Another day at the office

 

Looking north out of the office about 45 minutes before "legal light" ends. The dusty-beige weeds are the tops of goldenrod. The goldenrod is about 3' tall.

Looking west out of the office.

So, there I was in the Orchard stand. I had been there for three-and-one-half hours. The wind-chill was a balmy 40F but I wasn't very well dressed. I wasn't hypothermic but I would not have wanted to be any colder. I had already popped-open two of my "body warmers". One was in the pocket of my tee-shirt and the other was in the pocket of my flannel-lined jeans.

Yes, Virginia, I was wearing a coat and a hat. 

The light was rapidly fading. I was watching the time like a hawk. I could hear hooves crunching through the leaves in the swale east of me. I still had five minutes of "legal light".

Then I saw blobs 120 yards out, but only one-or-two at a time.

I did not want to take one of this year's fawns. I wanted to shoot a wall-hanger buck or a mature doe. I could not see any antlers nor could I determine if any of them were larger than the others.

Finally, they started moving in my direction through the frost-killed goldenrod.

I was tracking them with my scope. That is generally considered bad-practice because folks will do that to ID targets they are not certain of...but I had already ID these animals as Whitetail Deer and they were definitely not humans.

Two minutes of legal light left.

I could see their ears. Still no antlers. There were five of them. Three of them were might have been small. Two of them might have been "shooters". I look at the size of their ears relative to their heads. Like a dog's paws, a deer's ears get their full-size early. If the ears look large relative to its head, it is a small deer. If the ears look small, it is a large deer.

I looked and looked and looked. I could not make out their bodies as they moved through the goldenrod. If I can't see their bodies then I don't have a target. Some people take neck-shots but I avoid them because heads bob around and move, making the shot a time-urgent thing. 

They passed within yards, YARDS, of the base of the Orchard stand.

Alas, the clock ran-out and legal light ended.

I waited several more minutes for them to clear the area before exiting the stand.  Perhaps my luck will change. Maybe their alarm-clock will go off a few minutes earlier another day.

They call it "hunting" rather than "shooting" for a reason.