Who will win the hunt? ~ November 11, 1999

David Heiller

“Dad there’s a deer out in the field.”

I was only half awake when Noah said that on Saturday morning.

I had heard him come down the stairs at 6:15, half an hour earlier, so I got out of bed to give him a little moral support. It’s nice to have someone to mumble to before an early outing.

The temperature was a balmy 32 degrees, but he had on long johns, sweat pants, wool pants, two pairs of socks, a T-neck, a jacket, a sweat shirt, a stocking cap, and choppers.

For some reason, we think of deer hunting as a bone chilling experience, and Noah wasn’t taking any chances.

I went back to bed, still half asleep, as Noah stepped into the dim dawn. Then he told me about the deer in the field, and I was wide awake.

I stepped onto the deck, and looked at the field. I heard the deer snort before I saw it. It sounded like an air horn. It’s a loud and startling noise even when you are expecting it, and I wasn’t.

“See it?” Noah asked. My eyes, even with glasses, are notoriously bad.

He pointed across the pond, about 120 yards away. What I saw looked like a sheet of plywood, a big black square thing that moved very slowly.

“Geeze, that’s a big one,” I said. “Is it a buck?” Noah doesn’t have an antlerless permit, so he can only shoot a buck.

Noah had binoculars around his neck. He raised them up, but before he could focus, the deer had moved into some brush. Then we saw the dark shapes of two other deer following it. The main thing I could see was their white tails bobbing away like fireflies.

Our field

The deer were gone. It had been too dark to shoot them safely, even if one had been a buck. Another 10 minutes as we would have had enough light. But it was a great way to start the hunting season. What a tease. A giant buck—it must have been a buck! Did you hear that baby snort? And it’s out there somewhere.

Noah walked out to the deer stand. I went back in the house thinking I was glad that Noah hadn’t been able to shoot a deer from the back yard on the first morning. That would have been too easy. Have to suffer a little, darn it.

Noah came in two hours later. He was sweating pretty good. He hadn’t seen a thing. He mumbled and grumbled for a few minutes—as only a 16-year-old can do—then he shed some layers of clothing and headed back out.

That pattern was repeated Saturday and Sunday. He would give us a report when he came back. He saw fresh tracks, and a scrape that wasn’t there before. He saw where deer had been sleeping, saw their highways through the tall grass. He crisscrossed our 35 acres, dressed a few layers more lightly this time so he didn’t overheat like the first morning. He took along some antlers and clacked them together like fighting males.

No deer did he see, neither Saturday nor Sunday. But that didn’t

The garden, and the pond just beyond were deer magnets.

discourage him. The dim vision of that big deer haunted him like a ghost. He heard some shots to the south, and the sound of an ATV through the woods. “I hope they didn’t shoot that buck,” he said. “Deer don’t just stay on our land you know.”

I told him I knew that. It’s possible they got him, I warned. “But there’s a good chance they didn’t.”

Noah and Cindy went to town on Sunday afternoon. “If you see that buck, shoot him,” Noah: encouraged me. He paused a few seconds. “But if you don’t that’s all right.”

I told him I wouldn’t shoot a deer. “I don’t know if I could,” I said. I had watched Noah shoot a deer two years ago, and I had felt great sorrow. I didn’t have any trouble eating it. I know in a pinch I could kill a deer. But I wouldn’t want to, and don’t really need to, so why do it?

The anticipation of doing something like hunting is one of the great things about the sport. It’s that way with fishing for me. I know there is a five pound bass in Mud Lake, and I might catch it yet this fall. It’s the thought of doing so that brings a smile to my face as much as seeing a big fish in the bottom of the canoe.

Noah came home from town. “See anything?’’ he asked. I said I hadn’t. It’s hard to see a deer when you’re typing on a computer. He put on his wool pants, grabbed the 30.06, and headed for the woods.

So the deer hunt is on. Who will win is up for grabs, although I can see by the joy and drive in my son’s face that he already has a victory of sorts.