“Shhhh,” I whispered. “Every deer in this patch of woods will hear us if you keep tripping over branches like that.”
“I can’t help it, I can hardly see anything out here.”
It wasn’t exactly the perfect start to a bowhunting trip, but there we were, my wife and I, in Alberta’s Rocky Mountain foothills, searching for whitetails. I’d been a bowhunter for quite a few years, but last year my wife, Delia, decided it was better to join me than stay home.
And that was fine by me. We get along great and hunting was just another way we could do things together. Delia picked out her own compound bow, arrows, quiver – the works - then spent long hours at a range, practicing her technique.
And now that it was the fall hunting season, we took a few days off from work, to head out into the bush and see if we could get lucky; hunting, that is. So, a Wednesday morning found us gearing up at the truck at dawn. We pulled on our camo gear, smeared grease paint over our faces, then headed for a little watering hole I had staked out earlier in the fall.
And this is where we hit a snag. We’d hiked together plenty, but stalking silently through the woods is different than blasting along a trail in broad daylight. We had to cover a few hundred yards to get to the hunting blind I had built near the water hole, and it was kind of tough going for Delia in the dark. Still, once her eyes adjusted to the dim dawn daylight, she did all right. I was proud of her.
Quiet as possible, we snuck into the blind I had constructed on a little slope above the watering hole. Once we placed ourselves and our equipment, so we could move as quietly as possible, it was time to nock an arrow and wait.
It was kind of cool and, as usual, once we had settled in, it was amazing the sounds a person could hear. Few people ever make the effort to be quiet, but a hunter has to. And that’s when you hear mice rustling in the undergrowth, air whistling through a raven’s wings as it flies overhead, even flies buzzing around.
As we sat silently in the blind, we heard all these things. Then we heard a light rustling sound from the direction of the waterhole. As we peered through the camouflage netting of the blind, a doe walked out of the trees and made her way to the water’s edge. She was perfectly safe, we both held tags for bucks. She daintily picked her way to the water, stopping to look and listen as she moved, being careful.
I looked at Delia, and saw her eyes light up as she watched the graceful doe. Suddenly, the doe looked behind her, toward the woods where she had emerged. Both of us looked in the same direction and, sure enough, a buck stood there looking at her.
Delia leaned toward me. “Is that one big enough to shoot?”
The young buck was just a little forkhorn, definitely not worth using up a tag to bag. “No,” I whispered back. “Way too small.”
