Deer Hunt

This past weekend I drove a total of 800 miles to go home for the deer hunt. Many of you might think, "what a crazy fool! He must be a redneck!" You're probably right I am a redneck! Frankly I'm quite proud of that fact. However, there is a huge difference between 'redneck' and 'hillbilly' but thats for another day and blogpost.

So anyways I love going home and I realized while I was down there this past weekend that I dont do it nearly enough so I'm planning to do it more frequently now. If anyone wants to join me on one of my trips let me know and I can guarentee it'll be the most fun you've ever had in the middle of nowhere!

So back to the deer hunt. I dont think any of you can understand how much I love the deer hunt. Its not really for the killing a deer part because honestly if I were to get skunked (not get a deer) I would be totally fine with it. I must add that NEVER happens but 'if' it did I wouldnt mind because the fun part is the time with the whole family, on the ranch, having fun together. To illustrate the importance of the deer hunt to my sanity I'll divulge that I was only homesick three days a year while on my mission. One of those was opening day of the deer hunt. Dead serious!

Well this year was a lot of fun. I was the first of my siblings to get home (the other two have jobs and families a.k.a. responsibilities). I got home Thursday night and went looking for deer. I find lots of does and fawns and a few little bucks but nothing that really got me excited. Friday I spent the day getting things ready for the hunt, taking fourwheelers to the ranch, hydrating the water line to our family park at the ranch, getting the orange clothes and guns and stuff out, etc. My brothers and their families got to Blanding that night and we just sat around and talked til 10:30 or 11 at night. Not all that late except we were getting up at 5:30 in the morning and wouldnt be in bed til midnight Saturday night but with my family, when we get together, nobody will go to bed first. If someone would go to bed the rest would follow but nobody does and we end up talking til the wee hours (usually) and never get any sleep when the family is together in Blanding.

4:45 Saturday morning I was wide awake! Its honestly worse than Christmas morning as a little kid (for me atleast but my oldest brother Klayton is still up every half hour Christmas morning begging his wife to wake up the little girls so they can go open presents :) he just loves seeing their faces i think). My spot was the first one on the road that morning so I got dumped off in the dark to go find a place I thought would be the best to see the deer moving when it got light. I sat down in the brush with a clear view of the pumpkin patch (deer love pumpkins and there was a nice buck eating them Thursday night and Friday morning), I had brush all around me and a big bush tree between me and the road. About 25 minutes before it was light enough to shoot there was a glow on the horizon and anything that moved between me and the Eastern sky was skylighted but otherwise it was pitch black. About then I heard 3 or 4 deer jump the fence and cross the gravel road towards me. I started breathing more quietly and turned just a bit to see their sillouettes against the glowing dawn light. Although it is completely illegal to shoot before daylight I decided if it was a big enough buck and shoot its sillouette and then wait til light to take care of it (i'm not perfect what can I say, I study politics). Well about 5 minutes later I hear something in the brush beside me and then I hear a deer loudly sniffing the air (for my scent of course)! It was worse than the loudest snore you've ever heard and, honestly, my stomach swallowed my heart! After about the third sniff this nice buck sticks his head through the brush and looks right at me! I dont know who was startled the most but he ran and I didnt so I'll chalk it up as a win for me. Daylight came and I didnt see a single deer in the patch (he must have told his friends about me watching them). Deciding my daylight suprise was a bust I called my oldest brother on the radio to see if he had seen anything. He had shot twice at a couple bucks 300 yds away but had missed (he wasn't 100% sure which two in the herd were bucks through his scope that had fogged up so its probably good he missed :) )

We went down to get my dad and middle brother and his wife and found that Kyle (my brother) had gotten a little buck. We took care of it and then went to see if anyone else in our hunting party got any shots or anything. One of our family friends had nailed a pretty good sized buck but it had gotten into the canyon on him and was still on the move. We spent the next two hours hunting that thing down! Then came the best part of Opening morning, my Mom's HUGE breakfast when we come in to eat! Anything you can imagine for breakfast is there! I'd say that I gained a few pounds but after going up and down that canyon for two hours after Kelvin's deer I still probably lost weight after all the food I ate.

All afternoon we rode around on the four wheelers just looking for deer and trying to stir them up for one another. We saw a LOT of deer but no bucks all day until evening. When evening came Klayton and I ended up in the same field looking at the same 150 does and fawns so he came over and we were just shooting the breeze when some people on the county road started shooting at some deer on our neighbor's land just across the road from us. It was totally illegal what the were doing but we just watched them and talked as we looked for deer in the canyon below. I looked up and saw two deer coming from the field the stupid road hunters were shooting into so we glassed them and one was a pretty nice buck. Well, with Klayton its always a race to beat him to the shot cause he HATES to get skunked but I beat him to it. One shot from 200 + yards and down he went in a heap. I was quite proud of the shot as the deer was moving, he was a long ways away, and i didn't ruin any meat! I'm pretty much an amazing shot.

While I was gutting my deer three guys from the lazy road hunters crossed the fence and started towards us.... Oh, GREAT they are gonna claim this is their deer even though it clearly had not been shot before I took it down. Sure enough the one guys says, "Did that deer have a spot on its back?" I said, rather sarcastically, "No I think he lost his spots a couple years ago when he left his mother." He says, "well I shot him in that field over there and he went down but must have gotten up and ran over here." I said, "well sir you clearly missed with your shot. Unless, of course, you were shooting with an air soft gun because he was not shot until I shot him." The guys says, "well I was just hoping to get a good buck this year before I have to go back to school." Not feeling the least bit sympathetic I said, "well my advice to you is that next year you actually get permission from landowners to hunt their land instead of just driving the county road. Its unethical and illegal to just shoot deer off people's private land without permission." With that they left. Yes, you are right I am a JERK but I feel very strongly about land owner rights. Stupid people deserve to be treated as such.

Anyways, this is my first monologue of a blog post and I'm afraid its really boring and not something I'm gonna do a lot of in my blog but I love the deer hunt. Its all about getting out into the great outdoors and enjoying some time to just relax and enjoy having NOBODY around. Its so good to just be able to enjoy your family and renew your friendships and spend time together making memories. I'm lucky that my family are my best friends.