THE HUNT

THE HUNT

It was a cool windy October noon, when I talked to a buddy of mine Lucas Pagel. He asked me if I was heading out deer hunting I said, "No it's to windy." I hunt a lot of small woods and on top of hills and stuff. I don't have a good stand for getting out of the wind like in a valley on really windy days. He said, he had a tree stand I could hunt in that should be out of the wind a little more. I said, "I guess I could do that." So I met him at his place at about 3:00 p.m. He then brought me to my stand. he dropped me of and pointed out the tree from the top of the hill that I would be hunting.


I walked my way down to the stand. Got in it and looked everything over. Drew my bow back to check shooting lanes and arm room. I sat and waited. The area looked perfect. This same stand is the stand that Lucas shot his nubbin buck several weeks ago, and his doe last year. He has never seen a buck other than nubbin bucks there in several years of hunting that. There was a woods to my front right and to my back right. Straight to my right was a about 30 yard long by about 10 yard wide field drive way. On the top of that was a corn field. This is all on a hill side coming down to the bottom of the valley. Straight in front of me in the valley is a hay field. and to my left there is another corn field. Behind me is a wooded fence row where I'm set up in a tree and behind that there is a fresh, lush hayfield.


I was in my stand for about a half hour when I heard something coming out of the woods in front of me about 60 yards ahead. Out came a turkey, then two, then three, then four, then that was it. The four of them scratched around for a little while then one by one entered the woods where they had came from.



I waited for about another hour when I noticed a deer at the edge of the woods at about at least 200 yards away. There came 3 more. I watched the 4 of them for a while through my binoculars. I observed that there were two does and two fawns in the bunch by the looks of things. There was one curious fawn that didn't eat with the rest of them. Instead he kept looking and sticking his head into the woods. All of a sudden the fawn spooked and the other three deer followed. They were running at an angle towards me so I stood up and grabbed my bow off the bow hook. I got my release on my string. The deer stopped at about 60 yards and then started toward me again. I drew back my bow and tried getting them to stop. It didn't work and they ran by me at about 25 yards. I put my bow back on the hook and sat down. I looked back out where the deer had been and found those four turkeys in there place. They scared my deer away.


Time passed and I didn't see anything. It was getting to be about 15 minutes before shooting hours ended. I was bored and looking for an owl that sounded really close because it was so annoying it was driving me nuts.


Crack!!! To my right I heard something very interesting. It sounded like a deer breaking a stick. I slowly turned my head towards the noise and there stood a doe at probably 15 yards on that Field drive way. I wasn't in a shooting position and my bow was on the hanger. The deer new something wasn't right. He kept looking at me and I couldn't move. She started to walk towards the woods on the opposite side of the drive way she came from. She was about into the woods and I slowly stood up. She got about half of her body into the woods when I got my bow off of the hook and got my release on. She turned around and started heading toward me. I couldn't do anything because every other step she would look at me. And if she wasn't looking at me there wouldn't be a shot because of to big branches to my Right. She was following them branches so I couldn't get a shot. She continued to look my way. She began walking again andI seen that she was going to walk into a big opening. She wasn't looking my way and was still walking toward the opening when I drew my bow back and put my pin in the opening where I expected her to come out. She stopped when I pulled the bow back. She new something wasn't wright. Then she continued and she came right out where I expected her to. I squeezed the trigger. The arrow went right into her lungs. I thought the shot might of been to high, but it was good enough. she ran into the woods and I could here branches breaking. There was a loud snapping sound like a deer had fallen down or we hunters call crashed. I sat down and took it all in. I then climbed down my tree stand and walked to where Lucas had dropped me off. When I got to the spot I seen Pagel's van pulling in the driveway of the persons land we were hunting. We exchanged stories and went back to his house to get flashlights and let the deer rest. Pagel got his dad and brother to help us find the deer. We found blood pretty quick and followed it in through the woods. The blood trail wasn't real good so I was starting to get worried. Then there were two trails and we couldn't find blood. Pagel's dad found the deer by shining the light in the opposite direction the rest of us were headed. I then examined my kill and learned how to gut a deer. We tagged it and drug it back to the truck. We then stopped at Pagel's to drop him off. I then went home and hung the deer up in a tree. The next day we weighed the thing at about 110 to 115 lbs.


All that work of hanging stands and scouting. All that money spent. It all worth it. That feeling is the greatest feeling on earth and maybe some of you will get that feeling sometime or have and know what it feels like.


That's "THE HUNT"