I would've posted this sooner, but I just got back to my house.
Feels pretty good knowing that I have a deer down, FINALLY. I have worked my tail off for this buck. Hes not my biggest deer, but I can say that I have truly hunted harder this season than I ever have before. This is only my third season bowhunting, but thank The Lord, I haven't eaten tag soup yet, all while hunting public land.
Yesterday was a rough day to hunt, but with the weather being like it was, I was the only one crazy enough to be in the parking area. Around 9 am, I missed a doe at 40yds, so I wasn't exactly happy. I had gotten out of my stand to find my arrow, and I discovered that my nockturnal apparently doesn't like me very much because it switched off.
Anyhow, I climbed back in my stand, put a tree stand umbrella up, and sat out there in the freezing rain til midday. I look across the opening I'm setup on, and out steps a doe. She's acting funny, so I kinda figured she was in heat. As I reach for my bow, I hear something behind me and turn to see a nice ten point running off from my cornpile. At this point I wondered what else was going to happen to go wrong. So the doe moves past me, and I'm debating shooting her, when a buck appears, following her trail. I fumbled for my rangefinder, but I couldn't find it. He walked out front, broadside, at what I guessed to be 40 yards. I got drawn on him, gave him a "meh" to stop him, and let fly. Well, I gotta say, he lunged awfully hard. I figured the shot was a little far back, so I gave him 30 minutes. I got down out of my stand and started trailing blood. I couldn't find much. So I searched and searched for nearly 2 hours. The blood was spotty and pink. Not good. I called friends, asked their advice, and thought about backing out and giving him til next morning. I had prayed at some point to find him. I didn't know what else to do. But on a wild hair, I got mad and decided to walk the most straightforward path away from where I had shot him. Sure enough, there he was, not a hundred yards off.
I just kinda laughed at this point... then I noticed something. When I've practiced, I anchor with my thumb behind my head. With all the clothing I was wearing, my anchor must have changed. I know the deer lunged... but he didn't lunge enough to explain the shot I made. I whacked that buck right across top of his front ham, and out the back of the offside ham. Thank goodness the ramcat did it's job, because it broke the far side hip on that buck. In any case, that should've been the end to the story, but the real part was what happened on the way out...
On walking back in to get my game cart, I had decided to leave my rain jacket and my insulating layer back at the jeep. I figured I would be carrying the deer, and I wouldn't need it. Well, halfway across the field, the wheel fell off the cart. I took one of my key rings off and threaded it into the hole where the pin went, and headed back across the field.
Heres where things get hairy... It started to rain. Yesterday it was 33 degrees. Add rain to that, and you have the perfect conditions for hypothermia. To add to it, it was getting dark. So I finally got to my buck, and got him loaded on the cart. I thought to myself that if I just kept moving, pulling that deer, that I wouldn't get cold enough to become hypothermic.
What happened next I can only describe as a miracle. You see,, its pretty close to a mile across the field I was in. To add to it, it was muddy, and as you can see in one of those photos, it was covered in chest deep ragweed. So as I'm lugging the deer across that field, I got about a hundred yards and I wanted to quit. By now it was absolutely pouring down rain. I knew I was in trouble. There was no one to call. I didn't have my phone. At that moment, I became totally, and completely alone. I was scared. I knew that if I left the deer and just walked to my jeep, that I probably wouldn't be able to go back. I would be too cold by the time I got to my jeep to do anything.
So I did the only thing I knew to do. I prayed out loud. I asked God to give me the strength to make each step. Because without him, I wasn't going to make it out of there. At that point, the most wonderful feeling of warmth came over me. Maybe it was the blood rushing away from my extremities, away from my arms and to my core to keep me warm. I like to think that it was God pushing me beyond any limits that I thought I had. I kept crying out to God to make each step. I sang whatever praise song I could think of. I talked to God. I slugged it out with that hideous ragweed field. I don't know how long I was out there. I just know that I wanted to quit the entire time. I wanted to be home, where it was warm. I could feel my shirt as it stuck to me, like a T-shirt does in the summer time after you've jumped in water. But by the grace of God, I kept pushing. I could barely see the trail, so I just kept praying that God would show me the right way to go. I was scared. I was scared I would possibly catch hypothermia, and not be able to use my hands to get in my jeep. Yet I just kept on pushing, praying, and asking for God's help.
As I pushed through, with the sleet and rain pelting my back, I made it up to the very last portion of the trek, which is about 200 yards up a steep hill. At that point, I figured I would give out. I screamed. I yelled. I ached. Yet I just kept taking baby steps, and eventually I made it to the crest of the hill. Somehow, someway, God led me out of a truly stupid situation that could have ended very badly, and not once, ever, did I quit. Yet that wasn't the most miraculous part.
The truly amazing part of all of this was after I got my deer loaded up, I turned around to pick up my game cart. As I went to load it into my jeep... the wheel fell off. The key ring that was holding it in there was gone. I don't know whether it was 5 yards or 500 yards before that key ring slipped. But I'll tell you this, God was watching over me last night. If that wheel had come off in that ragweed field, I really don't know what I would have done. Isn't it so awesome that there is a God who loves me enough to intervene and save me not only from my sin, but from stupid situations like that, that could put my life in peril?
You can call it lucky, or you can call it blessed, but I don't believe in luck.
Praise be to God for delivering the deer into my hand, and for delivering me from a bad situation.
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