First Blood

American Thanksgiving in Pincher = Tom's last chance for deer.

Jesse and I headed out first thing Saturday morning - there were a couple of inches of snow from the night before, and there were tracks everywhere. We saw a few groups within an hour or so, but they were all spooked and running so there wasn't much chance of following them.

A bit later we happened upon a doe a few yards away, she ran a few steps and turned around to look at us, but all I could see through my scope was the top half of her head. Not much to shoot at, and I wasn't confident enough to take a head shot, especially from standing. Jesse had a good look at her, so I sidled over to where he was, and I was looking at a good broadside shot about 40 yards away. Of course, being a newbie to this, and having just finished a minute-long staring contest with a doe, I was a little (ok, a lot) jacked up and I was somewhere between "shaky" and "call a doctor, I think he's having a seizure" on the steadiness spectrum. But closer to the former, I swear. At any rate, after what seemed like a really long time but was probably only 7 or 8 seconds, she huffed, waved goodbye with her tail, and was gone. Curses.

But we'd already seen 5 deer in not much over an hour - surely there would be more chances, right?

We continued roaming around, with a good headwind to keep our scent away. We found a nice set of tracks, with fresh urine in a couple of spots, and followed for several hundred yards, but didn't find anything before losing the tracks in a stand of trees. We ended up just following a trail a little aimlessly, slowly meandering back toward the house for breakfast, when two deer flushed out of the trees a little bit ahead of us and stopped about 20 yards off the trail. I could only see one from the trail, a small doe, and it looked like I'd have a good sightline at another broadside shot a few steps off the trail from about 50 or so yards. No waiting this time; I took a few steps, dropped down, lined up, bang. The deer jumped and ran, but I was sure it was a hit.

Yup.

Finding this made Jesse really excited. But maybe not as excited as the half-dozen elk that ran past us as we were following the blood trail. Jesse! Stay focussed! We have a deer to find! We followed the blood trail for 30 or 40 yards, and saw the deer in a heap. Not a small doe, but a fawn buck. I'd missed the lungs by a couple of inches to the right. Shit. I felt really bad about it, but at least we were able to find and put him down quickly.

After a quick (but smelly/rumen-y) gutting lesson from Jesse, we started dragging him the couple of km or so back to the house to hang him in the shed.

First thing's first: mining for tenderloins.

Mission accomplished.

Breakfast of champions. (Not pictured: victory shots of bourbon. Which, for the record, pairs nicely with seared tenderloin, even especially at 11 AM)

Apparently Otis, that bloodthirsty carnivore, was jealous of the fresh meat and decided to get some of his own:

Lessons for next year:

1. Hunting for deer in Pincher seems like a good bet, based on how many we saw and how relatively un-skittish they were. It was definitely more enjoyable than the previous weekend I'd gone out west of Edmonton, but having the flu might have had something to do with that unpleasantness. So I guess that makes lesson #2 "don't sit outside in -10 weather when you have the flu." I was probably really quiet, though, if only because I was only semi-conscious.

3. Practise shooting more. My shot wasn't off by a ton, but on a small target like a fawn it was definitely off by enough.

4. Don't shoot anything bigger than a fawn if you drive a Versa hatchback. I really wish I'd taken a picture of the back of the car. It was kind of awesome.