Long Shot

The 2010 rifle season was trying to say in the least.  Having hunted hard for most of the two weeks without success, I decided to call upon a favored spot for our last day afield in pursuit of whitetails.  The more I study and read about whitetail deer, the more impressed I become with them. Reading scouting tips and tracking advice is one thing, but applying it in the field is quite another. Yet, as I maneuvered my dad into position on a cold snap Saturday morning, I attempted to solve another puzzle. The deer were moving. They slipped between and around us in the predawn light, but the snow provided their calling cards. Dad was placed beneath a high pine atop an outcropping that once used to be the gateway to a now dried up lake cove.  Shaver's Creek still meanders its way through the open field that once was Lake Perez.  It is a good vantage point, and one that is uncommon in the eastern woodlands. One can see upwards of 500 yards in multiple directions.  Opposite our location is an impressive heavily brushed hilltop that harbors scores of rabbits and grouse—it's also a prime bedding area for the whitetail. A man can be within a few yards of a deer in the mound's confines and not even realize their presence. Yet, I knew that if I could push the deer off the south facing side of the hill, they might expose themselves to an unobstructed shot from across the old cove where my dad rested in evergreen shadow.

Deer sign was everywhere—buck sign included.  Slipping along the northern edge of the hilltop, I dropped over the crest and into the bramble—weaving my way back and forth hoping to send a group of whitetails bounding into the open. As I worked my way down the slope, I slid, I crawled, and did my best to navigate the treacherous thicket proficiently. Grouse flushed and rabbits ran, and on most days, I would have been delighted by the sight of small game, but on this day we were chasing the more elusive royalty of the wood. Nearing the base of the hill, I began to swing back to the lake trail in order to rejoin my dad and figure out if we were going to pack it in for the season. We planned to hunt until noon, and we were already biting into our last hour.

That's when the shot rang out. Shocked, I tried to place it, initially thinking it had come from another direction, I suddenly heard the sound of a rifle chamber working itself open, and then I knew it was my father who had fired.  Having just enough time to reach the edge of the open cove, another round was fired, and I stood still taking in the scene of the shooter—now standing upwards of 100 yards to my front and nearly 200 yards beyond him—a pack of deer running through the open lake bed. Deer that galloped from the cover of the hill.  My breath rose visibly in the cool morning air as did the smoke from the chamber of the firing rifle. Angling for a leap over the stream, the deer sped onward and a third shot exploded beneath the watchful eye of a hazy sun. I could no longer see the deer by the time the fourth shot echoed across the land, and I had no idea if any of the bullets from the .30-06 had hit home. By the time I had scrambled through the brush and into the cove, my dad was working his way across the the stream and deeper into the lake bed.  Upon reaching him, I wasn't sure if we were going to be looking for the body of a deer or not. After searching for 15 minutes or so with no positive sign of a hit, we searched for the tracks in order to retrace the graceful leaps of the quarry.  We had just turned to head back to the start when dad spotted the spray—a good lung hit. We excitedly scoured the area and followed the blood trail. It stopped at the stream, and just as we began to wonder which direction to travel, dad shouted, "There he is!"

The body itself was under water. An almost ghostly appearance, and at first, I didn't even think it could have been the one fired upon, but as I dragged him to land, it clearly was the same deer—a medium sized button buck.  The round had found its mark from 200 yards away—an admirable shot.  A long shot. The longest my dad had ever taken on a deer.  One that he had fired from a standing unsupported position—straight out of the Jeremiah Johnson movie he used to make my brother and I watch when we were kids.

A few weeks prior my brother George had said, "We've got to get dad a deer this year.  It's been a long time." Rewind to the October grouse opener, and my brother and I had literally stood in the exact spot from which my father had fired.  On that autumn afternoon I had explained to him that I was thinking about placing dad in the said spot for deer season. And so it was that on the last day of the 2010 rifle season, I saw the work of it all come together in the form of my father's first deer in 18 years.  It was well worth it.