Nick Simonson
By Nick Simonson
In the dim of pre-legal light, my eyes caught something out of place on the final morning of my deer hunting weekend. With obligations and holiday travel set up for the back stretch of the firearms deer season, time was ticking away to fill a tag and I wasn't in a place to be picky. However, as I settled in and tucked my lightly gloved hands into the blaze orange quarterback's pouch around my waist and felt the heat of the packet warmers bring my fingers back to life, I wasn't all that concerned as I stared into the blue-black view of pre-dawn.
From my vantage point over the 16 hours or so in the field, I had one of the best outdoor weekends I can recall, all without pulling the trigger. Certainly, there were abundant deer that cascaded into and along the edges of the tangled acreage on the eastern side of the Waterfowl Production Area, mostly at dawn and dusk but also randomly throughout the afternoons as well. Having that lake to the west kept a constant flow of Canada geese and snows and blues pouring into and out of the staging area along their respective migration lines, and kept a couple sets of bald eagles periodically soaring overhead. The sky was rarely quiet, and the ground was often just as loud.
It's hard to describe just how much noise a pheasant or two can make in still conditions, and their skittering through the leaf-carpeted underbrush makes them sound about as loud as a deer and certainly gets the endorphins flowing. While watching a pair of amorous whitetails, I was pulled away from the courtship scene by what almost sounded like a moose thundering through the scrub adjacent to the blind. Instead, it was a dozen pheasants walking out and then taking flight into the evening air just a few yards from my position between the two bushes, setting my system alight with an overdose of surprise adrenaline.
Roosters trekking over fallen leaves in the brush can bring on an adrenaline rush, when listening for anything that sounds like a deer. Simonson Photo.
It was those two bushes that served as a clue that something was just a bit off in my final, morning sit for the season. In the waning mix of night's shadows and the first light of day a third bush held, amorphous and unidentifiable on the edge of my struggling vision, even after two days of staring at the same scene. If it was anything, it seemed out of place. Reaching for my optics, in hopes of drawing in more light and helping my eyes determine if the bush was just forgotten in memory, or something a bit more tangible, I lifted my right hand from the warmth of the pouch.
As I did, the bush grew a head and two pointy ears and in the low light the white flash of a long and alert tail sprung up and bounced side-to-side as the shrubbery turned into a whitetail deer and bounded off along the trail between the slough to my north and the trees to my east. Frozen in mid grab, my arm dropped and I let out a disheartened sigh. All by itself, and in the stretch of time ahead of the start of the hunting day, I could only assume it was a buck and knowing it had likely seen my silhouette in the stand, I fully expected it would not return with first light. While I guessed it wasn't a big one, it certainly represented an opportunity to affix my tag and end a fulfilling season.
Legal light came, pheasants rustled in the brush, juncos murmured their morning greetings, and in hopes of pulling the fake bush out of the real ones again, I let out a couple of low grunts on a call with no immediate response. Watching the edges of the far field, squinting against the fading grasp of night, and then turning my vision to the little birds around me, I took it all in as the first phalanxes of geese went skyward for the day, likely heading off to the recently cut cornfields around me to get their breakfast.
"Where else would you rather be?" I whispered to myself as I slowly stretched my legs out under my rifle and braced it with my left hand along the synthetic black forearm, barrel pointing out through the open vertical window of the blind.
With my right hand, I lifted the grunt call hanging from the paracord lanyard around my neck and blew three sharp burps through it. No sooner had the tube hit my chest than the crackling and rushing of a deer whirled in broadside along the trail where it had exited minutes before, its head down, urgently sniffing the trail for the scent of a doe, or perhaps the illusory challenger I had created with the grunt call. In the morning light, it was now clearly identifiable and certainly no longer a bush; likely the same deer from the start of the sit.
"If you see antlers, take the shot," I mentally prepared myself as I inhaled deeply, setting up the scene at 80 yards.
In the seconds that seemed like an eternity, I held my breath and waited.
The buck's head finally popped up and two beams of white curled around its ears. It wasn't a monster I'd brag about at the watering hole or anything that would go on the wall, but it would certainly do for the season and the small hours that remained in mine. As it paused broadside, I dropped my eye behind the scope and set the reticle. I slid the safety forward and felt the give of the Accu-trigger mechanism into the main lever under the pad of my index finger and finished the pull. With the boom, the buck jumped and ran toward the blind, ultimately tumbling and coming to rest in the grasses 15 yards in front of the tower.
Though confident the process was quick and final, I waited ten minutes before unloading my gun for the descent, with my field knife moved from my hunting pouch to my hip pocket, along with the unfolded tag with the big number 23 removed from my wallet and wrapped around the dressing tool's handle. Once down, I reloaded a single cartridge into the chamber and approached the downed animal. The buck was still and glassy-eyed in the grass, and I tapped his hind quarters with no reaction. With the finality of the moment, I rotated the action of the gun and the brass bullet flipped into my fingers and then into the fabric holder along the stock in one motion.
I cut the month and day triangles out from the tag, removed it from the backing and wrapped it around the main beam of the buck's rack. With my hand just below the animal's neck, I whispered the more memorable segments from Ecclesiastes, looked up at the lightening sky and felt that mix of remorse, elation, the comedown of fading adrenaline, and thankfulness for the conclusion of another successful season, this time with the bush-turned-buck and the experience that capped it all off…in our outdoors.
Simonson is the lead writer and editor of Dakota Edge Outdoors.
Featured Photo: What started out as an unidentifiable bush at the edge of the author's hunting area, came back as a buck and a chance to tag out. Simonson Photo.
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