Deer Hunting

My First Buck (Mule Deer shot in Colorado)

Hunting season opens in 5 days!!!  Yahoo!!!

Yep, We're hunters. For me deer hunting season is like a holiday. I start getting excited about it a week or two in advance. I pull out the hunting gear, start planning my hunt, walk around and check out my hunting grounds, choose my location according to the deer activity I notice in the area, site the guns and just start thinking, talking and planning nothing but hunting.

I wasn't always so excited about it though. The first year I went hunting I got the hell scared out of me and quit for the next 12 years. Nothing scares you more than the whistle of bullets passing by your head. I dropped flat on the ground face first and stayed down. Then I rolled to my back, just then this huge white belly came flying over the top of me. OK, that was it, I was done!!! I had just given birth to my daughter a few weeks earlier by c-section so dropping on my stomach really hurt. Then the sound of bullets whipping past me and finally ... having a deer jump over the top of me. Well, I guess that explains it all. I thought I would never hunt again.

As you can see from the photo above I decided to give it another *shot*. I moved to Colorado and met a man who was very much into hunting. It was a family thing, everyone went, even the little ones. BTW...Trying to keep young children quiet in the woods is like trying to nail jello to the wall. They just can't help but step on that twig or let that tree branch snap back into the face of the one behind them. Even so ... we always filled our tags. Did I mention that we had 6 kids between the 2 of us. He has 3 daughters, I have 2 daughters (I also have 2 sons but they are grown and on their own so they weren't a part of it) and my nephew was living with us. All were between the ages of 5 and 12 at the time. Amazingly they were all well behaved and very careful (just not quiet). Never once did I feel they were in any danger. They knew not to run out in front of us and to stop and be very still and quiet when given the signal. My husband would walk up front and all the kids would follow single file like little raccoons with me at the back making sure all was good. I don't think they liked the hunting part as much as they liked the camping part though. We made alot of memories out in those mountains. Hopefully ones that the kids can look back on and smile about. We don't live in Colorado anymore, and the kids don't go with us anymore. But, those times gave me back my desire to hunt and feel safe doing it.

Anyway, even though the kids won't be going and we don't have to camp out in the snow and pack a weeks worth of food and clothing I'm still totally stoked about going. We went out and sited the guns this morning. Took a nice long walk around the property and checked out the trails the deer were leaving in the dirt to see where they travel the most. Picked the location that seemed most likely to produce a deer and planned our hunt. When I got home I pulled out some thin sliced beef from the freezer cuz it's not hunting without some jerky to chew on. Put my tag on the back of my coat and started daydreaming about those cold mornings where you have to warm your fingers by wrapping them around your hot coffee mug.

One of the things I started to reminisce about was the year I went hunting by myself. A few years ago my husband got hit with a pretty serious illness that totally changed our lives (literally) overnight. That's why we don't live in Colorado anymore. But, that's a whole different and really long story so I'll just skip ahead here. Two years ago we were living basically out in the middle of nowhere. Hunting was pretty easy cuz we never had to leave the property where we lived. My husband really tried to get into the swing of things but it wasn't working so well for him so he went back to the house to rest. I wasn't going to give up. I knew the deer would be coming, I spent many hours out there figuring out where they were bedding down at night and the routes they were taking to and from there. I just knew they would come. Sooo ... sitting on the ground waiting sounded cold, I headed back to the house and grabbed a lawn chair. Are you laughing yet? Yep, lazy woman hunting was now in full force. I had my lawn chair, my coffee and ... my cat!! I tried chasing her back to the house but she just wouldn't go. I placed my lawn chair at the top of this little hill and sat there with my gun across the arms of the chair and my cat curled up on my lap, sipping hot coffee and waiting. It was getting near the end of the day and I was getting kind of bored and cold. I looked at my watch and noticed that there was only 15 minutes left to hunt. I was about ready to go in. Then ... across the field they came, running full force through the half cut corn. OMG. My heart started racing. They were still coming my way. About 130 yards away (give or take) they stopped. Holy shit. I pushed the cat off my lap, got up ever so slowly, walked around to the back of the chair, knelt down behind it and steadied my gun on the top of it. By this time I could actually hear my heart beating. Took aim ... and the rest is just an adrenaline blur as I watched the one drop. Too bad my husband wasn't there cuz the other one just stood there looking around and wondering what just happened. So, there it is, my favorite hunting story, how I shot my deer while sitting in a lawn chair with a cat on my lap.