Dumb Luck Buck
Luck, good or bad, will override just about any plan.
Last year I had put the finishing touches on a Lee Enfield No1 Mk3 restoration. Its an old British/commonwealth military rifle. They saw most of their useage during the first world war but were in production until the early 50’s (as best I can find online). I carried it with me a lot, hoping to get a deer. I got one shot at the biggest buck I have ever seen, he was heavy antlered with a split main beam, and staring at me about 15 yards away. The second I raised the rifle, he bolted. I fired two misses at him and never saw him again. I sat that same field every evening the rest of that season and the entirety of this season in hopes he would come back, he didn’t. It was bad hunting, but I am calling it bad luck so I can get some sleep at night. I had also hoped for a little redemption with my old 303 at some point this year.
This deer season started with a simple mistake. I got greedy and put in for too many draws, I had just got home from Nepal and Thailand and was in a bit of a daze and accidentally put in my mule deer buck and doe draws instead of building priority for one or the other. As a result I had 5 tags I could fill, a whitetail buck, mule deer buck, two whitetail does, and a mule doe. In my experience, loading up on tags usually results in bad luck and not seeing anything.
To add to the peculiar luck of the season, it was warm, very warm. By the time November hunting season 2023 had ended there was still almost no snow on the ground and positive temperatures during the day. That time of year I’ve seen negative 20 and nearly a foot of snow. At any rate, I was going hunting, and it was not going well. I had seen very few deer, usually going the other way. The best opportunity I had so far was a small basket-rack whitetail broadside, about 50m, he was standing almost exactly where I shot my last buck… I decided to pass as he was quite small, I then somewhat regretted it. It almost feels disrespectful to pass on an opportunity that good and some small part of me would like to get a deer of each size on the wall to show how their growth progression works… but that feels oddly devious.
On the Saturday of my last weekend it was windy, very windy. I decided still hunting through the bush was probably my best bet. I got my mother to drop me off on the far end of the property on her way to work (working a Saturday during hunting season is just crazy to me). I brought with me my restored Lee Enfield that I had carried the previous season. I hoped the iron sights would be better suited to close range shots in the bush and the heavier projectile would cut through shrubs and trees easier than on my little 243, my usual go-to rifle for deer.
I started my day in an area we call Sand’s, I’m told its named for the previous owners, and I have seen many nice mule deer in the area over the years. It was my belief the deer would remain in the bush, between the heat and the wind they likely had little need or desire to go into fields. I worked my way around a large stand of trees and managed to spot a doe standing in a small clearing sheltered from the wind. She was glaring at me through the willows. I froze and we watched each other. My hope was that she wasn’t alone. Eventually she got tired of my spectating and slowly walked off, followed by a small buck. I lined up my sights and considered a shot through a narrow shooting lane, but he didn’t stop when I whistled. Then I heard what sounded like him making a U-turn in the trees out of my sight. Across that little shooting lane came an even smaller mule buck and another doe. Something about his antlers looked off to me. They both stepped out into the field 70 yards from me and stood broadside, I got a good look at his antlers with my binoculars to discover it was shadows from his ears I was seeing making things look off. They both ran away and I thought to myself “what a neat interaction… wait… I have a doe tag… darn it”
I worked my way farther west seeing little more than squirrels. After just shy of a mile of walking I got to my favorite spot, Dejorties. Its a few acres on the north end of the family farm where I have had a lot of luck with deer. I walked passed the little swamp and made my way to a clearing in the woods and saw nothing of interest. I took a seat, pulled a cheese bun from my pocket and enjoyed my lunch. I wiped the crumbs, pocketed the bag, and walked the long way around to leave. As I passed a thicket, no more than 50 yards from where I had lunch, a large mule buck sprang up, bolted up the bank where he was nicely sky-lined and stopped just long enough for me to get a look, and ran down the other side of the hill. I sprinted up the bank hoping he would stop and look back. I got to the top just in time to see him jump the fence into the neighbors and disappear into some spruce trees. I headed back to my evening hunting spot, hoping to see that big whitetail from the year before. I saw nothing.
I decided the Sunday, my last day, I would just do exactly what I did Saturday. I also had to laugh at the reality that I was more patterned than the deer I was hunting. There was still wind, but far less, meaning the noise of my boots crunching the frozen leaves was more of a problem. Where I had seen the smaller mule deer, there were only cattle. They were, unfortunately, rather interested in what I was doing. I made my way west again. This time, in the trees I came across a whitetail buck. He was far away and his body was far too obscured by brush to even think about shooting at. His antlers were short, but thick. I watched him for what felt like a long time. I tried taking a step every time he looked away, in hopes of closing the distance. That plan did not work. He wandered off and I could hear him huffing as he left. I am told, the noise alerts other deer of danger and clears their sinus so they can get a better smell.
I was somewhat disheartened and felt part of my issue was loud walking from the frozen leaves. I felt the best strategy was to hurry to a good sitting spot and hope something came to me. Continuing west, I walked along a path about 50 meters wide with large patches of trees in the middle which essentially created two parallel paths that intersected every 50 to 100 meters. As I crested the last hill before the gate to where I had seen the mule deer the day before… I just about bumped into him. He was walking east on the trail and we didn’t hear each other, and apparently hadn’t seen each other either because I was already on my way down the hill when we reacted. He turned around and ran behind a patch of trees, counter clockwise, so I ran around my side clockwise. When he realized what I was doing, he changed directions and so did I. For about 15 seconds, it was very much like siblings chasing each other around the kitchen table. We both stopped moving to asses the situation. Lucky for me, and unlucky for him, I could see him through the trees and had a shooting line. It was narrow, and I could only see his body, but I was close enough I could see his ribs, I took aim and fired. He jumped straight up and curled inward, in my experience that is a good sign. He hit the ground and ran. I ejected the spent case and my second round wouldn’t feed. I guess I hadn’t quite tuned this magazine right. As I finessed the next round in, I could hear him running and blowing his nose. The blowing of the nose struck me as a bad sign. I flipped my safety on and walked to where he was when hit. There was frothy pink blood on the ground, another good sign. The snow was best measured in millimeters so I tracked him as best I could in the dirt. The blood trail was minimal, but he seemed to run west to the gate and turned north into the field. I panicked thinking he must have run into the bush with a poorly placed bullet. I tried calling the house to get a search party going, but my step dad was in town running errands, I was on my own.
I mentally prepped for a hard day ahead. I lined up the last of the blood trail and assumed he kept his trajectory, and I started walking. 50 meters later, he was laid out stone dead 10 yards from the treeline. I guess I had gotten worried over nothing. He didn’t go far, the hills, paths, and bush just hid him a little.
I approached slowly and poked him in the eye to ensure he was dead, I unloaded my rifle, closing the bolt on an empty chamber but leaving the loaded magazine in. I then started taking the obligatory pictures and texted everyone who would be interested. Then, the work started. I tagged him and walked home, just in time for Darrell to be pulling into the yard. We grabbed a ramp and went to get him, loaded him in the truck, hung him in the garage and I got to skinning. During skinning and gutting, I found I had hit both lungs, far back. I had to work the following day so I cut the tenderloins out for supper Monday and put the head in my car to take to a taxidermist friend to be cleaned… it stayed in my car until Thursday, I wonder if anyone in my parkade noticed.
Closing Thoughts
I like to review, in my head, what I did right and what I did wrong in hopes of more active learning for future hunts, seeing as I am hoping to do this for a few more decades. In the positive, I feel I chose the appropriate rifle for the style of hunting, I never gave up (lots of great deer are taken at the last light of the last day), and I changed hunting tactics as conditions changed. The bad, I panicked after the shot, I should have tracked as far as I could before assuming something was wrong. I also found this season, I was a little too obsessed with antler size, I passed on a perfectly respectable whitetail buck in ideal conditions because I was holding out for a deer I had seen once the previous season. I need to remember I am feeding the freezer, not the tape measure.
Technical Details
Someone had also asked in a previous post for firearm details, so… in this particular instance I was using a 1942 Lee Enfield No1 MK3* in 303 British. These rifles were made all over the commonwealth but mine was made in Birmingham, and it is stamped with a B, which means it is a “dispersal rifle” made in the area after the BSA (Birmingham Small Arms factory) had been destroyed. When I got it, the wood had been cut down to resemble a more familiar hunting rifle, this is called “sporterizing” and was very common as the rifles were plentiful and cheap. The process was done to make them lighter and more suited to hunting. I rounded up a variety of new and used parts to take it back to factory original… ish. Like any restoration of something that was made for 50 plus years, parts will change a little bit over time, and I went with whichever parts I liked rather than what would have been more accurate to that date. Only a keen eyed collector would ever notice, and I built it to use and enjoy, so I did it the way I like it. It was a slow process that required a lot of hand fitting, and it would have been cheaper to just buy an original, but every time I look at it or show someone I am proud of myself.
Posted in Hunting and tagged alberta hunting, deer, hunting, lee enfield, military surplus, mule deerwith no comments yet.
The Death Of A Coyote
In recent years, the local coyote population around my parents’ farm has exploded. We see them everywhere, and hear them yelping all night. We also hear the farm dogs barking at them all night. The general agreement among farmers and hunters is that coyotes are a pest and are to be shot on sight. They will kill farm animals, pets, and game species all the same.
Up until this point in my life, I had never actively hunted coyotes and during hunting season I avoided shooting at them for fear of spooking the deer I was actually after. Over the years, I came to notice that deer dont seem particularly phased by gunfire. I have been to more than one shooting competition where we had to shut down a range while we waited for deer to clear off. So, with the coyote population up, and my excuses to leave them be, worn rather thin, I decided this year deer hunting season is also coyote season.
As a relevant aside, I have talked with a few people, a few times, about how much ammunition to bring hunting. Some hunters will joke “you should only need one”, some will say “Two, incase you need a follow-up shot”. I have a friend that ran out of ammo while hunting and had to finish off a cow moose with a knife, while she was trying to stand back up. I, usually take somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 bullets, and have never needed more than two, I have been lucky so far.
On the second day of opening weekend, I was slowly making my way through the woods and found myself standing in a patch of trees on the North edge of a valley. Below me, I spotted movement. It was two coyotes walking through the tall brown grass with ears back and tails down. I have found that coyotes either walk as though guilty or trot as though they haven’t a care in the world. These two looked suspicious. I brought my rifle to my shoulder and found one in the scope. I squeezed the trigger… and everything went wild. One coyote dropped, the other ran West in the valley, and 20 yards West of them, a large mule deer buck sprinted up the far hill. I trained my optic on him and watched for a chance. No way my 243 was going to push 95 grains of lead through that brush and do anything other than wound it. I noticed movement in the grass, the coyote that had fallen was slowly getting up, clearly mortally wounded. I immediately shot it again, he moved no more. I was down to three bullets in the gun. The second coyote, perhaps unsure of what the noise was, circled back and stood between me and his deceased companion. I took aim and made a clean miss at an embarrassing 87 yards (ranged after the fact). He ran east then south across the valley along an old beaver dam, stopping to look at up me again. I took another chance shot and missed again. I felt good about both shots but somehow neither touched hide or hair. In a flash of fur he was gone. I had one lonely bullet left and I wasn’t about to use it on a coyote knowing full well a big mule deer was somewhere nearby.
I jogged down the hill and checked that the coyote was dead and then walked home for more ammunition, all the while wondering how my marksmanship had been so poor. I have more than once heard old timers tell me that there’s something magic about coyotes, one of the few animals that you seem to miss more shots than you make. Perhaps its their size that makes guessing distance deceiving, maybe its their wily nature, maybe it supernatural… or, my guess, is that its something subconscious. Coyotes are described as a lot of mean nasty things by many people, but at the end of the day, they are a wild dog and to me, that makes it a bit of a hard trigger pull.
I went out that evening and circled back to get pictures of my first coyote. I find it interesting that I have been hunting for nearly 20 years and somehow never got around to shooting a coyote. I approached the downed animal and he laid in an unnatural pose, a pile of fur with a foreleg stuck awkwardly out the side. I lifted his surprisingly heavy body and laid his head on a log, a slightly more dignified pose. I got some hunting photos and inspected its teeth, its k9s worn almost flat. This animal lived a long happy life here. I considered taking its hide, almost out of a sense of obligation to not have it feel like a waste, but it wasn’t particularly nice, given the time of year.
I took the photos and went to my hunting blind for an evening sit and reflected on the days events. I learned that if I’m not going to be a better shooter, perhaps I’d better up my ammo count to 6. Next time I see coyote, I am going to take more time to observe them. I can’t imagine the two of them could have taken down a grown mule deer buck, but they sure looked like they were aiming to try. I wouldn’t say I feel bad about shooting a coyote, and I certainly plan on shooting more. However, some small part of me has to at least respect the plight of the coyote, they haven’t many friends in this lonely world and they’re just out there hunting, like I am. The only difference is, if they aren’t successful, they dont survive. Maybe its because I miss my old dog, or maybe its my recent time in Nepal surrounded by Buddhists that has softened me. I guess I’m of two minds, or just a hypocrite, but I feel bad for the coyotes while actively hunting them… and I doubt I’ll ever change.
Posted in Hunting and tagged Alberta, hunting, Outdoorswith 1 comment.
Sausage Doe
Two hours into my season I passed on a nice buck. It was about the same size as all the other bucks I have shot on that farm, so I thought I’d better wait for bigger. I was hoping bigger would come along, but it didn’t. I was also hoping that if bigger didn’t come along that season, at least that one would have another year to grow. It didn’t, my brother got it a few days later, and he looked a bit bigger once he was laying down.
That said, I can’t be too sad. This season I tried my hand at rattling (using fake antlers to imitate the sound of deer fighting to draw out curious bucks). This worked very well for me and I found myself within 20 yards of small bucks on at least 2 occasions and had others within 50. I also, without a tag, had two close run-ins with a very nice mule deer buck. It was nice to learn a new skill and have it actually work. In general, this season, it was rare for me to go a day without at least seeing a deer or two. This is very encouraging, its positive results that make me feel as though I am getting better as a hunter. This season I really started to wrap my head around two things, first is that deer are endlessly patient, so you have to outsmart it or get it curious. The second is that deer don’t want to waste energy so they won’t run unless you make them, so if spotted, remain motionless until they lose interest or, more likely, come in for a closer look. I had a few make a tight circle around me at a slow pace until they were able to catch my scent. The main lesson is, don’t give them a reason to run and they won’t run… maybe.
These ideas solidified themselves towards the end of the season when I came around a tree-lined trail a little fast and found myself and a mule doe 100 yards apart both out in the open awkwardly making eye contact. I froze and she stood and stared for a few minutes, then turned and slowly walked away. As soon as I was out of her line of sight I walked to where she was. She had gone down a hill, through a thin row of trees, and was standing in a clearing below me with two other, smaller, does. Again, I found myself out in the open, but this time with 3 sets of eyes on me. I slowly crouched down and brought my rifle up. I didn’t have a shot at her, the trees were in the way. I debated trying to push or sneak around, but I am a firm believer that almost all of a deer’s senses are stronger than mine so she would have heard me a mile away. Instead, I stayed as motionless as possible hoping her curiosity would get the best of her. Eventually, they cautiously started walking across the clearing from my left to right. I looked along the tree line and picked a few unobstructed lines of sight. These were my shooting lanes. If she crossed a shooting lane, I had her. She slowly worked her way just along the edges of the first few lanes stopping and dipping her head occasionally. I think deer do this to try and fake out predators, they lower their head as thought to feed and then immediately bring the back up quick and look in the direction of what they’re worried about (I base this on no scientific evidence whatsoever). Eventually, she worked her way to the last possible shooting lane, and I was ready, my .243 and I snuck a shot between two birch trees, right into her vitals and she went down.
I went down, put my tag on her, and did my best to field dress her. I then drug her across the snow-filled clearing to the trail so we could come back with the side-by-side and retrieve her. I walked back to the farm and Darrell and I came back and retrieved the deer with the ATV.
Two weeks later, I came out and we butchered the deer. My mom said she wanted deer sausage, and on the rare occasion my mother asks me for something, I do my best to do it. So, we made sausage. We started by removing the back straps and cutting them into steaks, as they are the choice cuts. The rest Darrell and I cut off the bone, cubed, and ground. We then cubed and ground an equivalent amount of pork and mixed it all together with spices. Venison is very lean meat and without adding pork or beef it makes a very dry sausage. We stuffed the ground meat into casings (we use “natural casings”, which are actually pork intestines). We then ran the sausage in the smoker with a mix of willow, apple, and saskatoon wood. It came out fantastic. Making sausage is one of my favorite things because there is no food better than sausage that’s still warm from the smoker.
We vacuum sealed the sausage and put it in the deep freeze at the farm to be enjoyed later. I also made sure to take a few rings to some friends, because what’s the point of having some of the best food in the world if you’re not going to share it?
Posted in How-To, Huntingwith 1 comment.
The Wasteful Buck
2020 was an odd year for a great many reasons, the beacon that will mark these yet to be determined amount of years will be Covid-19 and how we did our best to navigate its ever-changing landscape. I, like many others, did my best to live a normal life, but sometimes that simply couldn’t happen. In this story, it’s relevant, and a mere inconvenience compared to what others have gone through. This story tells of a particularly difficult deer partly from covid, but there is no shortage of self-induced headache, there are lots of little lessons to be learned but I think the biggest takeaway is, sometimes, things don’t go your way.
The Hunt
Every year I try to add a little to my hunting skill. A person naturally learns just from being in the woods searching, but on top of that, I try to read a book or two on the subject and pick up what little tips I can. In 2020 one lesson I had to re-learn was to slow down. It’s human nature when looking for something to try to get to it instead of letting it come to you. With deer I find, that in my mind, the one I am looking for is just over the next hill and about to leave so I better get there.
After spooking a sufficient amount of deer with my size 14s crunching in the snow and leaves I decided to try doing what every successful hunter suggests, it’s called “still hunting”. I slowed down, way down. I would take a cautious step, take a breath, look around, listen intently, wait a moment, then take another step. Two things about this technique, first, you see a lot of other wildlife like squirrels and birds, second, it’s a good leg workout, they are sore come the end of the day.
On my second day of proper still hunting, I found myself cautiously walking between the treeline and a swamp. About 100 yards behind me, just beyond some trees, I heard the unmistakable sound of movement. In a single motion, I spun a 180, dropped to one knee, and brought my rifle to low-ready against my shoulder. It was two does trotting along slowly working towards me. They came around the trees and out into the open only about 50 yards from me, then turned into the bush again and ran off. I sat silent for a moment listening to them go away from me. I didn’t want to move or make noise, if I spooked them, they would run and spook other deer.
As the sound of the does faded away, I started to hear another deer coming from the same place the does had. Through the trees, I could see a silhouette of a single deer running with its head down close to the ground. That’s the unmistakable posture of a buck hot on the trail of a doe, in this case, two does. As he rounded the trees it was clear he was a nice buck. I recognized him as a wide antlered whitetail I had trail camera pictures of. He came out about 50 yards from me, stood perfectly broadside, lifted his head gracefully, and turned toward me. Looking at pictures of him, I felt he could use another year of growth… standing in the wild looking at me with my rifle in my hands, I had different opinions. I raised my rifle, steadied the crosshairs, and pulled the trigger. He fell, lifted his head for a moment, then laid out gracefully.
The Work
This is where the story starts to fall apart. I had just shot a big deer, then it all went downhill. First I called Darrell to come out with the truck so we could get him back to the farm to hang and skin. We drug the deer only about 50 yards to the truck and then loaded it in. I immediately vomited after loading the deer. This was a combination of the excitement and the exercise but I primarily attribute it to the fact that covid lockdowns gave me about 8 months of sitting on the couch watching TV, eating junk food, and gaining weight. I was embarrassed and Darrell was clearly worried… puke during a pandemic and see how folks look at you.
We got the deer home and I started skinning. I discovered I had made a mistake that season, I used my hunting knife to clean a lot of geese early in the season and didn’t resharpen it for deer season, it was like skinning with a butter knife. Luckily, Darrell is the kind of guy who has a stockpile of knives and they’re all razor-sharp. Skin half a deer with a dull knife and the other half with a sharp knife and you’ll never let a knife dull again. I got the deer skinned, cut in half, and hung up and relaxed. The work was done for now. I headed home, back to the city.
Covid Interruptions
I left the meat and skull at my parent’s farm with the intention of dealing with it in the coming weeks but days after I got home lockdowns and restrictions were announced. I was no longer allowed into other people’s homes and had to maintain a distance of 6 feet at all times.
The Skull and Antlers
I wanted to keep the entire skull as a European mount, but I needed to turn in brain samples for CWD testing. I spoke to a friend who does some taxidermy about getting beetles to eat the flesh off of the skull, but it was up to me to skin the skull and take out the samples for testing. Unfortunately, I had left the hide on the skull and the skull was at my parents’. We had entered a lockdown so I couldn’t even go into their house. I made a day trip and picked up the skull and brought it to the city. It was frozen solid from being in an unheated garage. After 3 days of sitting in my basement, it was still solid, which makes sense, deer have evolved to survive in minus 50 so it stands to reason that their hide would be a great insulator. I ended up using an Exacto knife and heat gun to slowly work the hide off and get the samples. I got the samples out and turned in (they came back negative) and got the skull to the taxidermist. She had asked if I wanted the skull bleached, I declined as I prefer the natural colour of skulls in mounts over the bleached white look. After a few months, beetling takes time, she returned the skull to my wife while I was at work. She mentioned to her in passing “I’m not sure why he didn’t want it bleached, it really kills that rotting smell”… I had no idea that was the purpose and felt mighty foolish. That skull stunk out my entire basement. I ended up making a baking soda paste, lathering a quarter-inch thick layer on the skull, and tossing it on the roof of my shed for most of the spring just to get the smell off. Had I known, I’d have happily shelled out the extra few dollars for the bleaching.
The Meat
This is the part of the story that makes me sad and ashamed. At the time of shooting the deer, my plan was to come back and butcher the deer myself within a few weeks. The lockdowns we were under were supposed to only be a few weeks but kept getting extended, as a result, the deer sat hanging for about two months. Finally, I just made a day trip out to the farm and picked it up and attempted to butcher it at my dad’s shop. All that time spent hanging resulted in a thick rind of dried meat that was simply inedible. I carved off what I could from every part of the deer. In the end, I had a few steaks pulled off the backstrap and 2 big bags of ground meat. A pitiful amount given the size of Alberta deer. I remember being frustrated and scraping meat off of the bone, and my friend in the shop watching me finally stopping me, “it’s time to stop, you’ve gotten all you can” I grew up in a house where wasting food was a sin, and this felt like a big one. I’ve heard it many times before, if you hunt enough, eventually you’ll lose a deer, usually, it’s one you injure and never find, but I guess sometimes it’s lockdowns and confusion too. This season is off to a better start, I already helped my brother load a deer without vomiting, I guess my time at the gym has paid off. I have my knives sharp and ready to go, and I’m going to put a bit more urgency into anything I get on the ground because we are currently in the fourth wave in Alberta. Were I betting man, I would bet on more lockdowns coming this winter.
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First Time Snow Goose Hunting
As many of you know, I recently got hooked on waterfowl hunting. I have the fortune of having four friends who are all big into it, good at it, and seem to have accepted me into the fold. This means they have all the gear and have deep roots with the locals in the area allowing them permission on a lot of land. For me, this results in a pretty cushy ride, and to top it all off, I’m so slow getting out of the blind that usually someone else runs out to grab the birds. Now that I think about it, I realize I’m a little late on this year’s case of beer payment.
Historically, we have primarily hunted Canada Geese. In fact, on my first outing this year we managed to hit our daily limit of 8 geese per person. I also got my first double (meaning that I managed to get two birds in one pass). Another exciting side note, we had a lot of birds come in just before legal light, we left them and allowed them to land. As we sat and waited for the clock to strike, a stinkin’ coyote came by and scared them all off.
On my most recent trip, and the main event of this story, we decided to try our hand at snow geese. Historically, the area we hunt does not see a lot of them, we just aren’t in their travel corridor, is my guess. That said, Tyler made some calls and landed us permission on a field where he had seen a whole mess of those big white birds. It was farther east than we usually hunt, but I was more than happy to go a little farther to give it a try. Tyler, Kendra, and I went out that afternoon to give it a shot. We set laydown blinds along the edge of the field and set out a little over a dozen decoys, some were the sock type, which is essentially white windsocks, and others were some older Canada goose decoys that had been painted to look like snows. We also had the luxury of being able to use an electronic call for snow geese, something that is prohibited for other waterfowl species.
We got squared away… and then stood around and waited… and waited… turns out we were there a touch earlier than we needed to be. I didn’t mind, you all know how chatty I am. Halfway through my home invasion story, we started to hear geese in the distance, I scrambled to my blind and got geared up. My companions were already ready, they even had their earplugs in… probably just the type who like to be prepared. As we were watching geese on the horizon rise over the trees, I looked down and saw a coyote only a few feet from our decoys and maybe 30 yards from our blinds. I saw him about the time he pieced together something wasn’t right. He cut a trail straight away from us across the field.
If memory serves, the first few birds were actually Canada Geese, Tyler was quick to flip off the electronic call and call them in the traditional way. This first pass was a great opportunity for me to fire a warning shot at the geese coming in, at least that’s the story I’m sticking to. We were there for snows, it would be rude to shoot Canada’s right? So I just shot behind them a bit. My companions, on the other hand, must have skipped lunch because they were dropping birds like they were hungrier than that coyote.. who, coincidentally circled back for another look. The gunfire convinced him this wasn’t a party he wanted to stay for.
We had another pass or two of Canadas, and I decided I better get at least one. After that, there was a bit of a lull in the action. After just enough time for us to wonder if any snows were coming, we were surprised on the right by a group of about twelve coming in to have a look at our spread. I was shocked at how they fly. Canada Geese fly with purpose, in a very proper dignified way. Almost like a commercial liner does, very stead and straight to where they are going, all business. Snows fly with reckless abandon, like small songbirds, as they flew passed I saw stalls, dips, dives, and sharp turns. This made me immediately think about my questionable shotgun skills. Little did I know, today would hold the best shotgun shooting I’ve ever done, so far. After those birds did their initial flyby they did a few slow circles overhead, descending ever so slightly each time. With each pass, they would lower and raise their landing gear, almost like a practice run. Eventually, they came low enough that someone gave the signal to shoot. Two birds hit the dirt, neither of them mine.
After those first few were collected, we sat and waited. Suddenly, in the distance, we heard it… the sound of a large flock slowly working towards us. Within minutes the sky was full of beautiful white birds, the air filled with their raspy honks, the feeling of wind pushing down from their wings against our faces. We laid back, hidden in our blinds, watching what could only be described as a tornado of birds. All slowly circling above us, losing a bit of altitude with each pass. After a few minutes of being in shock and awe, I heard Tyler say “get ready…. ready… NOW!” and the three of us popped up and opened fire. My first shot was a clean miss, but my second, almost vertical shot connected, and my third, slightly past vertical and on the left also connected. The two birds fell out of the sky hard, both crashing just to my left, one into a small patch of trees, I could hear the branches break as they fell. We retrieved our birds as fast as we could and were able to get in shots at a few more passes before the flock dispersed, netting us a few more birds. I was quite proud of myself for that double.
I am unsure if some of the same flock came back, or another smaller one came in, but either way, we got another front-row seat to a vortex of birds. Unfortunately, this time, I got selfish. Snows tend to circle a lot and do almost mock landings, Canadas don’t do this. On one of the lower passes, I yelled shoot and surprised everyone. I thought they were low enough for us, and I was getting bucky and worried they’d get away. As I came out of the blind, it took me an extra second to get lined up and only fired a single shot… which knocked two birds out of the sky, no one else fired. They had been perfectly aligned and I am counting it as good shooting even though a case could be made for lucky coincidence. Unfortunately, this spooked the flock off and threw a wrench into my companions’ plans. They were forgiving but I was embarrassed. I jumped the gun.
Several times after that, we agreed to pack up and head out, but each time we started to get out of our blinds another small group would come in. We got shots at a few and gained a few more birds for the pile. Eventually, the writing was on the wall, they were headed back to water and it was time to head back and start cleaning birds.
Tyler and I started walking back to his truck and my car. Around the time we got there we heard two shots in the distance, we looked at each other and I said “That is either a good thing or a bad thing.” As we drove back, Tyler heard the third shot but I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my car’s suspension clunking across the field. We got there to find Kendra with an extra goose. It turns out it had come by, she called it in close, missed two shots, called it back, and got it on the third try.
We drove back to town and cleaned the birds, all that was left was my long drive back to the city.
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Book Hunting
I recently moved and my new place is within walking distance to a used book store. I have a real love of used book stores and never pass a chance to visit one. I’m a natural hoarder anyway, but I’m a real bibliophile on top of that. All that said, I found that my searching for old books reminds me a lot of my approach to hunting. I search in likely places and hope to get lucky. I could easily order the book online and have it delivered to me… that would be like getting meat from the grocery store, feels like cheating. Also, like hunting, I find myself interested in acquiring unique and rare books and shopping for them in new locations. One of my fondest memories is wandering around Victoria and happening on three different book stores. After a weekend trip, I flew home with nine books. Another parallel is that I like to look at other people’s book collections like I would their taxidermy or hunting photos. On that same Victoria trip, I treated myself to a visit to the Hand of Man Museum full of all sorts of taxidermy, antiques, and most exciting to me… books. The one that stood out to me was a signed first edition of Sir Edmund Hillary’s account of Everest (he was the first to reach the summit).
My new apartment needs some furnishing, and I could easily go online a buy whatever I need, but I refuse to. I enjoy the thrill of the hunt at the local shops for just the right item. As a result, everything I have bought for it is almost exactly the item I want and has a bit more weight to it, it feels like it was put there with a little more purpose.
I think, in general, everyone has their own versions of hunting. Thousands of years have pounded that instinct into us and even if you hate the idea of killing an animal… you may still love hunting for deals at a garage sale. Then again, that may just be a gatherer thing instead.
Anyway, enough about books, I’ve gotta hit the road and do some goose hunting.
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Blind Blunders
Hunting blinds and I have a troubled and ongoing history together. I just wish I knew what their love language was. They clearly work and work well for other people, and they seem to be my only option for archery hunting, based on my size 14 feet.
My first attempt at using a blind was when my brother and I borrowed a pop-up blind from our dad for a hunting trip. We met our friend camped out on some public land and set up the blind early in the morning, in what seemed like a good spot. We then scouted around a bit to stretch our legs. The next morning, we came back to find someone had relieved us of our blind. We saw neither the bandits nor deer that trip. That was nearly ten years ago. This last season I filled my whitetail tag via still hunting because my blind, days after being set up, was relocated by the wind down a hill, across a fence, and into a swamp. My brother found it while I was at work and packed it away for me. It appears this spring I will be doing some repairs on it in hopes of using it again, but in a more wind sheltered area this time.
My most comical blunders actually took place in the same blind during the same fall season. During the October bow season, just north of Athabasca, I had a blind set beside some bales in a field that the deer were grazing in each evening. A well-fed doe wandered up to the stake I had driven into the ground 20 yards from my blind and offered me a broadside shot. I silently came to full draw, took a breath, steadied my aim, and set the pin on her vitals. Then, as I released, I heard a peculiar “thunk” and watched my illuminated knock slide just under her, I could swear I heard the fletching brush her hide. After a moment of stunned confusion, I noticed I had sent my arrow through the window covers that were bunched up as a result of having the window open. In rifles, this mistake is called “failing to account for height over bore” perhaps in archery, it’s called “height over shaft”?
Later during November rifle season, in that same blind, from that same spot, I went back with a rifle. A little button buck I mistook for a small doe walked out and offered me a shot as the light was fading. Me, not realizing one of the advantages of a blind is that you can use a rest, sent an offhand shot. I learned quickly that shoot-through mesh only applies to arrows, this was evident by the shredded, smoldering, mesh in front of me. I could have tossed a cat through the hole I had made. I also realized that a 270 Winchester sure is loud in a blind. As my ears rang, I noticed the deer getting back up, clearly injured, and needing a second shot. With no time to put in earplugs, I sent a second round further damaging the mesh and increasing the ringing in my ears. Days 3 and 4 of my recovery were so quiet, it was a nice reprieve from days 1 and 2 where all I could hear was that darn ringing. My dad once told me he witnessed someone, in a living room, shoot a monkey with a 12 gauge and his ears rang for a week. There’s a lot to think about in that sentence, the 70’s must have been a wild time. My take-away is that I can sympathise with the headache induced by discharging a firearm in a confined space. In my case, it happened twice and was my own fault. In the end I had put my ears through all that for barely enough meat to fill the little freezer attached to the undersized fridge in my little apartment.
Now, I don’t begrudge those who manufacture, sell, use, or even encourage the use of blinds. I just fear they aren’t for me. When I hunt, I prefer to walk, take in nature, look for treasure. I found a nice mule deer shed 2 years ago while still hunting, can’t say I’ve ever found anything interesting inside a blind… well except that one time I got so bored in a blind I befriended a field mouse, he wasn’t much for conversation, but he sure loved cookies. I wonder what Ol’ Hank is up to these days…
I also think that few, if any, pop-up blinds available are able to withstand the experience that is the prairie climate, something so unpredictable and volatile that musicians such Ian Tyson and Corb Lund have written songs about it. I’ve had blinds blow away in gale-force winds, others have been so frozen to the ground my options were to take home the top half or leave it whole until spring thaw. The risk of leaving it until spring is that heavy snowfall can collapse it, or a lack of snow on top will result in enough UV damage that you can poke a skylight in the ceiling with a finger… maybe I could use it for geese then? It appears my options are to walk or get a tree stand. Based on my luck with blinds, I fear what may become of any dalliance I make into tree stand usage.
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A Limit and A Band
I am still pretty green when it comes to waterfowl hunting. However, there is one thing I know, the two goals of knocking birds out of the sky, is to get your legal limit for the day, and the other is to get a banded bird.
For goose hunters chasing Canada geese, that magic limit is 8 geese per person hunting that day. Reaching this limit is the ultimate show of prowess for a hunter. There is no other real way to show success beyond perhaps dabbling in a variety of birds also called mixed bag shooting. To accomplish this takes an intersection of preparation, shooting skills, and in my case, luck.
The bands are a tracking system, it’s a simple serialized metal band wrapped around the leg of a duck or goose. The simple explanation is that young waterfowl are caught and banded. At that time, the location, species, sex, and approximate age are recorded. A lot of birds are banded each year, but they represent only a small portion of the waterfowl population. If an individual is fortunate enough to encounter one, most commonly by shooting it, but in some cases, if a clear enough photo can be taken to read the band (shoutout to my bird watching friends), the serial number is to be called in. You tell them where, when, and how you encountered it, and they tell you their information, which is already pretty fascinating to me. They also send you a certificate to thank you for your participation. To my knowledge, they use this information to understand life span and mortality rates among waterfowl. For duck and goose hunters, that little metal band is a very coveted possession. The bands are often clamped onto a hunter’s lanyard as both a power display and a lucky charm.
Well, with all that said, I managed to get double lucky this fall. It started like most waterfowl hunts, I asked my buddies to take me out. As luck would have it, my buddies Dylon and Tyler were free, Dylon’s father-in-law, Andrew, also came. We decided on an afternoon hunt because that was the only time we were all free. We grabbed the goose trailer and went. The goose trailer is the greatest luxury I am aware of, a trailer loaded with waterfowl gear at all times, just hook up and go, THAT is living. If I ever win the lotto I’m going to have a different trailer for everything I do. We got to our spot just as the rain started to come in. We considered shutting it down right then and there, but well, we were all there and it looked like it might all clear up. As we were putting out the last of the decoys birds were starting to come in and the rain started to slow.
We jumped into our blind and got organized. It took exactly one pass of birds for me to realize 2 things. 1. I was rusty, very rusty. 2. Andrew knew what he was doing, I watched him nail a double with a Remington 870 (shooting 2 birds in 1 pass with a pump-action). I hadn’t met him before that day and was unsure of his experience, he clearly had more than me. Anyone of any skill level would of course be welcome, but it’s nice to know I’m still the least experienced in the blind. As the evening progressed it became clear we were really onto something with this spot and this spread. The geese came in in waves. As time went on I shook off some of the rust. Eventually, the thought occurred to us that we may be getting close to our limit. Inbetween passes of birds we took a minute to count them up. For four people we were allowed 32 geese, we were sitting in the mid-20s. We decided to start keeping closer track. As luck would have it, we managed to hit our limit. Sadly, as we packed our decoys and gathered up our empty shotgun shells off the ground, birds were still flying over and having a look at us.
We got back to the shop and the reality hit us, cleaning that many birds was going to be a real chore… Well, nothing to it but to do it. We all set to work on cleaning. As we were working we were chatting and I was asking a bit about bands and how rare they were. Dylon had explained that he worked briefly for an outfitter, a professional taking paid clients out nearly every day would see about 2 bands a year. Almost at the same moment, I noticed something flash from across the table, the bird Andrew was cleaning had a band on it and no one had noticed. I gave an immediate “hey look look LOOK!” there was silence, then a lot of celebration. It was the first band any of us had gotten, and everyone else there had nearly a decade under their belt. Dylon looked like he might do a flip he was so excited. We immediately checked all the other birds just in case. From there we went online and turned in our information on the band. When it asked for the hunter, we had no idea who had downed the birds (statistically it wasn’t me). So we opted to put “Primula Outfitters” it’s sort of a joke among our group. The area we hunt used to be called Primula, according to the old farmers in the area. There’s also a bit of animosity toward outfitters so it’s kind of a joke against them. Local outfitters get paid thousands for a hunt, my buddies get the occasional case of beer as payment. Although the standard is to clamp the band onto your lanyard we didn’t know who it belonged to so we just decided to put the band, still on the goose’s foot, on a plaque and hang it on the wall of Brad’s shop. He didn’t come with us on this hunt, but he often does come with us, we hunt on his family’s land and use his shop every time. There you have it, I was able to get double lucky on my first hunt of the season and hit two big waterfowl milestones in a single outing.
We were informed that it had been banded near Edmonton in 2017, it was a male, and at the time of banding it was too young to fly.
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Thoughts On Single Shots
This was originally published in the March/April 2020 Canadian Firearms Journal you can subscribe to the magazine by joining the NFA at www.NFA.ca
As I write this, the current Canadian government is promising gun control which would see a ban on semi-automatics. In light of this fact, let me state clearly, immediately, and without apology. I do not support ANY gun laws. I want to be clear, I fear, what you may have read, is that I don’t support tough gun laws. What I meant was, I do not support any. Licenses can be made nearly impossible to get and work as a restriction in themselves. I want people to be able to own full-auto, unregistered, and suppressed. All these anti-gun people want to do is sell you the idea that there are good guns like hunting rifles and bad guns like assault rifles… then all they have to do is slowly lower the bar until all guns are moved from good guns to bad guns. So DO NOT mistake this article for a “no one needs a semi-auto to hunt” article. If you fall for that flimsy argument it ends with “if you need a compound bow, you’re not a very good hunter”.
My love of the M14 aside, I have always had a strange love of single shots. In fact, my patriotic love of Cooey firearms recently led me to jump at the chance to pick up a model 84 for a wallet-draining $50. The previous owner had lost the front sight, so a quick comb through the old parts bin and a bit of filing and it was right as rain. The first three shots out of that gun resulted in 3 dusted clays floating to earth.
I love making old guns work again. This fascination likely started when I was young, about 12 I believe, and I restored my first rifle. A Cooey single shot bolt action .22. The barrel had to be sanded and re-blued, it still bears my fingerprint from touching it too soon. The stock was sanded, wet sanded, given a once over with steel wool, whetted to stand the fibers up, and hit again with steel wool. I’m not sure I’ve ever been prouder of a project. I spent a lot of my high school years pushing ammo through that gun.
Years later I treated myself to a Ruger 10/22 and sold it shortly after. I found I killed fewer gophers with it because my shooting fundamentals vanished into thin air when I knew I had a followup shot… at the time I had 25 followup shots, actually… but the gun control state changed that. I sold that rifle and went back to my Cooey, occasionally rotating in my bow, an old pump action .22, and most recently a .17hmr bolt action. They all work well but I still find the single-shot works best for me. Maybe it’s the nostalgia factor.
Next in life, I started to dabble in long-range shooting. I started with a $100 used Savage 110 in 300 win mag. I found a hand-load recipe that worked very well for it. I also treated it as a single shot so I could index the brass. Allow me to explain: I take a marker and make a black line up the side of the case right above the “3” in “300 win mag” on the headstamp. I then make sure all casings are resized and loaded on my press with that line facing the same way. When I load them into my gun the line is up. This way, if there is anything out of alignment on my press it will be consistently out of alignment in my ammunition. As a result, I have stretched this gun out to 1000 yards (walking it into the target), I am confident in my cold bore (first shot on target) out to 500 yards. I actually ended up taking my first mule deer with that Savage.
Gas guns and bolt guns, with magazines, can be amazingly accurate, of that fact, there is no denying. There is a reason PRS shooters use them. However, it is still worth a mention that for a budget gun, a single shot will do impressive things. A true single shot bolt action will also be more rigid in the receiver, and rigidity leads to repeatability and accuracy. This may explain why so many long-range and precision shooters, such as F class and benchrest, use them. Funny, and telling, story… My mother once used a custom .223 wssm built on a Gaulin single-shot action at a “poker rally” long-range shoot. She ended up with a full house and won a custom .260 Remington built by EM Precision. My mom’s a cool lady.
Most recently I found myself getting into waterfowl hunting. Some friends and I went out and I brought with me a beautiful Benelli Super Black Eagle semiautomatic shotgun. I had a great time, but sadly, I found I circled back onto my old gopher shooting problem. Perhaps some people, such as myself, just shouldn’t hunt with semiautomatics. The next trip out, mostly as a joke, I brought my old H&R single shot 10 gauge. I bought it cheap, used, many years ago for no reason other than the price, $60 if memory holds true. I actually ended up finding I had better luck per fly over with the single shot. All this season it is all I have been using. It feels very weird to leave a Benelli behind for an old break-action, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Despite my friends telling me “you can’t hunt with a single shot” I haven’t noticed myself lagging behind the group. Maybe I just need to work my way up to a semi-auto. So should I now buy myself a nice double-barrel shotgun or a nice pump action as the next step toward my recovery?
I spend a lot of time waxing poetic about cheap single shots, which, let us be honest, is my wheelhouse. However, I feel I would be remiss if I did not mention that there are some beautiful single shots in existence that I would be plenty happy to own. A few examples that come to mind, of guns that I have shot, are: the AR-50, a single shot, bolt action, 50 BMG, look it up, its as fun as it looks. Another is the Ruger No. 1 a high wall action well known for its ability to handle powerful cartridges. My step-father used one in 7mm Remington Magnum as his go-to hunting rifle for many years. A funny story comes to mind, about a pumpkin. It was late fall and some of my step-dads friends had come over to sight in a new 7mm one of them had purchased. Sufficiently satisfied with its grouping and placement on paper, they decided to try and shoot a medium-sized pumpkin at 200 yards. After 5 or so attempts that struck little more than dirt, Darrel, my step-dad, ran into the house. He returned with his No. 1 and one of his hand-loaded rounds, the only ammunition his guns see are hand-loads. A quick aim and a gentle squeeze later a medium-sized pumpkin was a big sized mess on the hill. That story more shows the importance of practice rather than the superiority of single shots, but I still felt like sharing. The last firearm of note is a Blazer K95, I simply do not have the vocabulary to explain the beauty of this gun. It is miniature in stature yet feels a natural size when shouldered, as though it were made for me. The attention to detail is staggering. The one I handled had the full-length wood stock, from bow to stern all of the grain of the wood pieces aligned. It’s the kind of gun I felt I needed white cotton gloves to handle, it shocks me that people would subject them to the abuse that hunting often demands… but maybe someday when I am rich I will understand.
So, perhaps it’s true, that I don’t need, or currently want, a semi-auto for hunting. But it will be a cold day in a well-known hot place before I tell someone they shouldn’t have one for hunting, or really any other reason. That reason, of course, being none of my, or anyone else’s business. My gun safe has a great many single shots, and they sit right alongside my semi-automatics, and hopefully, they always will.
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The Gift of a Mule Deer
This story takes place in 2018 and was originally published in the July 2019 issue of “Alberta Outdoorsmen Magazine” the published version is much shorter.
6 weekends, each bracketed by a fifty-hour work week, in a machine shop, a job I was new to, in a new career field. Thousands of kilometers driven to my parents’ farm and back, all on the tail end of a very mentally stressing hike on the West Coast Trail. Every muscle in my legs hurt, I had, what felt like, a permanent dehydration headache compounded by exhaustion.
My usual routine was that I would drive straight from work on Friday to my parents’ farm and hunt until Sunday afternoon. I always wanted to stay for the Sunday evening hunt but I knew it would make me too tired to drive home safely. I was especially motivated this season because I was awarded a draw tag for an Antlered Mule Deer. I intended to fill that tag or die
On the first weekend of rifle season, I took a walk to a far corner of the property to see if there were mule deer where I had seen so many the previous hunting season. I had avoided the area during archery season, as it’s very open making a stalk or an ambush nearly impossible. If there were deer, they would likely be sunning themselves high on the hill and watching the field, I elected to take a long way around. This allowed me to stay hidden in the trees. As I broke out of the bush along a narrow game trail I spotted a small group of mule does, up on the side of a hill, where I hoped they would be. They spotted me immediately, to my camouflages disappointment, from nearly 400 yards out. They didn’t run, and I did not move. It was a silent stalemate, both parties quite interested in the other. Eventually, my mannequin training paid off and they lost interest. I took a few steps closer, my goal being to get behind cover and get comfortable. My theory was: if there are does here, there will eventually be bucks. The sound of my footsteps in the snow perked their ears, so I slowed. When I crouched, the water bottle in my pocket betrayed me. They got up and ran down the hill, somewhat parallel to my spot into a separate patch of bush. Seemed to me, their goal was to get around me and see what they could smell. As soon as they fell out of sight I laid flat on my back and watched for them. Sure enough, they stuck their heads out of the tree 20 yards away from me and searched around. Eventually they must have caught a sniff because they made that sound every hunter hates, they blew their noses and ran off.
I stood up and dusted the snow off. I congratulated myself on the small victory, now I knew where they spent their time. Mule deer tend to be pretty predictable. I decided my best bet was to make my way up the hill and hide in a small patch of shrubs up where there’s a better view. I slowly worked my way up and had a seat. After a few hours of sitting and watching an empty field, it was starting to get into the afternoon. I decided it would be best to head back to the house to have some lunch and prepare for an evening hunt. I had a good sitting spot in mind for whitetail, another tag I was hoping to fill. As soon as I stood up and turned around there
I got home and told my parents all about the excitement. I then headed out for a cold and unsuccessful sit for whitetail elsewhere. The next morning, Sunday, I was back on mule deer hill. By the time afternoon had arrived I had nothing to show for it and was starting to nod off. I decided I best get a move on and get home, it was still over a mile walk to the house and a 3 hour drive home. On, about, Tuesday I got a most upsetting text from my step-dad. It seems the neighbour had given someone permission to hunt on his property next to ours, this hunter had taken that deer. My step-dad had spotted it in the box of the truck pulling out of the neighbour’s field. It really threw my entire week off.
Big buck or not, I was back out hunting again the next Saturday. I
After sitting and watching long enough for my backside to go numb in the snow. It started to become obvious the big old boy just wasn’t going to come out. I guess it takes a dose of caution for a deer to get that big. Suddenly, like lightning, a deer ran out on my left, over a hill and into the middle of the field below. He stopped and turned broadside to me. His antlers were nice, but he wasn’t in the same league as the deer I was watching. He stood there, broadside, for a moment and it gave me time to think. I realized, I had my entire life to chase a monster mule, but this, this was my chance to get my first mule deer, on my first antlered draw. If ever there was a gift from above, or from the earth… this was it. A respectable mule deer standing perfectly broadside. I figured he was 200 yards out, based on my previous ranging. I made the decision to shoot. As soon as that mental switch in my head flipped, the circuits in my brain went wild. Immediately my heart rate increased. It’s hard for anyone to describe this sense of excitement, finality and yet uncertainty rolled into one. All of which desperately being stifled in an attempt to keep your hands from shaking. For every hunter, I am sure this is different, for me, it feels like my chest is imploding and building up for an explosion like a train is about to fly off the rails and its boiler is glowing red and starting to rattle. Yet in my mind, I have perfect clarity, like a runner’s high. I took aim, I lined up the
I checked my watch and made a mental note of the the minute hand. I like to wait 10 or so minutes before approaching an animal to ensure it is bled out. If I run up and scare it into the woods, its now a game of hide and seek and I risk losing the animal all together. After I checked the time, I noticed I was shaking really hard. I had officially been hit with buck fever. I pulled my phone out and took a video of it. I thought maybe it would be funny to share with my friends, but watching it I
After about 5 minutes, I pulled out my range finder and checked the actual distance, it read 160 yards. Immediately I questioned the integrity of my shot. I pulled off my binocular harness and
We got the deer home, skinned it and hung it up. To my everlasting shame, my initial shot had hit far back and high. I have no excuse for the poor shooting, on a normal day I can hit a “kill zone” sized target at 500 yards no question. All I can say
The following day I fried the tenderloin in a cast iron pan with onions, garlic and morel mushrooms. It was delicious, but the thought of that pulled shot made it feel half earned… Like the greed and desperation that wrecked the shot had gotten into the meat, and only I could taste it. The following weekend I went back to my parents to butcher and pack the meat. I also turned the head in for CWD testing, after removing the antlers. The results, luckily, came back negative.
I am glad to have gotten my first mule deer and I am glad it is such a great example of one. But I am quite saddened that things didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked. Everyone who has hunted for any length of time talks about how eventually you wound one, or lose one outright. I guess it was just my time, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
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