Deer season started again 1st of September

TurdusMerula · September 2019

Hi to all.

It's been a while since I wrote here. Yesterday was a long awaited date here. Deer hunting season started again.

I put alarm clock to wake me up at 5 a.m. so I could go here at my home to sit and wait for the roe deer. It was pitch black when I stumbled into my familiar post to wait for the dawn and possible roe deer.

I sat perhaps 20 minutes when I heard walking just in front of me from the reeds but nothing came in sight. I sat there about two ours and enjoyed the sunny early autumn morning until I decided to head back home for some breakfast.

In the afternoon I packed my stuff into my car and drove my one hour drive (about 45 miles) to our hunting club's area. Went to my post by the oat field in a very warm late afternoon hours. I sat and waited, sat and waited again. Nothing. Not even a single crow in sky. Sun was very warm for the time of the year and I was sweating, and drinking. And waiting.

Finally the sun started to set and the light started to fade. I knew that I have time until the 9.30 p.m. when it's beginning to be too dark for a good shot. At 9.20 p.m. I was started to think about leaving back to home. My father was about mile away on another field but he had called a quits fifteen minutes ago but stayed at his car if I shoot an deer and need help with it. At 9.25 p.m I saw a doe coming from the forest towards the field. It didn't jump into the field but started to walk sideways, still in the forest. I had to be quick before it would disappear into the bushes that surrounded the field. I quickly put Zeiss' red dot in front of the does shoulder as it would be a quartering shot. I pulled the trigger and my Rem 798 barked and once again 180gr ttsx was flying through the air. All I could see for a blink of an eye was huge orange flame from the barrel as the bullet left the barrel.

I quickly recovered from the flash and saw a huge vapour cloud in the place where the deer had been 140 yards away from my post. Just after that I saw doe bolting through the field and disappearing into the dark forest from the side of the field. Bummer...

I grabbed my rifle and flashlight and started to canvas the forest. It was dark and it was dry. No blood trail visible. No nothing. F-words started to rise in my head but I knew I had hit her good. And from my experience I knew that I find it much easier if I trust my shooting and calm down. It took me 20 minutes to canvas already pitch black forest until I saw my doe in the light of my flashlight. Phew...

My father came to help me dragging it into the car and we drove to our hunting clubs butcher house where we have our cooled room for the deer and moose. Temperature is dropped just a couple of degrees above freezing point so we can keep animals there for several days.

This was a good start for a new season. Third in a row when I managed to shoot my season's first deer on season's first day. Total countdown was nine deer in last season. Now I have 5.5 months left to hunt more of these great tasting animals into my freezers.