Deer season is my favorite holiday. I’m normally not a morning person, but opening day, I’m in that treestand an hour before sunrise no matter the weather. I’ve been a hunter most of my life—coon hunting with my dad and uncles as a kid then deer hunting on my own from the time I was a teenager. I’ve used the same Mossberg 20-gauge pump shotgun for 40 years now, harvesting a doe each year for the freezer and an occasional buck if it was nice enough to hang on my wall.
Raised on a farm, seeing or shooting deer isn’t a problem. The hardest part of hunting for me is the wait after a successful shot. My dad and husband stress the importance of waiting an hour to recover a deer to give it time to lay down and bleed out. But I’m hyper, so if I wait 30 minutes it’s a good day. My lack of patience has cost me a deer or two over the years that ran off as I approached, never to be seen again.
Last November, I sat there watching a doe and twins when in the brush 50 yards away I saw a buck moving in the opposite direction. My mouth formed an, “Oh my God,” because this brute was the size of a cow. I lifted my gun and aimed, waiting for him to turn enough to shoot. As soon as his front left shoulder was in my sights, I let that shot rip. But he didn’t move! I wondered how I’d missed. Finally, he took a few stumbling steps, and it was clear he was wounded after all. I aimed to shoot again, but he had moved into thick brush. I pulled out my binocular, watching and waiting. He walked another 20 yards then lay down. I hadn’t shot a buck in a few years, and I was shaking, partly because it was 20 degrees and windy.
After a few minutes, I saw him fall over flat. Yes! I grabbed my gun and climbed down my stand. No, it probably hadn’t been long enough, but I was too cold and impatient to wait, and sure he was dead. I walked around to the front of where he lay in the leaves, grinning ear to ear, admiring my big, beautiful buck and all of his battle scars. Five yards from his nose, I sat my shotgun against a tree and pulled out my phone. I found my camera app and snapped a photo, then all of a sudden the deer sat up. I gasped and froze, trying not to move or breathe. He turned his head from side to side and sniffed the air. I realized he knew I was there, but he couldn’t see me. I still had on my camo ghillie mask. I wasn’t sure what to do. He was huge, and if he jumped up he could lunge and spear me before I even had time to run or grab my gun. His breath was raspy and labored, but his eyes were alert and angry.
My phone still in my hands, I texted my teenage son, who was hunting along the field not far away. Trying not to move any part of my body but my thumbs, I sent the message, “Got a buck down, but he’s still alive. Help!”
Tucker texted back, “What do you want me to do?”
I replied: “Come kill the bastard before he kills me!”
I continued to watch Barnabus (yes, I name all my mounts), trying not to scare him as he continued to move his head searching for his assailant. My son came running through the woods like a herd of elephants, scaring me and the deer. The buck jumped up, I jumped back and Tucker fired a kill shot. The buck fell backwards, took two more breaths and was finally dead.
Amazingly, even with all that adrenaline pumping, the buck’s meat was still tender and tasty. My Amish taxidermist chuckled at my story. He said the buck was about 5 years old, so getting the best of old Barnabus was quite a feat. “But I’m thinking you should trade that old shotgun in for a .45-70 so you don’t have to wait so long to know one’s dead,” he pointed out. One thing is certain: Next time, I’m waiting that full hour after I shoot.
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