The rest of the story. Here goes. My first solo hunt.
Saturday morning started at 4:30am for me. My car was packed, my tea was hot, and I woke up realizing that I had no blaze orange. I'd borrowed a vest the wk before and given it back. Crap.
Being that I'm an optimist, I hit the road anyway but had to take a longer route through another town to see if any of their gas stations might carry something, and I got lucky at my second station. And being that it's the last wk of the season, they were half off. Score!
Anyway.
Being that I had to alter my route and hunt down a vest, I was already late to my early morning hunting spot. I've been hunting a block management spot in which you have to sign in, so I pulled up in my beat-up sedan, by myself, in the middle of three big smoke-blowing trucks and asked around for the book. One guy shot me a snide "good luck" and then I beat him to the spot it turns out he was also going to. This was high pressure hunting.
I opened my door and stepped out of my car to get my gear together, and I heard a rifle pop. A guy had a deer down in the field. This is the same spot that three other people I know got deer, it's productive, you just have to be the first one there and I killed that initial chance, but the day was young.
I figured it would be similar scenarios at other spots in this particular area so I sat and watched a ridiculous sunrise over the Crazy Mountains while rifles popped across the valley. Sidenote: I am a night owl. But if I have to get up early, I'd rather get up before the sunrise. Because man is there magic in that.
I spent the morning scouting various locations that were open on the particular unit I was hunting. I found an elk spot in which people could and were hunting from the road, saw three different trucks pulling out elk, weird. It's weird to me that elk can be so accessible. But the area was supposedly only to be used for hunters who were children, disabled, or elderly. I learned later that it's a pretty highly abused and strange situation. A few wks ago, a bunch of people opened fire on a herd of about 70 elk, dropping 13 or so in pretty shitty circumstances, including illegal spikes. Makes me sick to my stomach to think about.
Anyway #2.
Driving around and scouting different spots was actually really incredible. I saw five eagles, golden and baldies, hunting around the valley. I saw two huge rutting whitetail bucks on private property and got some pics of one of them that are fun that I'll share later. The deer were everywhere, moving, shaking, rutting and eating. I saw a herd of mulies with one big forky buck on a ridgeline.
I went back into town and grabbed a quick breakfast thinking that I'd go back at sundown. But then I remembered all the deer I'd seen all day. And I said to myself, you never know. So I headed back then and decided to try out a new spot.
Driving into New Spot, I was about 250 yards from the parking spot when a button buck jumps in front of my car and bounds onto the property that I'm pulling into. I keep driving and see a doe follow him. Holy shoot. Time to move.
I rush to get my stuff together and head out into the field. There's no cover for a quarter to a half mile. I walk slowly, steadily, they're about 250 yards away and care nothing of me. A few times they look, they flag and trot, but they settle in. Suddenly they drop out of view and then I see the draw. They pop out in another little field and I watch them for a bit until they're eating and not paying attention. If I can make it in the draw and come up on the other side, I'll be out of view and in perfect position to shoot.
I go for it, but by the time I get back up, they're gone. I'm not sure if it was me or something else.
In my rush to get ready, I left my binos and a couple other things in the car. I head back to repack and two old-timers are hanging out. We chat for awhile and watch some deer that are about a mile away in the corn fields. They tell me the elk story and some more stories connected to the land I'm on. The deer are spooky. They've been shot at for wks now. But the guys are going to hang in that spot and hunt the field until nightfall and they said that if I downed a deer, they would help me with it.
I pack back up and head out for the draw. It's a really cool spot for whitetails, you can look out over 100s of yards in all directions, lots of cover once you're in it, and there are definitely deer around.
I set up and sit down. I take books with me everywhere and when I'd get tired of scanning the draw and the fields, I'd take breaks reading. It was a nice balance. After about 30 or 45 minutes, a deer is there. Probably 500-600 yards away. I watch him intently. He moves towards my draw, is coming my direction.
I contemplate sitting or moving. He drops out of sight but is still moving my direction. Maybe.
I decide to go.
This is the part of the story where I feel that presence, where all of my senses were heightened and I began to look at things differently. I moved through the shadows of the draw. I kept tabs on every noise, on the wind (in my favor), on the moment. And like the first deer I set my crosshairs on, my little buck was suddenly there and he had me pegged as I was caught in between two trees. He's about forty yards away from me, thirty yards above me, with miles of corn fields behind him.
I didn't even think that I should have been carrying my rifle instead of having it slung over my shoulder. I drop to me knees and my rifle is down next to me. He's still there, head-on. I lift my rifle and chamber a round. He's still there, head-on. I bring the rifle up and he flickers and turns broadside.
BOOM. He takes off.
I run up that hill , I may or may not have used some curse words out of shock and surprise and adrenaline.
Did I hit him? I take the binos out and I watch him trotting and bounding, he's not limping, there's no blood on him. I look around the spot where he was standing and where he moved from. No blood. Clean miss. He's gone.
This, my friends, was one of the most powerful and strange experiences of my life. It's intoxicating, being that present. It's primal, that it in some ways does come naturally.
This little hunt doesn't mimic any of the big, badass hunts that happen, but I felt like it was a microcosm of that experience. The spot and the stalk and the close encounter. It wasn't like last week's hunt, it wasn't just getting out the car and walking around and suddenly having a deer in my scope. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but there was something fundamentally different about this moment. I had to figure out how to become a part of the land, to use it to my advantage, and I had to be willing to make some mistakes. Beginners make mistakes, it's a part of the process.
Don't be perfect. Thank you for telling me this. It's important.
On my way back through the draw heading back to my car, I saw something white on the ground. A big vertebrae--probably from a cow--but perfectly sunbleached and white and wholly intact. I'd seen another large section of the spinal column in a different spot earlier (pictured below) but this particular piece was off on its own. A cool keepsake from my hunt and a reminder of the balance of life and death.
I learned a ton from this day, and I wish that it had happened earlier in the season so I could have more time, but unfortunately my time is short b/c I leave for California today and don't return until next Tuesday so my season is over.
1) I have a lot more shooting to do. I learned that I need to shoot in various situations that are less controlled. Shooting at the range is fun, and I've done some shooting in other spaces, but I feel like learning how to adjust for different situations is important and that I'll do more tactical kind of stuff leading into next season.
2) Hunting is fun. That was one of the most fun days I've had in a long time. And I'm pretty fun. So that says a lot. Between everything I saw and experienced, it was a very rich learning experience. People, animals, land. So basic.
3) I can hunt alone. I don't always want to hunt alone, but I can and I can feel good about it. And once I feel better about my shooting skills, I'm happy to do these easier hunts on my own. I'm glad my friend took me out first. That gave me the boost I needed to go out solo.
I didn't get my deer this year. But I have a framework for next year. And I'm excited about it already.
Thanks to everyone who has sent tips and joined in on convos and connected me to your own stories. This is such a great community, glad to have connected here.
