The first few days of our rifle deer season have been slow. I've seen a couple of does and two small yearling bucks. Not much better on trail cams, either. But the weather has been fairly pleasant, and the freezer is full from other hunts, so I am free to enjoy the hunt without any pressure, hunting with several different guns that I enjoy using.
Then the step-son calls and it looks as though he may be able to get a day or two to come over and hunt this year, so I decide that I need to repair/renovate a particular stand for him to use. That spot has become quite heavily overgrown in the past couple of years, and since I had built a free-standing elevated platform this year I decided to stick that pop-up blind on top of it and screw it down for the season. Yesterday after lunch I headed out to do just that, armed with saw, cordless drill and assorted hardware to make it happen. As an afterthought, I grabbed my blaze orange, my licence/tags, and a gun. I chose the Steyr Scout, mainly because I wanted something that worked and didn't require dicking around. I never expected to see or shoot anything, thought I might stumble across one of the omnipresent coyotes and perform a Nosleroscopy on him.
The project took way longer than expected...by the time everything was done, it was about 3:30, less than two hours of legal light remaining. I figured, what the hell, I'll sit here till dark. I've been making plenty of noise for the past couple of hours, nothing's going to show up. Within the next half hour, I was a bit surprised to see a couple of does and one of our familiar small bucks cross the field. At about 4:00, another doe appeared, in that weird way that they sometimes do...she was just suddenly right in the middle of the field. She was a big doe, and I casually glassed her, then swept my glasses along the far field edge behind her, 300 yards away...and then quickly dropped the binocular and raised the rifle. Bang/flop!
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I've never seen this guy before, either in person or on camera. Not wide, but tall, lots of mass, big-bodied...probably the nicest deer I've ever taken off my own property. He had the thickened neck and that arrogant strut you wait all year to see. And I almost didn't bother bringing my rifle!
Then the step-son calls and it looks as though he may be able to get a day or two to come over and hunt this year, so I decide that I need to repair/renovate a particular stand for him to use. That spot has become quite heavily overgrown in the past couple of years, and since I had built a free-standing elevated platform this year I decided to stick that pop-up blind on top of it and screw it down for the season. Yesterday after lunch I headed out to do just that, armed with saw, cordless drill and assorted hardware to make it happen. As an afterthought, I grabbed my blaze orange, my licence/tags, and a gun. I chose the Steyr Scout, mainly because I wanted something that worked and didn't require dicking around. I never expected to see or shoot anything, thought I might stumble across one of the omnipresent coyotes and perform a Nosleroscopy on him.
The project took way longer than expected...by the time everything was done, it was about 3:30, less than two hours of legal light remaining. I figured, what the hell, I'll sit here till dark. I've been making plenty of noise for the past couple of hours, nothing's going to show up. Within the next half hour, I was a bit surprised to see a couple of does and one of our familiar small bucks cross the field. At about 4:00, another doe appeared, in that weird way that they sometimes do...she was just suddenly right in the middle of the field. She was a big doe, and I casually glassed her, then swept my glasses along the far field edge behind her, 300 yards away...and then quickly dropped the binocular and raised the rifle. Bang/flop!
I've never seen this guy before, either in person or on camera. Not wide, but tall, lots of mass, big-bodied...probably the nicest deer I've ever taken off my own property. He had the thickened neck and that arrogant strut you wait all year to see. And I almost didn't bother bringing my rifle!
