A Tribute to My Deer Friend

The Hungry Preacher just got a little less hungry.  Today, in a fit of rage, I shot a deer.  Actually, now that I think about it, it may have been a “fit of chilliness.”  But the important thing is there is one more cow in the world who will NOT have to be butchered in order to satisfy my carnivorous desires.  On behalf of that cow, I say to my deer, “Thank you, deer, oh cow of the wild.”

The hunt didn’t go quite as smoothly as one would hope.  I was in a tree stand, minding my own business, and 4 deer meander up from a creek bed maybe 60 yards away.  They walk my direction, then veer a little, giving me a side view from about 40 yards.  At this point, I picked the biggest one (read: the one least blocked by trees) and fired a shot.  Three deer took off from whence they came, while the fourth galloped straight towards me in my tree stand.  She was running oddly, and I was pretty sure that I had wounded her.  I just needed to finish it up.

Flashback to me loading my rifle an hour earlier: Forgetting that my rifle can hold more than one bullet at a time, I am only putting one bullet in said rifle.

Back to the narrative: Instead of calmly ejecting the casing for the shot just fired and moving the next bullet into the chamber, I frantically reloaded with another single bullet.  By now, this deer was literally about 10 yards away, looking up at me as if to say, “I don’t know how to make this any easier for you.”

I got my gun set, aimed, and pulled the trigger.  You know how in movies they always have the dumb person try to shoot someone while the safety is still on?  Well, I TOTALLY thought it would be funny to pretend to be that dumb person.  So while I’m laughing and laughing, trying to remember where the safety switch is, the deer is all like, “OK, I’m outta here.”  She bounded away back across the creek bed.

Fortunately, I was wearing my boots that work equally well as hunting boots AND tracking boots.  There was a blood trail.  I followed it.  I lost it at one point and wandered a few hundred yards before circling back and starting over, this time with my dad.  Is it weird that I actually thought about 6 different times, “How would Daryl from ‘The Walking Dead’ be doing this?”

Finally, we found our venisonian friend.  She had already entered into pre-cleaning stage without any further assistance from me.

Indisputable evidence of my hunting expertise (pixelated for our more sensitive readers)

I had offered my dad a deal: “you clean, I transport.”  He was good with that, and was excited to use a tool he had bought that is now tied with “Butt Paste” for first place on my list of “Favorite Products with the Word ‘Butt’ in the Name.”

If you have to ask, you don't want to know

This deal would have been a lot sweeter for me had I shot the deer at the deer stand when it stood sideways 10 yards from me and all-but shot herself.  My mishap ended up costing me another couple hundred yards of dragging a 100-pound deer through hilly and wooded terrain.

But all’s well that ends with filling out a meat order form at the butcher’s, so my day of hunting was a rousing success.

-THP