It was December and the snow was about two feet deep when I decided I would go deer hunting. I left early in the morning and after driving 50 miles east of a small town in Northern Ontario I parked my car in a safe spot. Once on my snowshoes with my pack on my back, I headed north into the woods, rifle in hand. It was an overcast day but visibility was good and I was in no hurry. I was not desperate to get a deer but I was looking forward to spending the day far from people. I was peopled out.
This is very rugged county that is made up of miles and miles of rocky hills covered with evergreen trees, interspersed with small and medium sized lakes and creeks. You can be thoroughly lost in ten minutes
It was necessary to have an awareness of your surroundings and which direction you were heading.
My plan was to head north for an hour or so to get into an area where the deer would be undisturbed.
By noon I was hungry so I stopped on a rocky hill above a creek with a good open view to the north.
I sat on a large rock and dug into my pack for a sandwich, then poured myself a coffee into the cup of the thermos.
Sitting there I was warm from the snowshoeing, and feeling very calm, far from my daily trials and tribulations. As I slowly sipped the coffee I became aware of some slight movement down below and across the creek from me. It was a buck deer feeding and completely unaware of my prescence. There I sat, cup in hand with my rifle leaning against a tree.
I sat motionless, steam rising from my cup and breath from my lungs hanging in the frigid air. I was sure the slightest noise I made or swift movement would alert the deer. I had to get rid of the coffee and reach for the rifle. Painfully slowly, I lower the cup onto the snow covered rock, but my eyes never left the deer. It continued feeding contentedly, head down.
When the coffee was out of my right hand, the left slowly reached for the rifle that was about a foot away. My movements were slow and as long as the deer did not look towards me or swiveled its ears in my direction I continued my reach for the rifle. At this point I was starting to feel the cold creeping through my clothes. I was cooling off from sitting still too long.
When the rifle was within my grasp, my task was far from over. I had to lift it into a horizontal position and get it pointed at the deer. There was no wind blowing and in the snow filled woods there was not a sound. I found it hard to believe the deer had not smelled, heard, or seen me. After what seemed an eternity I had the rifle in position. Luckily the rifle was loaded but the safety was still on.
The click of the safety seemed unusually loud so I was not surprised when the deer looked up and directly at me. I had the rifle sighted before the click of the safety so I pulled the trigger a heart beat later. The crash of the rifle sounded so loud in the silence it was more like a cannon going off. The deer fell where it stood and did not move. The shot echoed off into the endless snow scene and then the silence returned.
I was rather stunned and a little surprised with my luck. I was always a good shot so that was not luck. It was the whole situation of shooting a deer while having my lunch that surprised me. I sat there quietly smiling in a smug way that I was later to regret.
The coffee was cold by now so I tossed it aside and poured a fresh cup. It was a big deer so I was going to have to cut it into sections after I dressed it, then make two or three trips back and forth to the car. It would be a busy time so I drank the coffee and packed away the remains of my meal.
I had removed my snowshoes while eating so it was a few moments before they were back on. With my pack on my back and rifle in hand, I start to head down to the deer. I was unable to travel directly to it because the rock between us was too steep. I headed east down a slope and then north to cross the small creek. When I got to the other side I found fresh deer tracks which I followed back west to where I shot the deer.
On the site of the kill all I found was a lot of disturbed snow and a few flecks of blood. I was very surprised to say the least. It had not been a clean kill. The deer had not only gotten back up, but headed east while I was putting on my snowshoes and floundering down hill. I was no longer smiling.
I do not believe in leaving wounded game to suffer and die a lingering death. I did not hesitate to turn around and start following the new tracks to the east. As I snowshoed along I noticed more flecks of blood so I knew the deer was injured. Because I was close behind the deer it was obvious that I was chasing it and that it would continue until I or the deer dropped. It made sense to stop and take the pressure off the deer. Maybe it would lay up somewhere and either bleed to death or stiffen up from the injury.
It was hard, but I forced myself to find a place to sit and then waited for twenty minutes while I drank the last of my coffee. The sun was well past the mid point in the sky so daylight was dwindling. The sky was darkening so it would be a dark night. I was not concerned about finding my way back to the vehicle as I had left a snowshoe trail a child could follow.
After my enforced twenty minute wait I found I was chilled and anxious to get back on the trail.
The snow was deeper down in the valley but I was stuck with following the deer no matter where it went.
It was an easy track to follow in the fresh deep snow. The drops of blood confirmed I was on the right track.
Within a half hour I came to the site where the deer last lay down. It was obvious from the marks in the snow and the blood that the deer was having trouble breathing. It had been shaking its head back and forth and the blood from its mouth was sprayed in a wide pattern. I assumed that it was a lung shot because of the bleeding from the mouth. Now I had to make some choices.
Because of the amount of blood, I judged it was a serious injury so I should continue my pursuit. Secondly, because my twenty minute break earlier had allowed the deer to lay down, I felt I should repeat it. Once again I sat for twenty minutes but the coffee was long gone. Soon I was walking around in circles trying to stay warm as the temperature was starting to drop. I was miles from the road and had not seen another living thing since taking the shot. The silence of the scene pressed down heavily all around me.
The scowl on my face was spreading as I started back on the trail to put the wounded deer out of its misery.
It was soon after that I started to notice that the trail led into a dense woods that was covered in deer tracks. I was in a winter deer park and the snow was packed down over a large area. At least a dozen deer had to be in the herd considering all the tracks. Tracking my deer went from easy to very difficult. It was a big buck so the larger track it left helped greatly, in addition to the odd speckle of blood. Read part 2 & 3.
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