Tales from the Timber: Help!

EDITOR’S NOTE:

This is my first year of archery hunting. Let me tell you my opening day story. 

The day started out in my tree stand in the rain and a fierce wind. After two hours I hadn’t seen any deer and the rain was coming down hard. I decided I best move my truck to another location so I could get out if need be, as I didn’t necessarily want to camp out till spring. 

After doing that, the rain was still coming down hard, so I took a two-hour nap in our hunting shack (old trailer). Upon awakening, the rain had subsided so I headed out and got in a tree stand on one of our three food plots. Three hours later, I had sighted no deer and the rain again started coming down with intensity. 

It was only 5 p.m. but the sky was very threatening and the thunder kept getting closer. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, so I got out of my tree stand and headed for camp. I entered another of our food plots and three deer were standing there looking at me. After they bolted, I continued down the path to our third food plot and there were four deer feeding. They promptly waved their flags at me, so I continued on towards camp, resigned to my deerless opening day. 

As I continued on the path, cussing the rain blowing strongly in my face, I thought I saw movement about 40 yards ahead. Utilizing my woodsman-like skills acquired over many decades afield, I stealthily (a lumbering elephant wouldn’t have made any noise on that rain-soaked ground) crept forward and made sure that I was approaching from a direction that the deer wouldn’t wind me (I continued the direction the path took me, actually). 

I readied my crossbow and as this huge doe stepped out, I summoned up all my hand-eye coordination skills ( I put the scope crosshairs behind her shoulder) and let the arrow fly.  It was a good hit I thought to myself. 

I waited 45 minutes then began the trailing process. She had run into a thicket so dense a grizzly would have been proud to call it home. I entered this floral nightmare on my hands and knees and discovered there was almost no light in that overgrowth. After 40 yards or so, I spotted blood with my flashlight and began weaving my way to and fro through the thorns and sticktights.

Suddenly the heavy blood trail stopped. I circled around trying to cut the trail again. As I was doing this, my flashlight got caught in some dense vegetation and it was pulled from my hand.Try as I might, I could not find my light. 

So, there I was ... it’s totally dark, there is a nasty thunderstorm now in the process, a pack of coyotes were howling and barking very close by and I had no idea where I was. I sat down in the pouring rain and prayed for a merciful death. After a few moments of that, I suddenly realized that coyotes were no threat as I was much too old and tough for them to want to eat.

As for all the electricity in the sky, well being an old fisheries biologist who had fished with electricity for years, I figured that all the times I had been jolted and not killed in the boat, that I really had nothing to fear from lightning either. 

Then my survival skills really kicked in and I assessed what I had on my person that would allow me to get myself out of this predicament. So I called my son-in-law on my cell phone for help. He and his uncle arrived about an hour later on a four-wheeler with an extra flashlight for me.

Then, with a light, with all my years of training in reading the landscape, I found my deer (my son-in-law found her after I got lost a second time). She was a matriarch doe (huge body, very long snout, worn down teeth).  After I pulled her out to the path (my son-in-law and his uncle hauled her out as I had no clue which way was which in that thicket), we took photos and my first time ever day of archery deer hunting adventure was over at 9 p.m.
As described above, only my sharply honed deer hunting skills and vast knowledge of the outdoors allowed me to harvest this trophy matriarch doe and survive the rigors of Mother Nature and the unforgiving landscape I was in.