The Best Hunting Season Yet.

(Warning: This post contains possibly disturbing deer hunting images for some readers.)

Hunters in the distance on previous days

    On November 15th, we got up from our nap about 3 pm. We had hunted that forenoon, then came in for lunch to regroup, nap, and speculate about what had happened to all the fresh deer sign and tracks we had seen the day before.

    This left John and I to fill our two leftover licenses, a task we were capable of filling should things play out in our favor. I had shot a buck ten days earlier, the evening of November 5th; then a doe a few nights later. Son, John, followed up with a doe a day after that, so the hunt was still on.

I had shot a buck ten days earlier in the late afternoon of November 5th.

    

    The afternoon of November 15th, we were sitting in the living room overlooking Mikinaak Creek when John suddenly shouted    “LOOK! DEER!”

  
    We leapt to our feet the best that as our decades-old bodies could manage; Jackie snatched the binoculars from the coffee table to look.

    “One was a buck!” John said excitedly. “Could we find a way to go over there?”

    Mikinaak Creek is often too wide to jump and too deep to wade. Combined being covered with semi-frozen ice this time of year -- and no bridge with which to handily cross it, we were left to our own devices. I knew of such a place where the deer cross, south of the house that might be passable if the ice would hold us or the water there not too deep.

    Quickly dressing in our warm hunting clothes, gathering our guns, knives, and the like (notice that I left out headlamps ...) we jumped into John’s truck and drove down to the end of our road. I lead the way down the steep bank to the water’s edge where an old abandoned beaver lodge appeared wedged into the opposite bank. Water was flowing there; the ice obviously too thin to support our weight. John ventured upstream trying to find a crossing, as I went downstream toward the open water.

    The deer were using this place as a crossing so there had to be a way; the water in the creek had been low this fall, and I knew the area there pretty well. We could see their approach from the high grass swamp, then across a short old beaver dam, up another bank, and down to the water’s edge where they jumped to the south bank. I remembered there was sand there too and could see it through water that didn’t look more than a foot deep.

    Both of us wore insulated knee boots, so I ventured into the water first and waded across the stream stepping on its sandy bottom. Up the bank, and across the beaver dam we went, carefully picking our way through the waist high grass and knee-deep snow until we managed to access the west edge of the woods there, the northeast wind in our faces.

    Communicating with hand signals, John started off northeasterly, and I went northwesterly, paralleling one another about a hundred twenty-five yards apart walking slowly, stopping-still beside poplar trees or standing camouflaged behind the white spruce trees, motionless.

    The wind was strictly to our advantage, for wind direction is everything when it comes to deer hunting. Should a deer upwind of us, see us, it can’t smell us. As long as we remain absolutely motionless when confronted, deer often just stand staring at us trying to figure out what we are. I have read that they have great long distance vision but poor close range vision. https://deerassociation.com/facts-about-deer-vision/ 

    Old bucks don’t wait around to second-guess their vision. If they sense something is wrong with their picture they immediately take off.

    About halfway through the woods, I saw a movement about a hundred yards to the northwest of me, and I quickly stopped in line of a big poplar, then ever-so-slowly edged toward it to gain a shooting rest. The movement was a big-bodied buck with yellowish tan-colored antler tips that stood out against the dark brush behind it, but I didn’t have a clear shot.

    Suddenly, off to my right about sixty yards, a large doe leaped up from her bed in the snow, and ran toward where I knew John to be. I knew he’d get her if he saw her in time; I waited for his shot.

    I slowly turned to look where I saw the buck, I was thinking about how it might be trying to move around me on the west, along the creek, to catch my scent when I heard two shots from John’s gun, and after a short time another shot. I turned and watched the woods to the southeast of my position thinking whatever he shot at, may be circling downwind of John to catch his scent and I might catch a glimpse of it.

    A minute or two later, John texted me, “I can see u.” 

    Looking his direction, I could make him out in his blaze-orange coat, and walked to where an excited John was standing.

    “That buck was in rut; he was chasing her. They both came running straight at me. I shot the doe first, then the buck twice. Both of them fell dead within sixty yards of each other. He’s there over the fence,” he said pointing.“ You can see him there.”

    Strangely, although we were both elated by the success of the hunt, we knew the work that we’d have to do to get both deer out of there. Our less-than eagerness for it was telling on both our faces. Nonetheless, we set our guns to the side and begun the rather gruesome task of field dressing both deer; John removing his gloves and taking his knife from its sheathe.

    Gutting a deer is always easier with help. I gutted my buck by myself because help, in the form of family, didn’t arrive until the big snowstorm of November 10th and 11th. These deer of John’s that he had just then shot on the east side of the creek, were going to be very tough to get out of there; whereas the deer I had shot on the west side of the creek were accessible using the four-wheeler and proved no big deal. But now we were faced with getting the two deer from where they were and back across the creek again.

    I hatched a plan that I’d call Jackie at home and have her meet me, with the big orange sled, below the house along the creek -- and then have her slide the sled across the ice to me where I’d get it and pull it back to where the deer, awaited. 

    “Oh, and would you include to pack a couple bottles of water, two resealable plastic bags, and both our headlamps located downstairs on the basement counter below the paper towel dispenser?”

    Well, that wasn’t going to happen she may have told me in no uncertain terms after coming outdoors to check the area along the creek where I said I needed her to come. We yelled across the expanse of the creek bottom to no avail before she told me to call her on the phone instead. I could hear the frustration in her voice as well as she could hear mine; hers was the better idea.

     Dressed in her florescent orange coat and carrying a flashlight, she pulled the sled to the creek bank. Surveying the scene, she saw the difficulty she would have trying to get the sled to the ice, much less slide it across the ice there. How was she, a 78-year old woman, supposed to do that? Sit down and slide it down the creek bank to the water’s edge? Think again, buster. I told her, I'd call someone to help. She went back indoors

    So, I called the one person in all the world (Well, Palmville anyway) that I thought may help me. Notice I didn’t say ‘would’ for it would take a younger person of some manual dexterity, natural limberness -- and certainly strength, to fling that heavy-duty six-foot plastic sled across the creek to me -- and that’d be Chairman Joe, good ol’ younger Chairman Joe. He's only 75.

    So I called him from the dark woods using my rapidly depleting battery-powered cellphone. It went straight to voicemail, so I called Mrs. Joe. Explaining my dilemma, she assured me she was nearing their home as we spoke and she would call her husband and find out why he didn’t answer his phone; then send him on his way to rescue me once again. (I’ve become even more annoying since I’ve retired).

    In the meantime, John dragged his huge buck, by himself, closer to where the doe laid; I think he was running on adrenaline alone. We guessed the deer to weigh an estimated 180 pounds field dressed; the biggest deer taken off our place for 20 years.

    Joe called me back and I explained what I needed; he said of course he’d help Jackie, and he’d be over in just a very few minutes. I started to further explain my need of my boat as a bridge, as we had used before that way a few years before, - but decided against it as I knew he couldn’t to do it. I told him just to meet me below the oak tree on the point, where Jackie had dragged the sled, and shove the sled to me, and we’d take it from there. Whew!

    The sled was a big help getting the deer to the staging area. Anyone who has dragged a deer any distance through the woods by hand without one knows how big a job it is. Just before Joe's arrival, Jackie had relented and dutifully packed our two headlamps,  two bottles of water, and two plastic bags in the sled. 

Illuminating the use of night lights

    Edging down the 20-inch high creek bank to the edge of the slushy green-white ice, Joe managed to push the sled to me where I grabbed it, thanked him profusely, and disappeared up the opposite creek bank toward, where in the glow of his cellphone screen, John was texting his deer pictures to friends and family.

   Pulling the deer to where the boat would be, was labor in itself, both of us pulling the sled by gripping a little yellow nylon rope; tripping and stumbling over hidden logs,
    “Take a breath. Pant, pant, pant ...”

    Back through the woods, we rolled the deer on the sled. Secure it. And back down the narrow trail we had made pulling the first deer we'd go, along the top of the bank again, under the scratchy branches, the ones that left our hands and faces scratched; back to the point above the oak tree where the boat would be. “Take a breath. Pant, pant, pant ...”

“What’s the plan, man?” he asked me, looking over the top of his yellow lens glasses.

    “Now we have to get ourselves back to the other side, the way we came,” I said. “Then start the four-wheeler, and get the boat out to the point.”

    “Okay,” he said without hesitation. Gathering up what we needed to take with us, he lead the way back southwest through the triangle-shaped woods. Stopping briefly, he smiled and pointed his cellphone in the direction of his truck parked somewhere in the darkness across the creek; on came its yellow-orange parking lights as its engine started. Off we went again through the high-grass swamp, down onto the creek bank, over the beaver dam, up the bank, through the water, and up the high bank to his truck. Whew!

    Pulling into the yard, I got out and started the four-wheeler; I gathered ropes together, laid the 12-foot long aluminum jonboat down and pulled it around to hook onto the ATV then pulled the boat to the creek edge in a cloud of snow. We unhooked it and shoved it backwards. I pulled the winch rope out many feet and hooked it to the rope on the bow of the boat, heaving the boat out off the bank and onto the ice where it stuck like being dropped in wet cement!

   Venturing onto the ice while holding onto both sides of the boat, we managed to shove the boat to within jumping distance of the opposite shore, confident that after all that being cautious malarkey the ice was surely solid enough to carry us.

        Finally we positioned the sled on the top of the bank with the doe on it, and let it zoom down to the stern of the boat on the ice; there was no stopping it. Down came the buck on its back, and we rolled it onto the boat, and secured its antlers to the bow. Breathing hard; we stopped again to catch our breath. "Pant, pant, pant...You okay?” we’d ask each other.

     I walked onto the ice and across it (tho quickly) to start the wheeler, as John came across behind me. I used the winch to move the boat the few feet we needed to the west bank, where I had to get off and help John left the bow enough to start it onto the bank. OMG. When will this be over??

    Giving it all it had, the four-wheeler pulled the boat and the deer up onto the bank, where we unhooked it until I could turn the wheeler around and re-hitch. By this time, I think we were laughing. 

    John declined to ride in the boat and said he’d walk back to the house (As if he needed the exercise) but seriously I don’t think the wheeler could’ve pulled any more weight anyway. It really churned the snow and the grass and the willows to get everything all the way to the meat pole -- where even more work (and a couple well-earned beers) awaited us!

 The work begins.

    The hunt is over. The best hunting season yet, ends.