Christmas Eve deer story

Early Christmas present for Jeff

The weather had been warm and the deer had not been moving at all in the evenings. High hopes for another doe harvest to convert into venison for the freezer were diminishing quickly. A new winter food plot was only just now greening up due to a lack of moisture, but it was the best option to hunt over. After an hour in the deer stand and the sun now setting, no deer movement was seen. Then the deer movement dilemma came to an abrupt end when five deer walked out single file into the food plot. Binoculars helped reveal that it was four does followed by a spike buck, who was acting amorous towards doe number four. The first two does did not stop to eat, but rather walked towards my stand from 150-yards away. The buck stopped to eat and does three and four began to play by rubbing their heads together in a back and forth fashion. For whatever reason, those first two does came right towards my stand like I had deer candy in my pocket! The first doe looked up at me from 20-yards away, got spooky and ran away - but the other four deer did not. Doe number two looked at my position very hard and I did not flinch, somewhat easing her concern, and then doe number one came back and walked just beneath my stand. With doe number one now too close to shoot, I raised my rifle and shot at doe number two from 20-yards away. She absorbed the lethal blow and stumbled to within ten paces of my deer stand and fell over dead. The other deer scattered and I was thankful for such a pulse-pounding hunt with multiple deer, and it renewed the sentiment that you have to stay ready for any situation when still hunting for white-tailed deer.

To view past Christmas hunting blog entries click here.