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| 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. |
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| Looking west out of the office. |
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.
Well described.
ReplyDeleteWell described, and well done.
ReplyDeleteSportsmanship at its finest.
You are a good example for us to learn from.
Milton
Agree with above - you did a good job describing the hunt, I felt I was almost there. :^)
ReplyDeleteWhat power are your binoculars ? Long ago, I had forgotten them in the truck and had to use my scope. It is private land, so there was a built-in safety factor of knowing who was where and when. The scope on the rifle was a Bushnell 1.5-4.5x scope. I saw a pair of deer silhouetted just below the hill's horizon, but could not definitively tell if one was a spike or a doe, even with scope cranked up. So I passed the shot.
My Brother later asked me if i had seen the spike. He was at a separate blind around a corner and the pair had passed through his shooting lane. He had binoculars and could easily see the small horns. Lesson learned - binoculars help a lot.
Your last line is very true. But I still consider the hunt a success - time spent in the outdoors is never wasted. I'm sure your luck will change soon.
It's been my experience that deer check their watches as well and show up just past the end tick of legal light
ReplyDeleteHow do the deer synchronize their timepieces?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, are you and the Game Warden synchronized via GPS or what? If "legal light" is tied to time irrespective of cloud cover, there could be quite a variation in the actual level of illumination. So complicated...
Still a win. My wife accuses me of taking my rifle for a walk these days but she would never understand what you described.
ReplyDeleteTake her out after season is done, early enough to allow the both of you to enjoy the breaking dawn. That experience alone often will change peoples's attitudes on being out at dark o'clock can be a great thing.
DeleteI broke down last year and purchased a heated vest for those "colder" hunting days. Best purchase ever. I highly recommend them.
ReplyDeleteSmart move. Better to be safe than sorry.
ReplyDelete