THE BEST DEER HUNTING SEASON OF ALL TIME???

Several years ago was going to be the best deer hunting season of all time. The main reason was that my oldest son (then 14) and my youngest son, who had just turned 11, were both coming.  The oldest son was going to be in his deer stand by himself for the first time; for the youngest, it was to be his first trip to our deer woods.

The season always begins with scouting the land earlier in the fall. We hunt state owned land that is open to the public in North Central Minnesota. It is a very densely planted pine forest. Over the years we have hunted the same 200 acre section of the land. We pretty much stay in “our” section and other hunters would stay in “theirs;” things usually turned out just fine. Some of the land around us was owned by a paper company and every few years the paper company would come in clear cut about 100 acres. It never bothered us since we were in the state owned land. Since we hunted these woods for so many years we had a really good idea of where and when to be to see deer. We always put the new or youngest hunters in the highest opportunity locations. Opportunity didn’t always equate to harvesting a deer, but just seeing one in the wild was a sweet adrenaline rush.  A positive first outing can fuel a passion for life.

The drive up to the deer woods in early fall is full of stories from previous years. My youngest was already getting a good sense of what to expect, advice on what and what not to do, and when to do it. As we turned off the county road and started heading down the gravel road to “our” woods something was different. It was too bright; usually it’s darker because of all the trees. As we drove further a sickening feeling started to take over me. This is wrong! I thought were we on the wrong road; there were no trees…anywhere! I couldn’t believe it. This was supposed to be the best deer hunting season of all time. How was that going to be possible with no tees? We aimlessly wandered around and eventually found an area that had enough trees left for us to hunt. The ride home was long and quiet. I thought, why bother; there are no trees so there won’t be any deer. Certainly, the deer aren’t going to just stand in the middle of a clear cut area and wait for us to shoot them.

As an admirer of trees, this is a sickening sight for sure 

Deer hunting weekend had finally arrived. It was the tradition of the weekend that kept me motivated. We arrived to the “woods” Friday and saw that even more clear cutting had been done. That sickening feeling was back. Fortunately, the area we planned to hunt still had some trees; however I just knew we weren’t going to see any deer. 

The alarm screamed at 3:30am the next morning. That sickening feeling was still with me, but I did my best to stay upbeat. We arrived at the woods and got our guns and gear ready. I gave my oldest some final safety tips and we went our separate ways. Shortly after that my youngest and I were settled into our tree stand and were waiting for sunrise. The area got light pretty quick since there weren’t many trees to absorb the light. Not long after sunrise I heard something behind us…it was a deer! It cautiously walked in our direction and worked its way in front of us. My son was struggling to get a clear shot at the deer and eventually said, “Dad, you better shoot it.” I did, and felt relieved that we would at least get one deer for the weekend. While cleaning the deer, another gun shot rang out from the direction of my oldest. We use radios to keep tabs on each other and since I hadn’t heard from anybody, I gave the radio to my youngest and continued to clean the deer. My youngest said, “Dad, the radio volume was turned down” and then said his brother shot a monster buck and needs help with it. I heard him say, “it’s a ten pointer; no, a twelve, it may even be a thirteen.” When we got close to where he was we could see the massive rack. It was a thirteen point buck - a beast; the biggest even shot in our area!

Our hunting party shot four deer by 9am that first morning. In years past, we’d be lucky to see four deer. I gave my youngest the option to hunt or not hunt the next morning; he wanted to hunt. Sure enough, at sunrise the next morning a young buck came walking by and he made a great shot. It was a true blessing for me to witness his excitement. Turns out, it was the best deer hunting season of all time!

2 Corinthians 5:7 For we live by faith, not by sight.