.
Saddle up... Lock and load...
As for myself, one thing that tops coyotes on strings is an encounter with a mature whitetail... The encounters elevate even higher when watching them through the eyes of my daughter... Seems as if during those encounters I see life a little less serious yet much more profound... Perhaps those encounters preserve an element from the Dark Ages, before Enlightenment brought about its many changes... Whatever it is, it definitely holds an element that only exists outside the realm of civilization...
My most recent encounter came this last weekend after rattling with the black rack. I finished up a series and bent over to set the antlers down... As soon as I rose up I see this deer at about 200 yards heading straight for us... I nudge my daughter; "Shooter get ready!" The deer was coming in on my side... I leaned back and got the rifle rested on the railing and pointed in the direction of the deer's approach... He was closing the distance fast, did not want to risk movement so I told my daughter that she was going to have to "just shoot over me"...
I looked at him through the binos and recognize him from trail cam pics... "It's Trash!"
It's a name my daughter and I came up with... Trash was one my daughter was hoping to shoot...
He stops at about 150 yards out... I grunt at him a couple times and he starts heading towards us again... I notice my daughter is breathing heavy... I whisper "relax... don't rush the shot". As he continues to close the distance I realize I need to relax as well... She is leaning over me and my jitters could affect her accuracy... I look over at her and think “[beeep] she is calmer than me”... Watching him through the scope she is calm, focused and has not said a single word... I whisper "are you good?" As she exhales she simply replies "yessssss....”.
He is less than 100 yards and his approach has slowed... I feel burning in my lungs… He is zig zagging through the cedars occasionally stopping, looking for the deer he thought he heard fighting... The closer he gets, the more the air around us seemed to grow a life force of its own, one fed by the power of this deer... It's the life force all true hunters know without words and it was filling all available space as I whisper "when he gets in this next opening I am going to stop him... Shoot him then"...
He steps into the shooting lane and I grunt at him... He stops immediately standing broadside, slightly quartering away and looks up at us... Absolute dead calm and silence... At that exact moment I felt like a 3rd wheel... I had set the stage for this faceoff between Trash and my daughter... Now the situation is completely out of my hands and up to her to close the deal... I remember thinking; "I would have shot by now" and then CRACK!!! He ran wobbly with his tail spinning like a cork screw just over a small rise and out of sight... I scanned every opening watching for him to run through and saw nothing...”Did I get him?!?... Did I get him?!?”… I told my daughter; "yes… the way he was running he is not going far". After a few minutes I decided for us to go down to where he was shot and look for blood... I did not see any blood so I walked to where I saw him last and looked just over the rise... There he was, not 30 yards from where he was shot...
This is my daughter's second best deer... That puts it up there with some of my best...
We created a memory that I will carry all the rest of my days...
It is now part of her and she will carry it as well...
Saddle up... Lock and load...
As for myself, one thing that tops coyotes on strings is an encounter with a mature whitetail... The encounters elevate even higher when watching them through the eyes of my daughter... Seems as if during those encounters I see life a little less serious yet much more profound... Perhaps those encounters preserve an element from the Dark Ages, before Enlightenment brought about its many changes... Whatever it is, it definitely holds an element that only exists outside the realm of civilization...
My most recent encounter came this last weekend after rattling with the black rack. I finished up a series and bent over to set the antlers down... As soon as I rose up I see this deer at about 200 yards heading straight for us... I nudge my daughter; "Shooter get ready!" The deer was coming in on my side... I leaned back and got the rifle rested on the railing and pointed in the direction of the deer's approach... He was closing the distance fast, did not want to risk movement so I told my daughter that she was going to have to "just shoot over me"...
I looked at him through the binos and recognize him from trail cam pics... "It's Trash!"
It's a name my daughter and I came up with... Trash was one my daughter was hoping to shoot...
He stops at about 150 yards out... I grunt at him a couple times and he starts heading towards us again... I notice my daughter is breathing heavy... I whisper "relax... don't rush the shot". As he continues to close the distance I realize I need to relax as well... She is leaning over me and my jitters could affect her accuracy... I look over at her and think “[beeep] she is calmer than me”... Watching him through the scope she is calm, focused and has not said a single word... I whisper "are you good?" As she exhales she simply replies "yessssss....”.
He is less than 100 yards and his approach has slowed... I feel burning in my lungs… He is zig zagging through the cedars occasionally stopping, looking for the deer he thought he heard fighting... The closer he gets, the more the air around us seemed to grow a life force of its own, one fed by the power of this deer... It's the life force all true hunters know without words and it was filling all available space as I whisper "when he gets in this next opening I am going to stop him... Shoot him then"...
He steps into the shooting lane and I grunt at him... He stops immediately standing broadside, slightly quartering away and looks up at us... Absolute dead calm and silence... At that exact moment I felt like a 3rd wheel... I had set the stage for this faceoff between Trash and my daughter... Now the situation is completely out of my hands and up to her to close the deal... I remember thinking; "I would have shot by now" and then CRACK!!! He ran wobbly with his tail spinning like a cork screw just over a small rise and out of sight... I scanned every opening watching for him to run through and saw nothing...”Did I get him?!?... Did I get him?!?”… I told my daughter; "yes… the way he was running he is not going far". After a few minutes I decided for us to go down to where he was shot and look for blood... I did not see any blood so I walked to where I saw him last and looked just over the rise... There he was, not 30 yards from where he was shot...
This is my daughter's second best deer... That puts it up there with some of my best...
We created a memory that I will carry all the rest of my days...
It is now part of her and she will carry it as well...