I realized that yesterday was the one year mark since my first post on here. A lot has occurred over the last few weeks. I am back at school in Minnesota and have class everyday again. After my last blog post I continued to go out deer hunting but my focus became hunting and not so much the photography aspect. As time left in the season began to run down I applied most of my time and effort into tagging a deer. I have to say, I spent a lot of nights in the field searching for deer, and of the first seven nights I saw a total of 3 deer, two of which are pictured in the previous post. On my eighth evening sit, eighth different place, second different farm, I finally found some deer.
On my way back to the car after shooting light was gone one night I saw three figures racing across a muddy, picked corn field. The next night my dad saw the three deer again and I mentally noted this spot and when I saw them. This brings me back to my eighth night of hunting. I remember this number very well because I was so disappointed with my ability to find deer. I wondered if it was me or if I was simply running into a stretch of bad luck. I asked myself, should I even be hunting? I completely understand the frustrations of hunting, that is what makes it so rewarding. The problem was that I seemingly could not find deer in the places I always could have before.
That eighth night, I remember sitting on my stool that I carry around, gun leaning on a short brushy tree, binoculars in hand as I scoured the surrounding fields and timber for a glimpse of antler in the brush, a slight movement, maybe the twitch of the whitetail that Iowa deer gather their name from. I sat as my shooting light dwindled from three hours, two hours, one hour. My afternoon had not started well anyways. The car I was planning on taking into the snow with its AWD had a dead battery. Forced to take my Chevy Impala (any hunter's dream vehicle) I hit the road (at least I could listen to my music in this car). With 45 minutes left in the evening's sit I saw the body of a deer running 150 yards away. My first thought was "why is this deer running? Its the first one I've seen in days and I already spooked it?" I quickly realized that the deer was moving towards me and that it had two others with it. These were the deer we had spotted previous nights and they were following the script perfectly. Tonight could be the night, but there was a deep creek bed that lay between us, would they actually cross it? After watching the deer for several minutes through thick brush, the two younger ones began to chase each other, like they wanted to scare the other.
The next 30 seconds are a bit of a blur. The deer quickly decided to come to my side of the creek and into the field that I was set up next to. The first one stepped out and I held my scope on her but the other one came running up the bank and spooked the first. I was forced to change position in order to get a shot but they caught my movement, I knew I needed to pull the trigger quickly. Just as I focused the crosshairs on the deer's chest I hit a branch with the barrel of my muzzleloader and the deer looked at me as I squeezed. I watched the deer run a little ways and was sure she had piled up in the draw 50 yards away. I found the deer after reloading my gun and discovered I had made a perfect double lung shot, one of the most ethical shots a hunter could make, and for that I was extremely proud. My first thought was to thank the Lord who now provided me with fresh, free-range, locally grown meat for my family, and to thank the deer who became part of this food chain that we play a key role. It is not easy to explain the struggle that I feel in a moment such as this. I must come to face the fact that I have taken the life of an animal that is part of His creation, but there is also the part of me that takes joy in having the capability to use the instincts of a predator and to harvest food that does not come from a farm, slaughter house and finally a grocery store. I will know where this meat comes from and in what way it was taken care of. My second thought was to call my father. This was the first time that I would be hunting, field dressing, dragging and driving home with a deer alone, but I wanted him to be a part of it as we have shared so many similar moments.
I noticed in the difficult work following the hunt just how great my appreciation for this deer and the species it belongs to had become. I dragged the deer through the snow, up to the top of the highest hill on the property as I stood under a star-filled sky an hour after sunset. Living in the city I had not seen such a beautiful sky in such a long time and every time I would stop to get my breath back I looked up and quickly regained my strength. I do not tell this story in order to explain the gory details that happen during a hunt, but because I discover something inside of me that traces back thousands of years within humans, which is the connection with nature. I am not saying an animal has to die for one to experience this because I of all people would know that is not the case, but that New Year's Eve on which this hunt occurred I felt like I belonged somewhere in The Circle of Life.
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