Sometimes, deer hunting is not about getting the biggest rack. Sometimes it isn’t about anything more than making it out and making it back. If you can buy that, then SuperCore was my hero yesterday.
I was hunting Midway. The food plots out there have finally filled out a bit. The deer are liking whatever it is I planted out in the Garden of Stone. There are five different mixes out there, but they all look the same. I’d hunted since first light and seen absolutely nothing. I heard one shot that sounded fairly close about 0815. That turned out to be Supercore over at Jagendehutte.
About 0930, with still no sign of anything showing, I got a call on my cellphone, confirming he’s shot a buck. It had jumped and twisted after the shot (not a good sign). It ran off out of view. Supercore had been looking for an hour or so for sign. I responded that I would be over there presently.
I stopped by the cabin to pick up the tractor and 100 feet of rope. Jagendehutte overlooks the lip leading down into Dead Skunk Hollow. It’s a ravine with fairly steep sides. If the deer had run down there, it was going to be an adventure getting him out.
I drove to where Supercore’s ATV was parked. I saw a flash of Orange, but it was quite a ways in. At first, I could not get SuperCore to respond. When he finally did, he was not making much sense. I could not call him on his phone. Even at the top of the ravine, I wasn’t getting a signal. When I did get a response, he said he had collapsed. I rigged the rope to the back of the tractor and went down. That might not have been the best of ideas. I’m still getting over Chemo, and I still have neuropathy and stamina issues, but your best buddy’s down, and that’s all there is to it. Just to be sure, I added a 50 foot rope from the ATV to my rope, just in case.
The rope was just about all paid out when I got to SuperCore. He was sitting in the gully next to a spike buck. Normally, this would be cause for celebration, but looking at the state of my buddy and the steep bowl we were in, this did not look good. SuperCore could not stand. He was not being sensible. What I got out of him was that he’d spent a good long while scouring up and down the treeline and the creek, looking for sign and worn himself out. SuperCore was completely spent; it was completely understandable. He’s 83, and suffering from a host of maladies. The latest is a dramatic iron deficiency that just came on recently. I recognized all the signs of what I’d been through with the Chemo three years ago. They’d spent the month after I finished pumping me full of iron, magnesium, whole blood and platelets. I could become weak and weird at the drop of a hat, and it would take hours to recover.
My phone was still unable to get a signal. I used Supercore’s to try an call the one person close enough to help. Darron is the stone mason working up at the construction on the new house. It took half a dozen calls. He had the mixer going and could not hear his phone. When he did answer, he did not recognize the number. He finally picked up and agreed to come and help.
It may seem contrary to the rules of comradeship. However, my main concern was not SuperCore at this point. He just needed to rest. We had over 6 hours of daylight to get him out. The big issue was getting the deer and my creaky bones out, and we had an able-bodied person to get that done. The trip down into the ravine had been my longest trek on broken ground since Chemo. I figured I had one trip back up in me.
Darron arrived with a working pair of walkie-talkies. He set to work rigging the deer. I climbed out, using the rope to steady myself and got back out to the truck. The easiest way I’ve found to deal with a deer at the bottom of a ravine is to roll the carcass on its back and use the back legs to steer it up the hill. I then tie the rope off to the back of the truck and use that to pull. With Darron steering the legs, we had the deer out in no time. While this was happening, SuperCore recovered enough that, with the aid of a makeshift hiking stick, he made his way up the hill.
I brought the buck back to the cabin in the bucket of the tractor. Darron went back in the truck. After a bit of rest, Supercore was able to drive the ATV. Supercore said he needed to rest more, so we broke for lunch and I drove him over to Bub’s. That was enough to get him back into working shape.
SuperCore spent a good long time gutting the deer, and then we loaded it up and drove it to the processor. When we returned from that chore, he announced he was quite finished with his deer season and drove back home. I had about an hour to kill before sundown. I hunted from the new living room while Darron continued working on the stone work. As the sun set and the air cooled, I realized I was about done in as well. I slept in this morning.
This trip has given me a few new resolutions. First of these is that I need to find a new cell phone carrier. Verizon has been giving me problems, but SuperCore was using Cricket/AT&T and he had 5G all the way down in that hole. Second, I have realized my days of solo hunting are pretty much at an end. That is kind of self-evident in that by next year, KYHillChick and I will both be living down here full-time. We’ll be back to what it was in the old days, where I could radio back to the cabin and ‘HillChick would drive out with the truck. However, I think that I will have to plan my seasons to take this into account. I’m too far down the path to expect self-rescue to be an option.
The last resolution is heartfelt. I’ve always admired Supercore for his computer and educational abilities. He was the best boss I ever had, and I was always in awe of the man when I was teaching under him. That awe has now been extended to the man’s sheer grit and tenacity. It took watching him falter at the bottom of that ravine and then recover to make me realize how resilient the man is. He gutted it out and got out of that hole on his own, while I was silently contemplating how I was going to get him out if he couldn’t stand. I knew the man was tough. He’d been a spook, listening in on the Ruskies, and he’d gone Airborne after that. All I want to be in my remaining life is to live up to that model.
I also want to recommend Darron to the deer camp for his permanent adoption as an honorary lifetime member. His actions yesterday earned him that.
Details:
Buck taken 0815 ET Thursday, weighed 120 pounds liveweight.
Location: JagendeHutte
Conditions: 46 F. Winds West @ 6 mph Pressure: 29.25 Rising.
Shot with Whetherby Vanguard in 30-06. Load: 150 grain Hornady IL SP over H4895
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