The Fastest Doe Hunt

Saturday afternoon was one of those days during season when it is nice just to settle in with a good book and wait for sundown. There was not going to be much moving so long as the wind gusting into the low twenties, but being in the cabin was no good either. We all left for our blinds early in anticipation of a window at sundown when would wind die down a bit and the deer might move out of their beds to feed. It had been blowing like that for 24 hours, and there had been a 4 hour stretch before first light where the rain made the windows and walls of the cabin sound like a thousand rat terriers scratching to get in.

I went slowly out to the luxury box at Midway, plodding along the track we call Vine Street that runs along the centerline of the farm. It is a better than a half-mile out, and I did not want to work up a sweat getting there. I had left most of my gear in the blind from the morning hunt. It had been a handy shelter earlier in the day from the mix of snow, freezing rain and graupel that had followed the horizontal rain. That is precisely why Midway exists. With a blind like that, there is very little excuse not to go hunting in even the worst conditions. It is a double-ended blind originally meant for two hunters sitting back to back. However, now that my sons are grown, I can sit in the middle and watch out both windows.

If you click on it, you will get a much larger image of the panorama. Let me give you a quick tour from left to right:

1) The south window overlooking a 200+ yard pasture that includes the Garden of Stone. Burlap Curtains pull across the opening. The open window is shaded by an awning that swings up.
2) The orange funnel is the hunter relief tube– very handy for the long sits. It is attached to a garden hose that runs out the side of the blind.
3) I had KYHillChick run up a curtain made from black opera cloth. It blocks the light coming between the windows. Early testing of the blind showed that hunters were back-lit. This solves the problem. When hunting solo, I sit to one side or the other and leave the curtain pulled up just enough to see out both windows.
4) The north window shows the sandbag well. I have a 2X6 sill and a rifle rest filled with kitty litter at each window. It overlooks a 230 yard pasture.
5) The hatch is in the middle of the north window.

I had just crawled in the hatch and begun opening up the blind when I spied movement in the tree line about 100 yards down the north pasture. I had not opened up the south window yet. I had not even had a chance to sit down. I loaded up my Ruger Hawkeye in 30-06, pulled my folding chair up to the window and poked the barrel out. Here came a doe out of the weeds, munching the last of the acorns hidden in the tall grass. I had passed within 60 yards of that spot less than 5 minutes previously. It was just a matter of waiting for a broadside shot. When it came, my crosshairs were already on her.

For as much as I enjoy the sport of deer hunting, the thing I like least is the phase at the end of season where I go looking for that last doe to fill the freezer. There is just something about sitting there going Eeenie, Meanie, Minie, Mo at a field filled with deer, trying not to kill buttons or matriarchs or nursing mothers or whatever. Here was a lone doe that was playing a relatively small part in the life of the herd. She had probably come onto the property having been chased off her own territory during Opening Weekend. To tell y’all the truth, I did not think a whole lot about it. She was down in less time than it took to read this paragraph, and I had been in the blind less than 5 minutes.