I decided to run up to the place I hunted on Sunday to look for my blood monitor. It was a good day to hunt. It was in the high 40s, sunny, and a light breeze hung around for most of the afternoon.
On my way in, I jumped a deer but couldn’t get a look at it to identify it. I’m almost sure it was a doe, but I wouldn’t wager my life on it. The chill in the air reminded me that we are close to the time frame when the woods come alive with whitetail magic. It’s a short period of time that people who don’t hunt cannot understand.
As I made my way to the place where I was almost certain I would find my blood monitor, I thought I spotted a deer getting out of its bed. Peering into the thick cover, I searched to find an outline of a deer but couldn’t locate anything. Knowing the deer was standing there, I continued looking. Finally, I spotted it about 30 yards away, and it was standing directly under the tree that my tree stand was in on Sunday.
I slowly brought the scope to my eye and searched the deer’s head for antlers. Not seeing any, I eased up on the gun and let it down.
The deer didn’t move an inch for the next minute, and the longer I looked at it, the more I realized that it was a large deer. Although I hadn’t seen antlers on its head, I felt the need to look at it again due to the animal’s size. Pulling the gun up to my shoulder, I tried getting another look at its head, but it took off running. As soon as it bolted, I saw the rack on its head. Swearing at myself for missing it when it was 30 yards away, I quickly shouldered the gun and followed it with the scope. When it stopped, I reached into my pocket and grabbed my grunt call. I softly blew into the wooden tube a few times, and the deer suddenly started walking toward me. When it stopped in some hemlocks around 70 yards in front of me, I centered the crosshairs where the neck connects to the the shoulders sine it was facing me. I pulled the hammer back but never applied any pressure to the trigger. Instead, I enjoyed the moment. The buck stood there for a few minutes before getting nervous and running down the hill. When it disappeared, I was a little agitated. The thing that bothered me the most was that I never saw the antlers and the buck was only 30 yards from me and standing still. It was a basket-racked 8-pointer. I got a good look at him in the open hemlocks. The points were barely large enough to call them points, but there were 8 of them, even if they weren’t an inch long. Having a muzzleloader in my hand, I wished that I had shot him. We don’t get many opportunities with that weapon, and I would have liked to capitalize with it. I was also agitated that I didn’t shoot him.
After the excitement, I trudged across the hill to find a place to sit for the rest of the afternoon. I forgot to mention that this buck had been working the mock scrape that I made on Sunday. I have a camera on the scrape, and he worked it about 45 minutes before I saw him, meaning that he laid down next to it after doing his thing. This surprised me for this time of year.
I saw another deer on the way out of the woods, but the news of the day was when I stopped at my parents on the way home. Dad came downstairs to see how I made out. He was hobbling around and holding his side. I asked him where he was going. He told me he was bringing himself to the ER because he was having severe chest pains like he was having heart attack.
Before I could get out of my hunting clothes and change into he clothes I had left there, he was gone and headed to the hospital. By the time I got there, the doctors already had him on a table and gave him his nitro before running a catheter through him .
When all was said and done, he didn’t have any blockages. He had to spend the night in the hospital (I’m writing this part the next day), and the tests showed that he had a viral infection ( I forget the name of it right now) that causes a sac around his heart and lungs to suffer inflammation, which causes a pain like heart attack pain.
He’s going to have to take it easy for a while. Hopefully, he listens to the Dr’s orders.