Lessons Form My First Whitetail Hunt

When I first started hunting whitetail deer, I was blessed during my first year of living in North Carolina by a rancher and his family who happened to notice my whiteboard in my garage while dropping off a quarter cow order I had made, where I had written down many of the hunting seasons in North Carolina that I was interested in. Hunting was a priority of mine when moving here and he rewarded my enthusiasm by inviting me to hunt on his ranch. For months he would always have something to say about the deer he was seeing on his property every time I saw him at the Farmer's Market. He even introduced me to his youngest son who later took me out to a tree farm he had access to so that we could sight in our rifles for the upcoming season.

When deer season did begin that year, my second son / third child was born. This delayed me a little as I knew it would. But towards the beginning of November, I got a call from the rancher's son asking if I was ready to get out there. Being the 3rd child, my wife felt confident she could handle the kids and little one at home while I went hunting. I packed my gear that night and woke up bright and early the next day to hunt deer for the first time.

I arrived at the property, questioning if I was in the right place while looking around in the dark. Everything can be so unrecognizable at night. The rancher ended up meeting me and asked if I had a harness for the tree. Unaware and ignorant of the need for one, I said no. He went back to the house and found a spare one that his grandkids would sometimes use and loosened it to my size. He said his son would sometimes sit in a tree without one, but asked of me that if I was going to hunt on their property, I be required to wear one. I'm a strong believer in safety and risk precaution measures, so I had no arguments with that request. I ended up doing some research and ordering my own that afternoon. I do remember being concerned about sitting in the tree stand prior and I find it funny looking back that I didn't think to research safety measures to prevent falling out of the tree. As life goes, you don't know what you don't know.

The rancher offered to drive me in his Gator to the stand but said it might scare the deer away. I told him I think I could find it having been driven by it during the day. It was right off the side of the trail near the back gate, giving me a good landmark to look for. But while I had an idea where the stand was off the trail, I didn't realize how hard it was to find the trail in the dark. I set out and ended up wandering this way and that through the woods, just trying to find the trailhead. At one point I found myself walking along the fence of his pigs which I knew was the opposite direction of where I needed to be.

After stumbling through the dark, I eventually found the trail. However, I started to wonder if it was the right trail as walking to the tree stand certainly took longer than driving to it. This trail was hard enough to find this morning, so I trekked on. As I began to wish I had taken up the rancher's offer to be driven to the stand, I rounded the last corner. My headlamp caught the reflection of the safety rope that hung beside the ladder. I had made it. I climbed up to the stand and organized myself, placing my pack on the spare stand that had been set up for a guest. Later when I would explore the property more during the day, I realized that there was only one trail, but two paths to get to it. Finding your way in the dark is not easy when you're not familiar with the property. I can't even imagine getting lost in the woods on public land at dark. I certainly see why you should always carry a compass.

What came next in the stand was something I'll probably never fully experience again. The slow rise of the sun as the woods began to gradually come into view. I remember seeing a slight shimmering mass about 200 to 300 yards away as I was trying to make out what eventually was revealed to be a lake in front of me. Everything was unidentifiable as what seemed like hours passed with the sun revealing more and more to my eyes. A view of the woods I would become very familiar with was being built in front of me as if God was creating the world that morning. Time in the morning tree stand moves way too quickly now for me, but I remember how slow it felt that first morning. It's like taking a long drive to a location that makes a few hours feel all day the first time and later passes quickly on repeat trips. Maybe I will get to experience this slow morning again in a foreign hunting location, but only time will tell. For now, it is a fond memory of my first whitetail and tree stand hunt.

Once the sun was up enough to see clearly, I did spot my first deer. He was a very small 4 point buck who was exploring the area slowly in front of me. I was asked to only shoot 8 points or greater past the ears, so I knew this wasn't my target. A while later, I heard the leaves around me and started to look around. I realized that the sound was just coming from noisy squirrels and eventually stopped looking at the sound of leaves. Then something made me turn around and I saw a doe behind my stand. It was at an awkward angle, so I didn't feel comfortable getting my rifle around the tree to take my first deer. This was probably just an excuse as doe after doe began to come by the stand and I just couldn't get up the nerve to take a shot. I don't quite remember, but I could have also been waiting to see a shootable buck and thus passed up many doe. Something I would take for granted when no doe showed up the following year.

Eventually, I felt determined to get a deer regardless of it being a buck and I decided to shoot the next doe that passed. Of course, a while went by at this point with just silence and I thought how typical now that I was mentally ready to take my first shot. Then two doe finally came by and I lined up my scope. Feeling the pressure I had put on myself I rushed the shot and fired. The doe ran, but not far. It just stood there, partly hidden from me behind a tree. The second doe was just wandering around looking for food. I wondered if I had hit the first doe and tried to look around the tree between us to see what it was doing. I started to have a sinking feeling in my stomach as I began to recognize the behavior of this deer just by the look I saw on its face. It reminded me of a dog who's hurt its leg and is just waiting before attempting to move again because it knows something isn't right.

For what seemed like several minutes, I watched this deer stand there as thoughts of guilt that I only harmed this animal ran through my head. Eventually, this deer tried to move and I saw it stop as if it recognized some pain still. I felt confirmed in my suspicions. I knew I needed to take a second shot to end this deer's pain as soon as I could, but I needed it to move out from behind this tree. Finally, the deer was able to walk it off and began to walk over to eat as if nothing was wrong. My window opened. I carefully aligned my shot and fired. The doe was hit in the lungs and fell almost immediately. I was more relieved than anything.

What appears to have happened is that I must have pulled the shot down when I fired and I scraped the brisket of the deer. Unfortunately for the deer, this was not a fatal shot. This still bothers me today and took me a while to come to terms with it. Because of it though, I learned the hard way why you don't rush a shot. Why it is so important to take a fatal shot and avoid any suffering on the part of the animal. If I don't feel like I have a clean shot, I let the animal walk every time. Taking the life of an animal is not an easy thing to do. Harming one is even harder and can be emotionally painful for good and moral people. I use this story as an example of why parents need to teach their kids to take their time taking the shot. They don't need guilt on their conscience.

Additionally unfortunate, was the fact that I was looking forward to using the brisket as one of my first venison meals. I was definitely more careful with my shot the next time I had a chance that season and the shredded beef tacos I made with that second deer's brisket were certainly what I had hoped they would be.

Once I had the deer hanging back in the rancher's shed, I started to feel the excitement I would have felt in the field when I first shot the deer, had the burden of my pulled shot not been on my mind. I went to work having previous field dressing experience from other big game. The one thing that was new to me was butchering the meat into its individual cuts. Thank goodness for YouTube. This was the one thing I did do extensive research on prior. So much so that I didn't need to take anything to a butcher except what I wanted to be made into ground. I had made the assumption that this was what most hunters did. I later found out when I had a meal for my family from that deer that same week, that another hunter was surprised that I had my cuts back from the butcher already, only to find out that I had done most of it myself. That being said, it is pretty easy once you get your hands dirty doing it. I just took the time to learn the anatomy of the deer and what cuts would make what steaks. This especially comes in handy when I have to make my custom orders of a quarter cow from the rancher.

While my mistake made this a tough lesson to learn, I am a better hunter for it. You don't live with your failures. You live with lessons on how not to do something in order to know how to do it the right way. But we can also learn from each other's lessons. As my pastor once said, it isn't win or lose. It's win or learn.