2005, in retrospect

An absolutely true story by J.A. Miller

2005 was a great year for the hunter in me. I had been practicing my archery skills, in hopes of making my first archery kill, and I was able to spend a lot of time in the woods, which is always a good thing. After a rough start to my archery season, caused by a few, let’s say 3, misses, I did finally seal the deal and harvested an adult doe. I know most serious hunters would believe that taking a doe in archery season is a piece of cake, but since it was my first with a bow, I was tickled. But that isn’t really the reason for this literary account of my 2005 deer season. So let’s get on with it…..
The PA rifle season was a tough one this year. Despite an abundance of fresh deer sign all over our mountain, I didn’t see a single deer the first day, which is very unusual. I saw one on the second day, but didn’t get a good look as it was moving quickly through the brush. Wednesday, day 3, however, things changed slightly. Near the very end of the day, I was sitting along a trail counting down to quitting time. I had been very careful while sitting there to make any movements very slowly, and look slowly around before making them. There were many rubs and several scrapes in the area, so I wanted to be as cautious as possible. Apparently I wasn’t cautious enough.
I simply reached up with one hand and scratched my ear. As soon as I put my hand down, I noticed a set of eyes looking at me, and I knew those eyes had seen my movement. The deer turned it’s head and I realized that it had antlers, but the bit of brush between me and him concealed any detail. He decided to turn and go straight up the hill to my left, and it appeared as if he was circling above me. I slowly began to stand up, but lost sight of the deer for a moment and as I saw him disappear up the hill behind me, figured that he’d gotten closer than what I realized and he busted me again. That was the last deer I saw during the first week of the season.
Fast forward to the following week. Wednesday night me and a hunting buddy (Dan K) arrived at camp after a short 5 days at home. Thursday was pretty uneventful, decent weather and a couple of does sighted, but nothing for the game pole at camp. Thursday night, we had a substantial snow, amounting to about 8 inches of fresh powder when we woke up Friday morning. I headed out, thinking that the deer should be moving since the storm system had moved on and the weather was clear and sunny, but cold. I think I was wrong. I hunted for a few hours, moving through a few of my standard spots, and saw nothing, not even a fresh track. A bit discouraged, I headed down over the hill towards where I saw the buck the previous week. Again letting my guard down just a bit too soon, I stopped in some thick saplings very near to where I saw the buck before, and lo and behold, there he was pawing at the snow and foraging for some food. But he saw me before I saw him, and bounded off.
Figuring it was my only chance, I set off after him, following his tracks in the snow. They began to get closer together, which signaled me to the fact that he was slowing down to a walk. As I slowed my pace down to match, looking around, he must have been a little more on his game than I was. He stood up from some brush about 50 yards ahead and took off again. I thought, “Ok, that’s twice. I need to step it up, or I’m going to lose him”. Trying to be more careful and alert, I continued on. He wound me though some thick brush, and slowed down again. As I’m creeping along his trail, again I notice a set of eyes looking at me, too late again. He must have been pretty relaxed because he was feeding again, but once he saw me, he was off one more time. Heading for even thicker cover this time, I considered giving up. I didn’t have anything better to do though, and now I felt I had a score to settle with this guy. I wasn’t going to let him give me the slip. Now he was heading straight up the side of the mountain, almost making a complete circle from where we started.
He crossed over a logging road, and slipped into some cover I had hunted before. I knew there were some old grassy roads in there and that is what he was following. His tracks again slowed down to what looked like a crawl, then they suddenly made a ninety-degree turn off the trail and into the saplings. I thought, “Oh, no you didn’t”. But he had. I stopped, and slowly turned my head, and sure enough, there he was. But this time he was still lying down, facing his back trail. I figured he had to have seen me coming, but seemed totally at ease. My only problem now was how I was going to get my body and my rifle turned to face him. My persistence paid off though, and after what seemed like 10 minutes, I had gotten myself turned to face him, and my rifle shouldered.
I dialed up the scope so I could examine his points and make sure he was legal. All I needed was for him to turn his head slightly. I would be able to tell if he had all the points I needed to see. After what seemed like another 10 minutes, he did indeed turn his head, and though they were small, there were 8 visible points. I released the safety on my trusty Winchester and harvested that buck that I had worked so hard for. It turned out that he was a year and a half old, small racked, 8 point. Not a trophy by any means. But for me, he was better than any Boone & Crockett 12 point that might have casually passed by my tree stand. I worked for this deer, and the satisfaction I felt by successfully walking up on and harvesting a bedded deer was one of the most amazing things I have ever felt. It was a spectacular end to a great hunting season.