The Deer Hunt

953 Words2 Pages

It is 5:30am on opening morning of deer hunting season and my alarm explodes into a racket that would wake an army. I roll out of bed and rub the sleep from my eyes. I only slept six hours last night because my family and I were preparing for the hunt, getting the guns ready, laying out a clothes-man, everything. As I throw some pants on, the smell of fresh pancakes wakes me up. It is at this time I realize the season is upon us. Since January I have been waiting for this day to come, today begins the annual nine day season that brings our family together each November.

After stumbling upstairs I go to the computer and turn on Da Yoopers’ “Da turdy Point Buck”, the song our family must listen to before we head out the door and into the woods. With the song blaring through the house, I walk into my brother’s room, turn the lights on, rip the covers from his bed, and narrowly escape a swift kick from his leg. After a breakfast of pancakes my brother and I jump into his truck and head for the hills. We own 120 acres three miles from the house, so we must drive to our destination. Any other morning there would be no vehicles on the road, but this particular morning we pass about ten other trucks all taking their passengers to their particular hunting spots.

Three inches of fresh snow fell last night, creating a blanket of freshness that reflects the last rays of moonlight. As we drive into our property we see fresh deer tracks and my heart starts pumping, I have been away from Wisconsin for a few months and this morning is the first time I entered these woods since September. A few hundred yards into the woods we jump three deer walking the road. They bound off into the darkness in flashes of brown silhouetted by snow. We park...

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...the wood for movement, looking for the slightest movement that will indicate the presence of some animal, maybe a deer walking through the woods feeding, or maybe a squirrel on its never-ending hunt for food. At 8:45 I get up and walk to my brother; the cold weather has found its way into my body through my many layers of clothes. I walk ever so silently hoping to find a deer over the hill, or in some alders eating. I see nothing but when I get to my brother he tells me I pushed five deer right past him.

We walk back to the truck and head for home, we didn’t shoot anything this morning but the hunt was a success; we both saw many deer and we were in the woods during the most beautiful part of the day. As we drive through the woods towards home I am totally content, there is nothing more I could have right now; the experience of being in the woods, and my family.

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