The Rut
As I have posted, I decided to take up deer hunting this year. I've bird hunted a lot but never deer hunted so this is a new adventure. It is also filling a part of my life I've longed to enjoy. I'm drawn to the woods - always have been. Saturday after I hunted, I took my youngest daughter and her friend on a hike in the woods behind our house. We discovered a huge hard wood with the most glorious yellow foliage I've ever seen. We found deer prints, coyote prints and a few other critter prints down near Heiferhorn creek. We spooked a deer in the woods. We pole-vaulted over the small rain creeks (the girls loved that!) and pretended to be on a treasure hunt. We came back and took my black lab back to the creek to let him swim (his reward for being such a good dog). It was a blast. Yesterday, I went back down to the creek to take pictures of the tree and as I walking back through the fall leaves I commented out loud, "How can anyone not love being in a place like this?" The glory of God is man fully alive. I am fully alive in the woods.

Back to the hunt. I have been in my stand each of the last 6 Saturdays and I have seen a deer every time. But I've never seen anything like what I saw this Saturday. The "Rut" is in - the female deer are "coming in" and their scent is everywhere. White-tail deer are one of the most cautious animals on earth. They have extraordinary hearing and scent detection and they can run, when spooked, like the wind. Yet, as cautious as they are, when the rut comes in, they throw caution to the wind.

When I got to the land Saturday morning at 6am, 3 of my buddies were there. They are all very experienced hunters so I am learning a lot just by listening. When I got there, Rich came up to me and said, "You're gonna be amazed this morning. I was in here yesterday and there are big tracks all up and down the road where your stand is. You're going to see a lot of movement today...be patient. You might get a shot at a decent 8-point but wait and be patient because there are some monsters crossing back and forth in here chasing these doe." He was right.

About 8:30 a doe came into my view grazing over to my left. I immediately knew to start looking for the buck. Sure enough, he came in right behind her. A small 8-point - big enough to legally shoot but not big enough for our group's rules so I sat back and watched. He followed all across the pine forest right in front of me. At one point, he got tired and lay down to watch her. I had him in my scope, clear as a bell, lying there watching this doe. He was captivated by her and all his other senses were turned off. He had no idea his death was but a slight pull of a trigger away.

About 30 minutes later, another doe trotted into my left and ran all the way across in front on me - slowly trotting. Two minutes later, in came a small 4-point following her scent with his nose to the ground like a beagle tracking a fox. I wasn't going to shoot him so I decided to see if I could spook him...I barked, grunted, whistled and hooted to try to get him to look up as he ran past me. But he kept his nose to the ground all the way across the pine forest like a dog on the scent. As he got to my far right, he lost her scent and began to back track his way. He worked his way back 1/2 way across my line of site (directly in front on me) and proceeded to walk directly to me. At 15-20 feet in front of me, he stopped and looked at me and then decided to bug out and leave.

Where was the legendary caution? Where was the training of nature? His ears and nose for caution were turned off and all he was thinking about was that doe. There is a lesson in that for us. We can learn a lot from watching the rut. Trophy deer get taken out during the rut. They abandon their years of training and their natural skittishness and throw caution to the wind for the chance to mate with the prime doe. Very often, it gets them killed.

How many a man has abandoned all caution to grab the prize only to be taken down? There is a lesson in here for us.

To end on a good note, I saw another doe about 9:30 and then departed my stand at 10:15 and headed home. Rich called me later that day and we traded stories about what we had seen. He said he came out about 10:30 and as he was walking down the road coming up past my stand, he saw a monster 8-point chasing a doe heading right toward my stand. He said he kept saying "Shoot Richard, shoot!" He couldn't figure out why I didn't shoot until he got to the trucks and realized I was gone.

The good note is that 1) Rich was right - had I stayed patient and waited, I would have had my shot at a trophy and 2) There is a monster right there in my zone. Hopefully over the Thanksgiving holiday, I will get another chance at him.

Soar!