Fall

Fall, my favorite season. A season of relief. A season of calm. I have never really liked hot weather. I would rather be too cold than too warm, but Fall is just perfect. Not cold enough to chill you thru to the bone, but a crisp breeze will often exhilarate the senses. I do love Fall.

Growing up, I knew nothing of hunting. My father did not hunt, or even own a gun. And really, no one I knew on a close personal level had anything to do with hunting. I never looked down on or up to hunting. I just never really thought about it. But when we moved to an area, a few years back, where essentially all of my new friends where involved in hunting, I became intrigued. Don't get me wrong I have always been an animal lover. I have really never gone more than a few months without having some-sort of pet in the house, and I wouldn't have it any other way. So the psychology behind why I would want to hunt is somewhat mysterious to me. I guess part of it was understanding what the area could support. The local vegetation was only enough to support so many deer. After the deer exceeded this population, many would starve through the winter and many would seek food elsewhere, where people lived. Thus all the mangled deer alongside the road and the numerous auto accidents. So maybe that is part of rationalizing the act, but there is definitely more that rationale behind why I wanted to hunt.

So I tried it. First, a great new (new at the time) friend of mine took me out to buy my first ever gun. I had always loved knives, but this was a new level of fun. So the first gun was a .270. Nothing fancy, just a used, scoped up, standard, bolt action, deer rifle. Next was the "shooting range." Out in the country where we lived the "shooting range" was a friend's empty pasture, nice and free and no one around to laugh at the beginner. Surprisingly though, I was a great shot immediately. My first shot, which was off hand, smacked it just 1cm away from the center of the target at 100yds. Next I plopped down and rested myself in the prone position. From there I could hit the center, spot on, and the next few shot just warmed up the same hole. Half a box of shells and I was done practicing. Next was hunter safety training. This was a requirement to get a hunting license, a requirement that most men in the area had completed by age 12. If fact, in my class of 30 students, I was one of only 2 guys over the age of 12 in the class! Oh well, it wasn't that bad. Finally, the hoops had all been jumped thru and whitetails came into season. So my great new friend agreed to continue my hunting mentorship and took me out into the woods, gun loaded and over my shoulder, for the first time. I could not believe just how much I loved being out in the woods. It was just so beautiful and so peaceful. After sitting out there for about 20 minutes or so I could distinctly hear a train chugging by, but my friend said that train was over twenty miles away! The woods are quiet. After about an hour I saw my first whitetails in the wild. Even though they raced by, probably about a dozen does and 3 bucks, way to quickly for a clean shot, my heart raced. That whole day came and went without a single clean shot. But I wasn't upset. I soon realized that the split second of pulling the trigger is not the only enjoyable part of hunting. I loved the whole process: getting up before dawn, washing off any scent, putting on a bunch of gear to keep you warm, checking over your gun one last time, walking out to the spot you have selected a few weeks before and then hunkering down and enjoying the unbelievable peace. My mentor took me out again, to another favorite spot of his where he saw a lot of signage in the last few weeks. After about 2 hours of seeing nothing but squirrels and birds, my friend decide to go walk the ridge and possibly stir something up and in my direction. Sure enough, about thirty minutes after the sound of his footsteps fhad aded away I was startled to see something moving, and it was a beautiful doe all by herself coming right at me. I wasn't even ready. I didn't even have my gun up and in the ready. So I watched and weighted, and everytime she passed behind a tree I pulled my gun up a little more until I was in the ready, standing, forced to shoot off hand. She grazed her way up into the clearing and stopped for the perfect shot pose. My heart was pounding so hard I thought my ears would jump of my head and scare her away. BANG! I took my shot. It rang so much louder than it did at the range and certainly felt so much more profound than any shot before. She took one half drunken step, flipped over and slipped down the slope about 5 feet. She never even felt it. The shot was flawless, punctured a lung and annihilated the heart. When I field dressed her there was just an empty gap where her heart should have been. No suffering there. It was totally exhilarating. I cannot explain it; I just know that I can't wait to get out there again. It has been a few years since I have been out in the woods now, but I feel it calling me back and I cannot wait to hunt again.