The deer herd here is mostly migratory—summer range in the high country, winter range down low. We live down low. Most of the deer don’t show up down here until November, long after rifle season has ended. There are some deer that spend all year on winter range, but not a ton.
So as daylight starts to fade I’m surprised and delighted to see two does start to feed out of the thick string of junipers to our right, out into the clearing below us. I signal to my daughter, and we watch the does feed up toward us. They’re close, only about 70 yards. We can hear the deer move through the brush in the stillness of the evening. Then I see another deer slowly come out of that thick copse of junipers, and it’s a buck.
My guts give a little leap and I whisper to my daughter that I see a buck. I tell her to put on her hearing protection and to be quiet and be still. I slowly put my rifle up on my tripod and ease a round in the chamber, and begin the watch the buck through the scope. He’s about 80 yards out, working through thick brush and burnt junipers. Like the two does, which are only about 25 yards away from us at this point, he feeds in our direction.
I begin to realize I’ve made an error in setting us up where I did, in that there was a strip of woody brush that formed a nice barrier that we could see through and that slightly obscured us from view, but that I couldn’t shoot through. The buck continues to feed right toward us, and because of the brush, I can’t take the shot. The last thing I want to have happen on my kid’s first hunt with just me is to wound an animal and lose it in the rapidly approaching darkness.
Soon, this buck is 20 feet in front of us, feeding just behind this strip of brush. He nibbles on brush, stands there, looks right at us. For five minutes. Chews his food and stares holes through us. He’s alert but not agitated. I have no shot. Throughout this whole time my daughter sits perfectly still, perfectly silent. I look at her once while the buck has his head down and she gives me the most spectacular, “Dad, wtf are you doing?! Shoot the damn thing!” look.
After what feels like years, the buck moves to our right and jams his head in a clump of bitter brush, giving me the opportunity to reposition and swing my rifle toward him. I still have no shot, but will if he continues working toward our right. The does have now moved behind us and after a minute or so of attacking the bitter brush, he turns to follow them. He’s 15 yards away from us when he clears the brush, giving me a clear broadside shot.
