Twenty-Eight Miles ...

So, I went around to get downwind of the area I wanted to hunt.  John was harvesting garbanzos, but probably up and away enough to not disturb things too badly.  Going across the wheat stubble, and along and into the draw, was noisy.  Ughhhh.  Too noisy.  I got to the draw where I would wait for the deer.  Noisy.  And I couldn't really get any good shooting positions.  So I went up to the eyebrow where I was the night before - but in a better position.  Prone, and with a wider field of being able to shoot without obstruction.  And waited. 

Sunset had its usual extraordinary glory - and as I was in the sunlight - I stayed all the more motionless. 

Then dusk. 

A full moon rose behind me.

And more dusk. 

Hmmmmm ... not the bustle of activity of deer of last night.  Had the commotion of the evening before been too great?  Nah, probably not.  Had my snooping at field edge spooked them?  Maybe they had bedded right underneath the field?  Maybe, but probably not. 

But now everything is turning into shades of dusk all becoming indistinguishable.

Maybe nothing??? No, keep believing.

Then she appeared.  They came right up the bottom - instead of around the edge of the field.  A mature doe.  And a littler one.  Range about 160 yards.  Dust? ... or something, made the view through my scope all the duskier. 

It amazes me how fast deer move even when they are not running, or walking.  Even when feeding they move amazingly fast across a kill zone.  I waited for an opportunity for a good target - and not one deer behind another.  The bipod provided a steady crosshair - but at 160 yards a whitetail doe is not a big target. 

At the `report' of the 260 a big dust cloud erupted behind the deer.  The littler one `shot' right, and the big one (the one I shot at) `shot' left - and at breakneck speeds, both of them, but in opposite directions.  She (the one I was shooting at) took a big circle out farther into the field and then headed toward the draw from which she came¹.  I was astonished! ... a clean miss?  Could I have at least hit a shoulder, or something to register impact? ...  How could this happen?

But in the corner of my eye the deer I shot at crashed to a halt just short of the edge of the field.  I hardly even noticed, as my attention was on the smaller deer that ran toward me.  From a perfect shot so quickly to a perfect miss? ... I assumed I wouldn't be going home with a deer.  I watched now with a different kind of unbelief.  Skepticism, perhaps.  She was lying in the field in her last flops of life, and then was motionless.  She was so lively just a seconds earlier - maybe she'll recover and get into the draw!  In reality the shot had indeed hit - and lethally. 

The other deer stopped and looked around.  Where is mommy?  She noticed me took a few steps toward me.  Are you my mommy?  ... "No, mommy isn't going to be with you any more."  (And she left.)

Gosh - what if the deer had run another twenty yards into the brush and then expired, invisibly?

I called home - Georgia answered.  I said I just shot a deer and would be a while.

So I walked over to the deer.  At first I couldn't find her - and though afraid of her leaving for the draw - she should be very dead.

I walked up to her.  She was lying on her side.  Actually, my shot had been perfect - exiting behind the shoulder after going through both lungs.  A shot that does not instantly drop a deer, necessarily, but one that does kill it very quickly.  A beautiful deer.  I thank God.

I methodically got out my stuff.  Put my gun safely aside, got out my knife, ate an Access Bar and drank my water.  It would be getting darker and darker fast - I loaded my headlamp with fresh batteries, assembled my bone saw, got out my game bags.  I put on an extra shirt, as it was cool and getting cooler.

I took my time de-meating her - not wanting to waste or spoil any meat - and not wanting to cut myself.  I took longer than usual - but did a good job.  On the exit side I even used my bone saw to take off the ribs as a whole - though not a big `rack' on an animal this size. 

On the other side the bullet hit front shoulder muscle - and while missing bone - still blood-shot some shoulder meat, which I left.

Done, I packed up.  I had my small pack with me - not big enough to carry the meat - so the ribs and loins I put in my pack, and the rest I carried by hand and over shoulder.  With gun, etc. (and a sore back) it was a tiring load.  I went part way up and then dropped some, got out my strobe, turned it on and left it blinking, and continued with a lighter load.  With the moon it was like walking out under a streetlight. 

I made it back to the jeep - unloaded what I had - and then drove out over the smashed stubble where the trucks had driven to within a hundred or so yards of the rest of my stuff.  The strobe worked great.  I went down to my stuff, grabbed the strobe and turned it off, and put the rest of the deer in a larger pack I had just emptied. So I got the rest of her to my jeep, and headed home.

Lessons learned: 1) a very `dead' deer can look very alive and run a considerable distance quite quickly.  2)  give yourself a wide field of fire - for a deer can move quickly (or not at all) through a small one (learned this the night before).  3) always keep believing!  Don't give up - even though it looks like they are not going to show.
 

On living in Northern Idaho ... here

¹ Going over the edge into the draw and timber is bad.  In the country I was hunting the fields on top are rolling but relatively flat.  But at the edge the topography makes nearly a 90 degree dive, into terribly steep, cliffy, rocky, cobble-y terrain, with dense timber brush, thickets, thorns, dark, wet, yucky, nasty stuff.