Thanks, Jerry! Working does really cut into the hunting time. It's one of the biggest things I look forward to about retiring. Maybe some day.
It was an interesting hunt last night. It's always hard hunting and scouting at the same time--I've never been on this ranch before and I was completely unfamiliar with the area. Here's what happened:
The part of this ranch that borders the road is an old graveyard up on a hill overlooking the North Fork valley, with many tombstones dating from the 1800s. I crossed that, climbed the fence, dropped into some bushes, and perched on a wet boulder to do some glassing. The alfalfa field about half a mile away and across the river bottom held a dozen or so antelope (for which I sadly didn't draw a tag this year) and several whitetails. Before I went after them, I decided to look closely around my immediate area, and spotted two does bedded not 150 yards away. That's more like it, I thought, and started creeping closer.
The wind was not in my favor, going exactly the opposite of both the prevailing breeze and the expected evening downdraft, of course, so I was forced to take an oblique approach along the edge of the available cover. I soon arrived at a place where there was absolutely no cover for 20 or 30 yards. One of the does had gotten up and fed off behind a clump of trees; the other was looking dead away from me. They were about 100 yards away. There was nothing for it: I had to either cross that open space or give up on them. There wasn't even enough cover to crawl behind. I moved quickly in a half crouch across the opening. Glancing down to check my footing, I looked up to see two white flags bounding across the pasture. Dang.
With less than an hour of daylight left, I decided to go after the herd over across the creek. The only way across the open pasture that provided any cover whatsoever was the fence line. Unfortunately, most of this fence line was marshy, with a few almost-ponds that were nearly knee-deep. But there was no way around that wouldn't result in my immediately being spotted, so I waded through the icy water. It was about 35-40F outside. My upper body was comfortably encased in several layers of wool, but it took a couple hundred yards before my feet got numb enough to quit shouting at me. I stopped frequently to glass, and was pleased to see that the antelope were moving up into the hills to bed. One less thing to worry about: Have you ever tried to sneak on a deer with speedgoats in the vicinity? It almost isn't worth bothering.
Getting closer, I began maneuvering into the open (and semi-dry) field to keep a clump of river bottom brush between me and the deer that I could see. They were, oh, about 250 yards away, a long but doable rifle shot. But of course, for us, that's where the real hunt is just beginning. They were about 10-20 yards out into the edge of the alfalfa, with nice, clumpy brush along my side, so I thought I might be able to slip on on one of them or, if they started traveling, get in front of them for an ambush when they crossed the creek.
Suddenly, deer were running. Not away from me, but across the field in front of me, right to left. I looked off to my right, and here came the neighbor guy, carrying a rifle, plodding determinedly along the far side of the creek bottom, making no attempt at stealth, not even stopping to look around. He never saw me, even though I was wearing a blaze vest (it's the law). He just plowed straight ahead, driving a herd of at least a couple dozen whitetails ahead of him. I'm not sure what the heck he was doing, but I don't think he was hunting deer. He could have taken his pick of fat meat does and probably a couple bucks, too. Maybe he'd had a rough day at work and he was just hiking it off. I know the guy; my wife used to work with his wife and we're all friendly. Might have to give him a call and ask him what in the world he was up to. But in the moment, after wading through all that ice water only to have my stalk blown just when it was really beginning, I'm afraid my thoughts were less-than-charitable.
Some of the deer looked like they were thinking about crossing the creek and heading out in front of me, where a big corridor of brush and trees headed up toward the ranch buildings, so I got behind some tall brush and took a little jog, hoping to get in front of them if they came my way. Getting into some trees, I slowed down and started glassing. Almost immediately I saw two bucks, one decent and the other quite nice, coming off their beds and starting to feed-travel away from me. They kept stopping to look down across the creek toward the fleeing does; I could not see the speed-hiking neighbor, but I suspect he was still there. There was no cover higher than six inches between us, so I just had to wait until they finally moved out of sight behind the trees.
I was running out of daylight. Perhaps I made an error here. Maybe I should have just backed out and not spooked them, but I've never killed an animal by backing out, so as soon as they fed around a clump of trees and brush, I moved in. But now that I think about it, I've never killed an animal trying to stalk against a deadline either, and I knew in a few more minutes it would be too dark to shoot. Also, my binocular eyepieces were rain-spattered and fogged, so I couldn't see through the brush very well. But I spotted those infernal white flags just fine, maybe 60 yards ahead, as the two bucks relocated their evening's activities. Did I spook them? Did the neighbor guy hook around my direction? Or were they just caught up in the nervousness of all those fleeing does? I'll never know, but I suspect they spotted me.
It was a nice hike back to the truck. After last month's elk hunting, walking across those nice, level pastures was a genuine pleasure, and there were only two or three marshy spots where the water went over the tops of my boots, so that was good too. And it was a fairly short drive home, where I changed out of my drowned-rat clothing into PJs and a fleece sweater before eating hot pad Thai and watching funny videos with my wife and daughter.
What else can I say? It was my first time bowhunting whitetails, and it wasn't my most skillful hunt, and I certainly didn't do everything right. The weather was fairly wretched and those marshes were even worse. And I loved every second. There are sure worse ways to kill an evening.
And Lord willing, I'll be back tonight.
