Last Friday my wife Samantha told me she wanted to go out for a deer hunt. She hasn't been out yet this year, she knows I'll take her anytime she wants to go so I just wait for her to ask. She had plans for Saturday already so Sunday was her only option. The forecast showed rain on Sunday, so I told her I'd go make a Saturday morning hunt and then put up my ground blind for Sunday so we could keep dry. I chose a spot that is a good funnel year after year on our place to put up the blind.
I call this hunt the 5 minute hunt.
We get up Sunday morning and get ready. I grab my .54 and she has her 7mm/08. The property is about a 45 minute drive and we're aiming to be there a bit before shooting light. A whole 3 blocks from the house she suddenly looks at me and says, "Crap! We haven't bought my deer tag yet!". I blame myself, I usually take care of these things. I buy a "Sportsman's Package" that comes with everything I need and it just slipped my mind that we still needed to get her tag. Fortunately there is a 24 hour truck stop in town that actually has a F&G setup. We head there and get her tag. This puts us behind, so we arrive at the property about 20 minutes after shooting light. I had talked with her on the way up as to what she wants to target, bucks and does are both open (whitetail). She has only shot one other deer, a doe, and last year she wanted a buck but never had an opportunity. This year she says she will take any mature deer, doe included. We grab our stuff quickly and head for the blind. When we get there we crawl in and I get her all set up, shooting sticks at the right height and the opening in the blind adjusted to just allow her to see and shoot through it. I set my rifle aside as she is the first shooter. The rut is just kicking off here, so I have brought rattling horns, a bleat call, and a grunt tube. I get them arranged next to me and we are ready. I have already confirmed we have a favorable wind. I have sat for about a minute after getting all my stuff arranged when she says she sees movement. I look up and see it too, it is some deer headed our way already. I raise up the binoculars and see that it is three does. The first one is the biggest of the three. The lead doe sees the blind and I can tell she is nervous of it...I had only put it up the day before. I tell Sam to get ready because this is going to happen fast, and which deer is the biggest. The deer start to trot, they are on our left and will come across in front of us about 110 yards out and head down over the hill into some thick timber on our right. I see that Sam is tracking the deer with her rifle, so I grab my grunt call. As the deer hit a good opening out in front of us I let out a grunt. All 3 deer stop. The target doe is quartering to us hard, almost straight on, and the other deer stopped clear of her. I've talked with Sam lots of times about aiming points for different angles, and also that when a call is used to stop a nervous animal the shot needs to be taken as soon as a good hold is acquired. Two seconds after I stop the deer she shoots and I see the target doe crumple and drop on the spot! Sam is excited, I love the excitement that a fairly new hunter has when they are successful. We hear rain starting to hit the blind, so I tell her we'll just watch for a bit to make sure the deer is down for good and give the rain a chance to stop. The sky is broken clouds so it won't last long. About 10 minutes later the rain quits and we go out to see her deer. She made a great shot on it, hitting it in the left side of the neck just above where it meets the body and the bullet exited behind the far side shoulder. Sam is a bit remorseful when we first walk up on it, as we all feel when we take one of these beautiful animals, but states that she is looking forward to the excellent steaks, breakfast sausage, summer sausage, and jerky we will make out of her. I gut it out, drag and load it in the pickup I was able to drive the pickup within 50 yards), and we head home. The deer is hung up in the shed and skinned. I remove the tenderloins as the final step. Thinking about the whole hunt, we were in the blind maybe 5 whole minutes before the shot and the tag was about 45 minutes off the printer. Sometimes it just all comes together doesn't it?
That night we ate some very excellent bacon wrapped BBQ tenderloins for dinner. Next year she wants to hold out for a buck again.