I went hunting with my husband this past weekend. It was a fabulous trip – and my first time spending more than one night away from Jordan. We all survived, no worse for the wear. By the time I got back, she acted as if she didn’t even realize I’d been gone. So much for all of my worries. 
So – I know that the vast majority of the few folks who read my blog are not hunters. Have never been, and never intend to go, hunting. Some of you may even dislike the whole thought process. But it is the most amazing experience – even though I didn’t actually harvest a deer myself, I am never disappointed by the beauty of the hunt. It is truly incredible.
34 degrees – Eastern Oregon – a quiet day on the hills, without many other hunters around. We are decked out in camo, from head to toe, and start off at the top of a wooded hillside with well spaced trees, and very little brush. There isn’t much wind, and the sky is trying with all of it’s might to snow – tiny flakes of glittery powder float around us, and little gysers of fog escape our noses with every breath. The walking is easy, comparatively speaking, the grade is slight, and most of the trees are still standing. We walk excruciatingly slowly – eyeing the ground beneath each footfall, to ensure that we don’t crunch leaves, or snap twigs, or twist ankles on anything. After a few hours of tiptoeing, I realize how much work it is on your feet to be so delicate about foot placement, concentrating to make no noise, from ball to heel. My toes start to hurt after only an hour of this dance. You have to move carefully, to walk with as little motion as physically possible. Try not to scratch, or wipe your nose if you can help it – tough to do when your nose drips from the cold air. Every 10 steps or so, we stop – to take in the full effect of our surroundings. Notice every tree, every rock, every stump, every bird and chipmunk – looking for movement; a flash throught the trees, or the shape of legs or huge mule deer ears, or maybe the gleaming white rump of the deer that you missed until it was too late, bounding away from you like the easter bunny.
We had walked for almost 2 hours – and deer sign was everywhere. Saplings rubbed clean of bark – hoof prints galore – little black pellets of poo that we can never help but smash with our boot, to figure out how fresh they are. We find ourselves in a small clearing – a cedar tree in the center. The sun shines in, and green grass and small plants surround us. This looks like deer heaven. Then I notice a pile of poo that I suspect is not a deer…. It belonged to a black bear – one that we didn’t see, gratefully. As we crossed to the other end of the clearing, we stop to have a break. I’m looking all around, and notice a squirrel – small, with a rusty red belly and slender tail. It scampers down a tree, making more racket than you would believe possible from such a small critter, and scales a downed log like a balance beam, angling directly towards me. It has no idea that I am standing there. It stops at the end of the log, can’t be 5 feet from where I’m standing, and it starts nibbling at a pinecone – digging for the luscious seed stuck there between the horny bracts of the cone. I couldn’t help but smile, it isn’t often that you see one of these guys so at home, within arm’s reach of your self. It must have noticed my smile, for it dropped the cone, and suddenly flattened itself, straddling the log with all fours. Then it lept onto the closest tree, and raced up it, chattering loudly enough for the entire forest to hear that someone was in the woods. Little bugger.
We had a granola bar, and stupidly talked for a moment, in a voice louder than a whisper. BJ says to me, exasperated, “I can’t BELIEVE we haven’t seen any frigging deer!” And then I see him freeze – granola bar halfway to his mouth. “THERE IS A BUCK LOOKING RIGHT AT ME” he whispers. I too pause mid-bite, not sure wether or not he is teasing me. When he repeats himself, I try to quietly sidle up next to him and lean in to see – sure enough, there is a little buck – ears perked, antlers extending up from the center, staring directly at us. It lasts only a moment, and then he is gone. There are at least 5 other deer with him, as we discover only by their white flag tails all bounding away from us. We scuffle, and guffaw, and try to catch our breath – we let down our guard, and were discovered.
The excitement that comes when you find yourself in a position to take a worthy buck is turly indescribable. We found ourselves, at one point, surrounded by deer. BJ froze again, whispering to me that “there are deer everywhere!” It takes me a while to see them, you can’t believe how well camoflaged they are, they simply blend in with all of the colors of the forest – you can only pick out their outline – or the white outline of ears, or rumps. There were a group of them only 50 yards away, oblivious of us, walking in our direction. We were partially hidden, behind a draping branch of a fir, and managed to get down on our knees. My adrenaline spiked like a thermometer in super boiling water – my heart starting beating so fast that I could feel it in my throat, and my stomach started rumbling, as if a sudden bout of indigestion had struck. Can I really shoot and make the kill – or will I miss? Oh god, they are walking right to us – they will run into us before I get the gumption up to pull the trigger….. But the lead doe is sketchy – she knows something is amiss. The bucks are impatient, they want to get down the hill – but the doe keeps skittering around in front of them, bracing on slightly straddled forelegs, peering around branches, as alert as a being can get. The bucks push onward, and she scampers in front of them again – OH god, are they going to stop, just a bit farther, I can’t see the bucks in the shadows, behind the huge ears of the ultra-alert doe. My heart is thumping in my ears at this point, my blood boiling so that the hairs on my arms are all standing on end, and I can feel goosebumps, though my adrenaline rush has me so warm that I’m sweating….. And then she bolts – backwards, taking the rest of the small herd with her. Although she didn’t pinpoint us, she knew that something was amiss. And in a moment, they were gone – disappeared into the woods. BJ and I crumble – the tension in our bodies relaxing faster than we wanted, suddenly, and I realize that I have pins and needles coursing through my legs that I’ve been kneeling on, and I can hardly stand. The thermometer drops as quickly as it shot up.
The rest of the day continued this way, several times we froze and readied ourselves, to no end. Everyone should feel the sudden excitement, it comes on so fast it can drop you to your knees. You can hardly think, but you are so focused that nothing else registers. It is pure adrenaline, the likes of which I have never experienced other than when hunting. Amazing doesn’t come close to describing the feeling.
The country is beautiful – even the areas that have burned, with only a few trees still standing, the rest of them laying down like a perverted oversized game of pickup sticks that you have to climb over while attempting to make no sound. We find ourselves at the top of ridges, with rocky bluffs plummeting to snow patched slopes into veritable canyons – the wind blowing so hard that you may just blow away like a handful of sand. There are thickets of trees thick enough that nothing green grows beneath them – deer scramble around you in every direction – as you duck, and whip around, and squat, and finally give up, as there are too many to focus. We spook a herd of Elk – didn’t see them, but can hear them, pummeling the ground and crashing through the trees as we approach. We spot does at far ends of clearings, watching them graze and move in perfect silence – they never make a sound, even when they catch your scent and dart away.
We really don’t stand a chance out there, the deer have such an advantage – their silence, their natural camoflage – I feel priviliged to just see them. To blend in with their environment is the ultimate challenge, and to wait for the perfect canditate to come along before taking a shot – if you are lucky enough to get such an opportunity.
It is amazingly beautiful – to see nature this way. Hunting is such a perfectly natural, basic, instinctual sport – there is truly nothing like it. My husband managed to land a lovely buck – before I got to the camp to join him. So we will have delicious venison for the winter. And while I didn’t fulfill my competitive streak, and out-do him, I had the most amazing experience.
Here is his big boy. I hope that I don’t offend anyone by showing the trophy – this game we call hunting can only be truly understood and appreciated by those who join the game. It is so much more than taking the shot – it is truly being one with the wilderness.
