Opening Day Fortune
Ritual, Physiology, Nature and Family Through Hunting
Just this past Saturday, here in Pennsylvania, the rifle portion of deer season started.
Opening day is huge here in that the woods are filled with hunters looking for deer. I set up a hunting blind, which is a type of tent, in the woods behind our house and was in it and waiting for a deer by about 6:30am. By law, you are able to shoot thirty minutes prior to sunrise, so by about 6:37, my window was open. And it didn't take long.
At 6:45 I could hear the steady crunch of snow which alerted me to something walking my way. Off in the woods to my left, I got a glimpse of a deer slowly walking my direction. I couldn't see any details through the messy brush - a consequence of recent snow storms so heavy they brought down trees - but I knew that I'd get a better look as it presumably got closer.
At about 40 yards away, me in my camouflage blind, I knew I could slowly and quietly lift my rifle off of my lap and get ready to shoot. The last thing I want to do is move once it gets to a position where it can see me through the gaps in my blind. So I aim my rifle in the direction that I think he will be. Yes, I said "he".
By this point, it is close enough for me to see its antlers which differentiate it as male. And it's not huge, but it's big enough to shoot. Pennsylvania law requires at least three points on one antler, either side, in order for it to be a legal shoot. And there were at least that, so I was good to go. That's when my heart started up.
Buck Fever
For reasons beyond me, and this is not the first time this has happened, as soon as I know I am in a position to take a shot, my physiology reacts in ways that tell me this is somehow deeply imbedded in the very nature of my being.
My heart is beating not just faster, but harder and stronger than ever. As I think about those moments, and it plays in my mind like a movie, it has its own soundtrack. And that soundtrack is deep silence and stillness, except for the deep bass of my pounding heart. I just don't hear it, I can also feel it, like someone punching me in the chest.
At times this rush of adrenaline has been so heavy that I couldn't focus in on a deer through my scope because my vision blurred. I didn't even mention that it was only 15 degrees out because I forgot how cold it was. All discomfort disappears.
And it's not like I haven't been in stressful situations before. Even before I deployed twice to Afghanistan with the Marine Corps infantry, I had done things like jump out of a plane with a parachute. And nothing compares to the reaction I feel when confronted with large animals in the wild. It's as if something out of my control is speaking to me and directing my attention. Deleting all other attention and pulling me into focus.
This particular morning, this buck finally strolled into my shooting lane. As his head and body slowly emerged from behind a tree, he saw me. His previous relaxed stroll turned into anxious curiosity. He saw something that held his attention and he froze.
At that moment, the two of us are in the same physiological state. Millions of years of evolution have created two creatures that when confronted by each other in the wild, know to abandon all other things and to focus on this.
Instead of his head scanning the forest floor for scent and consumables, his neck was erect and head turned my way, with his eyes locked in on me and my barrel. There was something in that tent he likely previously passed by numerous times that was different, and it was something he needed to quickly figure out.
But it was too late. He was too slow.
Taking my Shot
I have a memory of two visions; one is of this buck, stiff, alert, and staring at me. The other is of my scope's crosshairs wobbling around his right shoulder, unable to hold still and starting to blur. Once he saw me, I had to make a decision. He's going to disappear into the woods in milliseconds if I don't shoot. But he's angled towards me. The best shot is when they are angled away, with their head slightly further away from you as compared to their rear ends, so you can shoot into their chest cavity and puncture their vital organs. But I had to make a choice. For this deer in this situation, it was now or never.
Then there is the smell of gunpowder.
Just before that smell, there is a snap, some light smoke, and the smell that anyone who has fired a gun is familiar with. He's immediately airborne.
It's amazing what those skinny little, meatless legs can do with the right amount of leverage and muscle evolved over millions of years. Without a running start, those four brown pegs extend with amazing velocity and push this hundred pounds of muscle, bone, fat and sinew into the air. As soon as he lands, he darts off like a rocket in the same direction he was pointing, off to my right, and disappears into the woods.
I barely remember how far I was able to visually track him. It's all a blur. So many times in the past, I have spent hours upon hours, sitting in a tree or in a blind, freezing my bones without seeing more than a squirrel. But on this day, fifteen minutes into the opening of rifle season, I was staring at a buck's right shoulder through my scope, no more than twenty-five feet in front of me. It was like a gift. Of all the places in the hundreds and thousands of acres around my home that he could be that day, he was standing still in front of me.
Conventional wisdom tells us that deer who run off after being shot will rest, hoping to recover, and that moving towards them too soon can cause them to run more and possibly be lost forever. Don't spook him! Just sit tight and be quiet, at least several minutes, and after that, you might want to head out and come back later. Let him rest as he bleeds, and dies, hopefully only several yards away.
Yeah right. My heart is pounding, my adrenaline is through the roof, and I'm supposed to just sit there. I set my timer on my iPhone for thirty minutes, but lasted only about ten. While I waited, I sent my wife a text: "Holy shit. I just hit a buck" - 6:52am
No response. She was still asleep in my son's bed.
Time to Track
Because it had been snowing then raining and snowing again the past several days, the snow on the ground was layered on top of ice and leaves. It crunched really loudly which was helpful in listening for approaching deer, but also made my footsteps incredibly loud. I knew that me walking around could be trouble and spook any resting deer, but I couldn't sit there any longer.
I rationalized why it was ok. "Of course you hit it. Look at how it jumped. The sound of a gunshot couldn't have done that. It was reacting to something hitting it. Yeah, you were angled poorly as he was looking at you, but the large round (7mm-08) you shot at him couldn't have been stopped by his shoulder. No way. He's got to be down."
So I tell myself.
I slowly get up out of my blind, and start stepping my boots into the crunchy snow, slowly moving a few yards forward to where I shot him. Or so I think.
"Wait a second, did he emerge from behind this tree or this tree?"
So much was going on physiologically in me that it was hard to remember anything particular. But there is one thing that assured me of his location: the smell.
If you have ever been to a zoo, especially a petting zoo, you know what animal musk smell like. Deer are no different. There is a particular smell they have and it felt like I was suddenly standing in a cloud of it. I know very little about deer biology but I'm assuming that the stress of being shot causes an ejection of fluids from its multiple glands. The smell was still there at least an hour later when I returned.
That had to be the spot. I look down, and also see hoof marks which go off into the direction he ran. So I start tracking, which means looking for blood trails and hoof marks. But there's a problem: not a drop of blood.
I start to question my previous assumptions.
How is it that this deer was shot, center mass, with a round like that, and runs off without bleeding? Am I kidding myself? Maybe my adrenaline got the best of me and my blurred vision along with shaking caused me to miss the shot. Maybe it was only the loud pop of the bullet that caused the deer to jump, stress out, release its scent, and take off to hide.
Guess I'll just leave for now and come back later. If it's not bleeding that much, or at all, then I had better keep quiet and let it rest, if he's resting at all. I back out of the woods and walk the four minutes back up to my house.
Backing Off
My son was awake, but the ladies were still asleep. He asks me if that loud gunshot was me, and I confirm. He's pretty excited and wished that he got out of bed to go with me instead of rolling back over to sleep some more. But there is still next year.
Either way, I had always planned to come back to the house and take my kids to help track, if necessary, and then field dress the deer. It's an experience they can get involved in because it doesn't require hours of sitting still in the cold. My daughter is now up and they both put on their snow gear and we're off to find out what happened to this buck I hope I shot.
The area where I had my blind setup is a clearing in the woods that outlines some very dense woods. Because it is close to good hiding spots, but easy to walk through, it is a great place to hunt. Deer tend to feel comfortable if they have places to hide alongside places that are easy to walk through. And that is exactly what this place is. There are a couple of spots I have found which have tons of deer sign and act as an animal highway, just behind our house.
Because of my experience walking this area, I knew where to look. We started from the site right in front of my blind where I saw the buck stop and look at me. My kids could still smell him. So at least I knew we were in the right spot. I asked them to look for hoof prints, but mostly for blood. That is the confirmation of the hit and a great way to track an animal in the white snow.
But still, nothing but hoof prints. No blood. No trail of certainty.
We trudge on anyways.
Because I only know the general direction he ran, we have to do some guess work. My son is really good now at finding prints and differentiating between deer and creatures with toes and claws, so he is really helpful and engaged. My daughter just stays close to me for the most part.
There are a couple of paths into the dense vegetation I know of that open up into smaller clearings perfect for walking and we head in that direction. My thinking is that this deer would naturally use the paths it had used before. We see more hoof prints, but still no blood. I start to lose hope. Now with all of the foot prints we leave all over the place and prints likely from multiple animals and no signs of blood, we engage in little more than guesswork. So we just keep walking, and keep our eyes open.
And then I see him.
Buck Down
I looked up and to my left a bit on this path in the brush and I see what is unmistakably a brown and white furry body laying in the snow, but I don't say anything. I want them to find him. I call them to me, in order to distract them, and turn on my video camera so I can capture the moment. I ask them to follow a path and move towards my left, and they do.
Within seconds, my son yells out, "Dad! I see it!" and they both run over, excited to show me what they found.
There's the blood. Just a bit trickling out of its mouth and staining the snow. I search for an entry wound and maybe an exit wound, but can't find anything obvious. After field dressing (removing the organs) I presume that the bullet entered through his right shoulder blade and rattled around his thorax, penetrating his lungs and slicing through his stomach, settling somewhere in his abdomen.
It bounced around like a pinball, causing massive internal damage and holding all of the resulting blood internally. The area I remember shooting him has a spot of blood coming out through the fur but not much at all. Nothing like the movies when we expect fountains or waterfalls of red goo pouring from a human body.
It turned out all of my presumptions were true. I hit him, the bullet made him jump, and he went down pretty quickly. After all of that tracking, we really only moved about fifty yards from the point of impact which means he was down and dead within seconds.
Our Ritual
What comes next for me has turned into a family affair. My in-laws come down to the site and Daddy Joey helps me gut and drag the deer out of the woods. Meema takes pictures for posterity while my wife keeps her distance but is still congratulatory.
She reminds me that her memories of time with her dad include being in the woods watching him field dress deer, and today, that ritual is repeated. I think later of the billions of people across millions of years who have done the same. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, extended family members grateful to have food in times of scarcity. Sustenance that today is a sort of routine delicacy, but to them was the gift of survival.
Did they also feel the same heart pounding in their chest? Did it ever become so routine that it was mundane? Or maybe that is why it became ritualized. In order to keep us grateful and focused on the fortune that came along with seeing, shooting, and finding meat that meant survival.
Routines and rituals so deep that they are embodied in our physiology which aims us towards that goal: Food, survival, sharing, family.