EckerNet.Com

Today, I happened to stumble across another Minnesota blogger I’ve never heard of before. Apparently he’s heard of us (the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers) because he’s got a listing of quite a few of us on his sidebar. Fair enough, but what really caught my attention was the post he had up on the front page, entitled Minnesota Deer Hunting.

Everyone remembers their first time shooting a Buck. Please share your stories and pictures of your first Deer.

Well I regret that I don’t have a picture of my first deer (and buck!). I know somebody does, and they had promised to get me a copy. But without going into the drama, said person doesn’t hunt with us anymore. But I do definitely remember how I got it. I got it my second year of hunting….although I can’t remember the year.

I hunt in western Minnesota, in the heart of the “shotgun” zone. Yes, it’s rural, but not rural enough that using rifles is allowed. Lots of farmsteads and farmers are active during this time, so we use shotguns shooting slugs. Our style/method of hunting and the tactics we use is 180 degrees different than the northern rifle territory. We don’t have big woods, we have groves of trees around farm houses, ditches, trenches, fencelines, and fields of crop. If you’re lucky the crop (corn or soybean) is out, if not…it’s a normal year. And we don’t hunt for weeks at a time. You get to pick first weekend or second….you get two days. That’s it.

I hunt with a group of guys, who I met through my dad. They have all hunted together for an untold number of years. The size of the group varies, anywhere from six to twelve of us, but mostly towards six. All good guys, despite most being staunch DFLers, which makes for interesting conversations over a beer later at night.

Most of our hunting day consists of doing “drives”. Which basically consists of most of the group (the posters) surrounding a grove, ditch, fenceline, field, etc, and then a couple guys (the walkers) go in one side making lots of noise and hopefully scaring the deer out towards the other hunters. There is a very imprecise science to this as there are infinite variables involved. More often than not the wind works against us. Lay of the land can too, because you have limited people and the deer have lots of options. Typically we’re just trying to plug the most likely holes, but it’s very very very common for deer to get out between two posters, often unseen by them.

On this particular drive, it was Saturday morning, and we were doing a drive on an abandoned farm place (Sidenote to MN Militia : You’ve hunted this property before). Big overgrown grove of trees. Lots of ditches coming in and out of the grove, lots of tall grass in these ditches, and the ditches themselves are deep. Surrounding fields are still farmed, and they are very hilly. Lots of valleys between these hills where deer can run unseen.

Two of our guys were going to walk in the north end of the property and push it south. I had been positioned in the southeast corner of the property. I’m behind a hill so I can’t even see the grove. My back is to a small thatch of trees at the edge of the road. To my left is a small valley between the hill in front of me and what used to be the driveway to my left. To my right is a valley on the other side of that hill, but also the end of one of the ditches. It’s a ditch that comes east out of the property then turns south and empties into the thatch of trees behind me. Beyond the ditch to my right, the field slopes up sharply to the road.

It’s an interesting spot, you got a perfect backdrop for shots everywhere. But you can’t see nothing. If you see something, it’ll be well within range to shoot, but sure as hell it’s gonna come out of nowhere and surprise the crap outta you.

The one exception to that is my dad. He’s positioned on the east road (ahead and to my right). There is a hill between us but I’m still new at the time so I think he’s still keeping an eye on me, because I can see his upper torso above the hill. However, I was smart enough to know what he could see. For him he is on high ground, he can see everything and everyone. Sure any shot he’s gonna have to take is gonna be a long one, but that’s why we put him there. He’s a good shot, and he uses a scope on his shotgun. Me, I like my iron sights.

So there I am standing for probably 20 minutes, I’m pretty sure they’ve started the drive so I’m waiting for something to happen. When it does, right behind me a pheasant hen finally decides to get up, and scares the crap outta me. I’ve been standing there for 20 minutes already!!! What the hell?? I’m pretty sure I have to change my shorts.

I’m just getting my breath back, when I see my dad lift his shotgun to his shoulder. Something must have come out of the grove!!! Where is it?? Is it coming my way?? Is it close?? Is it big?!?! I’m watching my dad as he tracks the thing through his scope. I’m straining to tell which way his gun is moving so I know if it’s coming towards me.

Dear God, what is taking so long!?!?

Finally I can tell, the deer must have spotted (or winded) my father, it’s turned south!!! I can see my dad turning.

BANG!!

A shot!!!

BANG!!

Another shot!!

Two shots??? He’s got another one in his gun….did he hit it?? Or did it turn?? Now it’s also possible it was a long shot and he’s mostly shooting to get the deer to turn towards one of the other guys. Later I learned that’s exactly what he was doing. As luck would have it, the deer dropped into the ditch and headed south…towards me.

I’m watching the ditch, while also trying to watch the valley to my left. Remember, I don’t know my dad didn’t kill it with his second shot. Suddenly, I see it, no more than 30 yards in front of me. Bounding down the ditch. On the down side of the bounce he’s gone, I can’t see him, but when he bounds up, I can see his upper chest. And of course I can see the head with a decent rack on the top. In our area, whether due to genetics or diet, deer don’t grow big racks…eight points is a decent rack here. This guy had eight (barely).

I try to time/track his hops, and guesstimate on when/where he’ll be jumping up again. I aim at where I think he’ll be. Sure enough, I see him start coming up out of the ditch a bit before where I’m aiming….perfect!!!

BANG!!

I can see the hair on the side of his rib cage puff out. A hit!!! Clean hit to the heart!!!

Internally I’m celebrating, but I don’t have it yet, I continue to track. I’d really prefer not to shoot again, by this time I’d be shooting at hind quarters, where most of the meat is.

The deer stumbles after my shot as he comes out of the ditch into the trees behind me. He’s hurt bad, he knows it. I’m really kinda hoping he decides to hide in these trees.

BANG!!

A shot?!?!??

BANG!!

Another shot?!???

I look over to see my dad standing at the top of the hill between us, shooting down on the buck. MY BUCK! He doesn’t know I hit it, he thinks I missed and I can’t see it through the trees. But apparently he can, and despite the fact that the distance is about the edge of the effective range for his slugs, he’s trying.

“NO!!!!!! Stop shooting!!” I yell frantically, as my buck takes off like it’s not even scratched. It was thinking about laying down. Now that there is lead flying at it again, it’s outta here!

Damn it!!!

Just because I hit it in the vitals doesn’t mean it can’t go a long ways. We’ve seen them run 100 yards, tuck themselves under a log or hide in some tall grass and die. I know for certain there has been at least one fatally shot deer that ran on us and despite our best tracking we never found.

I watch in agony as my deer, my first deer, crosses the road behind me and disappears into a grove across the road.

Well, the drive is still going on. I can’t abandon my position. I stick it out, nothing further comes my way, although with all the shooting it’s hardly surprising.

Once I see my dad packing up his gun, and heading towards the truck. I immediatly go into tracking mode. This is a role I’m actually pretty good at. And even though I bitch about it every time, I do kinda enjoy. And with me being the youngest, the other guys are more than happy to let the guy with the youngest eyes and legs track a wounded animal for who knows how long.

I walk over to where I shot it, sure enough, blood splatter on the surrounding grass. I follow it to where it stood and my dad shot at it. Blood from dripping, but nothing indicating a new hit. Follow the blood out to the road, I find where it crosses. Pick up the blood on the other side of the road. I sit down.

Hardest part of tracking is what I’m doing right now. Waiting. A hurt deer will find a place to hold up and lay down. If you hit the vitals, it’ll die. If you hit a leg/hip/etc, chances are that leg will stiffen up on them as they lay down. You need to give the deer time for that to happen. Go after it too quick, and you’ll just scare it into running again.

Plus this gives me time to yell at my dad.

Fast forward about 20 minutes. Ok let’s get going, let’s get him, I enter the grove. Laying not 20 yards in front of me is my buck. Damn thing barely made it across the road before it cartwheeled into the dirt.

One of my fellow hunters walks over to me, hands me a knife and says, “Heh, nice deer. Now you get to learn how to clean em“.

But that’s a story I don’t need to tell.

How about you, how did you get your first deer?