A Hunting Season to Remember

A Hunting Season to Remember

By Allan Olson

The orange clad army headed into the woods this past weekend in search of the mighty white tail to attempt to fill the freezer with some tasty venison and I was no exception to this party. I too was clad in orange and out on the mighty hunt.

Every year there are new stories to tell, old ones to bring up and memories made, some deer seasons for me, after over 20 years of hunting have faded into the background, one year blurring with another, not remembering which year I shot what deer or if I shot a deer. Of course there are a few years  stand out more than others and some are just a blur altogether.

However, I find it hard to believe that anything will top this year’s remarkable deer season. This year, I had the honor of bringing Nikolai with me. Not just to sit in the stand, but to actually hunt, he was going to have the ability of harvesting a deer also. Recently he completed his gun safety certification and he was all excited that he was going to go hunting with dad, grandpa and his uncles. Even better, his cousin Trevor was going hunting this year as well – so this meant two first year hunters, from the third generation of hunters.

Saturday morning both the young hunters were digging in to breakfast, as well as us older hunters, when my nephew quipped, “this another reason why I wanted to go hunting, the hunters get all the best food.” 

With two people in a stand, as both my brother and I shared a stand with our boys, our options were limited of where to go, but we selected our spots and headed out. While heading to our stand, walking on the road, I looked back and a deer jumped across the road and headed to the woods, well that was an exciting way to start the morning. We stayed in our stand for about 2.5 hours before heading back to the house to warm up – then at about the same spot, the small deer jumped across the road again heading the direction it came from earlier, again – that was interesting, but obviously no clear shooting or really a chance and Nikolai kept his cool and didn’t even raise his gun.

That evening, my brother and his son decided to take a stand on another property, so looking for a change of scenery from the morning and afternoon post, we took his stand. We were settled in about 3 p.m. when Nikolai hits me on the shoulder, “I see two deer,” he said. I quickly looked and he was right. I was armed with my Canon, and he was armed with a .243, he took aim and waited for what seemed like an eternity for the perfect shot, for one of the now three deer to turn just a little bit to make a good clean shot. I snapped a couple photos and then I heard the roar of the gun, I had coached him a little about waiting, but he really needed no assistance, he took his time, made his shot and the young deer crumpled to the ground. I’m not sure if he was in shock or if I was, but we both knew the deer dropped. I cleared the empty out of the chamber and loaded a live road, since he hadn’t thought to do that yet, “just in case” and we waited for the other two deer to leave. After about 15 minutes, a text message to his mom and the other hunters, we climbed down to examine his kill. “Right in the front shoulder dad, just like you told me to,” he said a few times clearly excited. This dad was beaming with pride and so was his son. With that one shot, he became the first of his generation to harvest a deer, hopefully the first of many to come for him and the other young hunters who will be joining us in the near future.

He wasn’t too keen on the cleaning process and although I did make him get his hand’s bloody, I did most of the work and cleaned the deer out. We climbed back in the stand and waited until dark, after all another deer might come out. As it turned out we weren’t done seeing deer that night. About 30 minutes later, another doe appeared on my side this time, Nikolai grabbed the camera to take a photo, and the deer quickly disappeared. Awhile later, he saw another three deer in the distance crossing the field, no clean or clear shot and no way to define if there were any bucks. We had discussed who would take the next shot, should a buck appear and as much as I would’ve let him have it, he said it was my turn. As fate would have it, those three deer were chased back across the road to us, instinct took over and I grabbed the gun, I dropped down on the first one, clearly a doe, moved to the next one, a nice buck – game on. I steadied my aim, squeezed a round off and it too dropped like a rock, I quickly cleared my empty and racked in a new bullet, but it was not needed it was down for the count, the remaining deer scattered to the wind, before I could even think of checking for another buck.

Nikolai and I were again excited, we had bagged two deer, with two shots, his first deer –ever - and my first in two years – it simply couldn’t get better than that, all on the first day of the season. Of course, we are heading out again this weekend to see if, just maybe we can have an encore, but this time of course, they would both need to be bucks.

I hope everyone enjoyed their hunting weekend and also made some memories with their friends and family. If would like to share your hunting success with our readers please, drop us a line at cltimes1@arvig.net.

Please be safe while enjoying your favorite outdoor recreational activity, and remember to take pictures to preserve a lifetime of memories. Remember to drive safely, and watch out for those buses carrying our children. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.