Fall Hunt

Fall is a funny season in Manitoba. It spans the time from when the weather is nice and warm and sunny, to bitterly cold and snowy and windy. All bets are off as to when the transition happens. I've sat in my tree stand with the wind howling, watching the sunrise on frigid, 30 below mornings. And I've sat in a ground blind with a warm breeze on my face in the sunshine, as dusk falls around me.

This hunt was on one of the warmer days. It was a couple degrees above freezing- had been all week. It wasn't great hunting weather, too warm for the deer to really be moving, but I'd seen a few bucks in the area over the past few days (why those particular ones weren't in my freezer is another story) and it was getting to the end of the season, so there I sat.

Comfortable isn't usually the first word to come to mind when you think of sitting in a blind, but that's what I was this day. So comfortable, in fact, that I kept dozing off. I'd jerk awake every few minutes thinking I'd missed that monster buck. That would be just my luck, looking back at the trailcam footage at me, asleep, while huge racks grazed around me.

But not today. My blind was set up right beside a fence, and all of a sudden it twanged, jolting me out of yet another catnap. That could only mean that something had jumped over it, maybe catching a hoof on the top wire. I slowly turned my head, and sure enough, a small buck was sniffing the ground about 100 yards away. At this point of the season I had told myself that I couldn't be choosy. The old hunters' mantra kept running through my head: don't pass on anything that you wouldn't be happy to get on the last day.

This buck, however, was bordering on Bambi. Not much more than a snack, really. He kept looking behind him, and I decided that if it was a nice doe on his tail, I'd rather have that than a small buck. Give him time to fill out and grow a few more points for next year.

What jumped the fence was not a doe. It wasn't a trophy buck, either, but it was a decent looking 4x3. Earlier in the season I'd gotten Buck Fever on a distant buck and shook so bad that (among other reasons) I hadn't come close to hitting it.

This time I was as steady as a surgeon. I sighted him in, slightly overcompensating for my gun's tendency to shoot high and left, and brought him down. It wasn't the perfect shot placement, but it killed him quickly and cleanly. Maybe next year I'll wait for a monster.