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After shooting my first whitetail buck in the 2008 rifle season, I had no idea that it would take until the 2013 rifle season to fill my whitetail tag again.
It is not from lack of trying that I haven’t filled my tag. I put every moment I could into hunting and one of my favourite places to hunt from is a blind on our quarter that we refer to as “Old Faithful”, as this blind has always produced an opportunity for bucks. There has been a couple of “first” bucks shot out of there including mine, as well as my dad and my husband Grant, who have both taken bucks out of it over the years.
The blind itself is made under a big old spruce tree that provides a perfect canopy. We trimmed the lower branches and put up a couple of low plywood walls to enclose it. Inside we have placed two old chairs and one lucky horseshoe.
I have learned that blind hunting requires a lot of sitting and waiting with very little movement and no talking, which for me might be the hardest.
The first time I hunted “Old Faithful” this year was when we had the first major snowstorm with lots of snow and a wind coming out of the east and right into the blind. Every time I would put up my binoculars to glass, they were instantly filled with snow. Needless to say, I didn’t stay in it very long that day.
It wasn’t until Friday, November 15th that we were able to head out again and yep, that was the day that another big snowstorm started... oh, great! We headed out to our quarter and Grant decided to drive me to “Old Faithful” and drop me off. I had made sure to put on my warmest hunting clothes and had hand and foot warmers to make sure I wouldn’t freeze. I wasn’t in the blind very long when the snow stopped and the air was calm, conditions were perfect. I settled in for the wait.
It was only about a half hour later when I received a text from Grant who was set up in his blind about 500 yards to the east from mine. “Use your bleat now! A buck just came by me.” So I picked up my bleat and used it, even throwing in a couple of grunts for good measure in hopes of getting the buck to head my way. I waited a bit and then sent Grant a text asking him where the buck went and how big he was. His reply was, “The corner over into the big bush and he is a nice buck.” Oh well, where he crossed the fence was well out of my range so I sat back and resumed glassing the field.
Soon I spotted something on the other side of the fence across the field, about 400 metres away. “Oh boy, this is good,” I thought, but soon discovered that when I spot a deer I must get a little excited and put my binoculars up too close to my eyes, because they always fog up. By the time I got them unfogged the deer I had seen was gone.
Back to glassing, I caught another glimpse of movement across the fence but a little closer this time. However, all I was able to see was something moving before they completely fogged up again. I repeated this one more time and I was sure the deer was working its way along the other side of the fence heading to the west. I scanned the area with my now unfogged binoculars, making sure not to hold them too close to my eyes and didn’t see anything.
It was approaching “prime time” when I could hear Grant rattling again so I thought I would do my part and throw in a couple of bleats and grunts in case I could lure the buck over my way. I had just set down my grunt tube and was going to pick up my binoculars when another text came in from Grant to inform me that there were only 10 more minutes of legal shooting light left.
Okay, time to bear down. I picked up my binoculars for another scan when I caught movement at the far west corner of the field. Making sure to keep the binoculars the correct operating distance from my eyes, I focused in on a deer with his head down at about 125 yards. Now this is where it’s important to remain calm and assess the situation. Yep, that’s right, remain calm... ha! Right away my breathing kicked it up notch and then my heart rate when the buck lifted his head and I saw that he was for sure a shooter. He was facing me and in fact, it seemed that he was looking right at me. What followed proved that I am indeed ready to hunt on my own.
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| Andrea MacKenzie poses with her whitetail buck. |
He turned his head and looked like he was going to jump the fence into the next field; while he was doing this, I exchanged my binoculars for my gun and placed the crosshairs on his chest, but not before verifying through my scope that he was the one I wanted. Once again, he was looking right at me and I made my decision to shoot. I took a deep breath and shot. Keeping my scope on him, I saw him go down but he wobbled back up so I reloaded and fired again. This time he dropped for good and it was about this time that the adrenaline really kicked in.
I placed the safety on my gun and set it down, took out my phone to make the call I had been waiting years to make and no service came up on the screen... are you kidding me? I rushed out of my blind and thankfully, within the five steps it takes to get out, I had almost full service. Grant didn’t even get a word out before I was yelling, “Hurry, hurry! I shot a buck and he’s down.”
He had heard the shots and knew that it was my little .243, as he calls it, and was getting ready to head over anyways. I went back into the blind and even though my heart was beating so hard I thought it might pound out of chest, I managed to get all my gear rounded up and waited for Grant to drive across the field to pick me up.
It seemed to take forever for him to arrive but when he did, I could tell he was as excited as I was. It was not a hard search at all, as the buck had pretty much gone down when the second shot had hit him and stayed down.
Although he isn’t “the mega”, he is a beautiful 5x5 buck and I couldn’t be prouder, as I finally did it all by myself.
“Old Faithful” paid off again. ■
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