We woke up early one day last week, and found it colder than The Wife(tm) wanted to sit out in, but she didn’t want to give up her planned hunting time, so we fired up the truck and went for a drive along some trails down south of here known to hold a very heavy concentration of deer. Saw virtually nothing on the main logging roads, but as soon as we got off onto the little side trails, there was gobs of deer to be seen. Mostly does, with a few little bucks thrown in here and there.
A couple of hours in to it, after seeing countless deer – just nothing she wanted to shoot – we spied the nice little 4 point whitetail featured above. After a visual inspection through the binoculars, she decides that she’ll take him, even though he is a bit smaller than she’d like. The weather is getting colder all the time, and she hates the cold, so the sooner the freezer is full the better.
She jumps out and swings up the rifle as if to take an off-hand shot. “NO!” I shout-whisper at her. She is deadly out to any range she can see it with a good rest, but she is the worst off-hand shooter I know. Too late. Trigger pulled, loud boom, and dirt and rocks flying up where the bullet hit… nowhere near the deer. Deer runs off, with The Wife(tm) in hot pursuit. ‘Get a rest!’ I mouth at her through the window as she bolts after him. I don’t know if she heard me or not.
I hear a second loud ‘boom’ a minute or so later. Silence on the radio. She’d have called me if she hit it. A minute or so after that, another ‘boom’. This time, the radio crackles to life a few seconds later, with her voice jubilantly exclaiming ‘got him!’
She had to chase him off into the bush for about 15 minutes to get a nice clean shot on him, but she did, and that was that. Some quick work later, we were on the way home with our deer.
She wondered aloud on the way home why the deer didn’t run for the hills after the first shot or two. I replied to her, that after seeing her shoot, he probably didn’t recognize her as a threat. Good thing I’m a big tough guy, or that punch she threw my way might have hurt! I’m sure she’ll talk to me again in a day or two.