heave of getting him out. He was a big heavy deer. That last hill before the truck gets taller and longer every year.
Mike came out and helped get a few pictures as well as get the deer in my truck. We talked for a bit before I headed home and got him hung up in the pole barn. Dave (fishing) has asked to see how I butcher deer so I called him and he came over to hep me process the deer. I didn't really feel like I wanted to take care of him on the same day, but temperatures were quite warm and were supposed to stay that way overnight (with heavy rain and dangerous winds forecast, making Sunday's hunting unlikely even if I hadn't gotten a deer).
It was a long afternoon taking care of the deer. The onside shoulder was devastated, but much the rest of the deer provided tons of meat. I even recovered most of one of the bullets in the offside shoulder - weighing 56gr (60% weight retention which is pretty good for an SST). The burger grinding had to wait until Sunday.
I thought about getting him mounted, but ultimately decided against it since I don't have much room and while a deer with a lot of character, he didn't have a great story to go with him. It's a bit funny to me how that becomes important to what I think about my taxidermy.
Seeing as I still have too much vacation to use, I'm still taking several days off. I have at least a day to recover to decide if I want head out to try to get a doe yet this year. For now, I'm just thrilled that things turned out the way they did.
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