I should finish the title – And The Hunter Who Ran Out.

For our visitors who followed the updates I sent in from our deer camp in November, you will remember my encounter with a feeding doe outside our camp. To remind you what I wrote, I pasted it below.

Just before sundown I was walking back to the camp. As I neared the camp pond, I saw a doe feeding on the pond’s bank. I brought my gun up and put dad’s ‘Red Dot’ just behind it’s front shoulder. As I pulled back the hammer to release the safety to fire, dad drove his truck into the camp driveway. The doe bolted before I could squeeze off a shot.”

Now for the rest of the story…

The next afternoon, dad and I set-up a primitive ground blind using hi-tech equipment like a picnic table, a camouflage tarp, and an old sofa cushion. We had good ‘intel’ that last night was not the first time that the doe had seen been by the pond.

Hopefully, she would be a creature of habit.

After setting up our ‘blind’, I checked the time on my watch and headed back into the cabin for a quick bunk watch before my big date.

At 3:30 I rolled out of my bunk and took position behind the blind. I took my watch off and set it on the table so I could read it with out moving my head and arm.

Time ticked by and the sun began to set.

4:00pm…4:10…4:15…tick-tock

My date was getting late and my teeth began to chatter. If my date did show up, our conversation would have to be brief.

4:30pm…tick

Sunset was officially at 4:06pm. This meant I only had 6 minutes of legal shooting time left.

The doe was cutting it very close.

Tock!

When legal shooting time had just expired (and I mean to the second), I sadly took my finger away from the trigger and began to stand up from behind my hiding spot. At that moment, the doe scurried out into the opening of the pond’s shore and stared at me.

Then, began an inner struggle of integrity. The word that separates poachers from real hunters. I brought my gun up to my shoulder again thought about trying to find her in my scope. The silent debate in my continued. I wanted an honest kill, so I brought my gun down and removed the bullets from the magazine.

The doe pranced back into the forest surrounding the pond and disappeared into the underloft. The mystery of her time piece went with her.

Hunting Stories