Tuesday, November 27th, 2018
Today’s image is what happens when you don’t have binoculars handy.
Often when I think I see something out in the distance, further than what my eyes can clearly see, I pull out my camera. I take a picture, then zoom in on the back of my camera. It’s not a very clear image at that point, but it often allows me to see if what I’m looking at is indeed an animal or just a bush.
It was 1:30 this afternoon when I had to go for my camera. Paul was on his way home from work, and I was doing dishes at our sink. I was looking out the window and thought I saw a dark spot where there normally isn’t one. It looked deer-shaped, but if that’s what it was, it’s head was down, so it wasn’t 100% clear that’s what it was.
Sure enough, I take a picture, zoom in, and it’s a huge buck.
It wasn’t overly clear exactly how big his rack was, but I was able to count ten, at least. Not a broad rack, but tall.
So I called Paul, and it just so happened that he was 15 minutes away. Paul has a bow tag that he hasn’t filled yet this season, so he asked me to keep an eye on him so when he got home he could try and go out for him.
I quite honestly doubted that he’d hang around that long, but fifteen minutes later Paul pulled up and the buck had only wandered about 100 feet. (This picture was taken right before Paul got home.)
Paul ran in, grabbed his bow, threw his coveralls on over his uniform, and went out the door.
Now, Paul had absolutely zero cover out there; it was an open field. However, our neighbor had said his trick to bow hunting is to crawl toward the deer once it’s seen you, as it can illicit a curiosity response over a flight response. He claimed that he does it every season and it never fails.
So I watched Paul crawl across our pumpkin field, over my parent’s driveway, and into the soybean field.
If you can believe it, it actually worked better than I thought it would.
Around here, at the first sight of humans, the deer are gone. Like flee the scene, don’t come back for days gone. Especially the bucks.
This deer did eventually move on, so no venison for us, but it was pretty neat to watch.
However, while we assumed after this little hunt took place that he’d move on to different property, my sister texted Paul this evening after dark, saying that said deer was on the driveway when she came home.
So, even if the crawling didn’t get Paul close enough to shoot, it moved the deer out without fear of the area. So there may be something to this whole crawling thing.
Courtney Weinreis // A Borrowed Likeness 