First Hunt: The Climax of Deer Season

My heart beats in my chest; my hands are so sweaty that I think my black Remington 7 MM 08 rifle might just slip out of my hand to the patchy snow- covered ground twenty feet below. As I stand, taking deep breaths to calm myself, my legs shake. It is the first day of deer season, and a stick has cracked on the hill beneath me under the weight of a good sized animal. I hear footsteps in the rhythmic form that only a four legged deer could make; the footsteps are getting closer and just before the animal steps into view, I hear them seize. This is the moment that I have been preparing for over the last couple months; all of the work that was put into finding the game, installing the cold metal deer stand, and clearing out the most reasonable shooting lanes so that a shot could be fired without alerting the deer comes to its point

In the next couple moments, the work might be justified so that I knew it was not a mistake waking up early before the sun rose this morning and that I was not crazy sitting out here in the rigid prewinter air. Even though there are the few hunters that have lucky successes despite not preparing for this day at all, it’s the little details that count out here in the woods; the tiniest twig out of place could cause the game to be on alert and possibly spook. Everything should be in place for this day, and this starts months before the hunting season, in the preseason when deer hunting enthusiasts everywhere track down the game, pick their perfect hunting spot, and get ready for the long awaited day. In this bitter cold morning air, an hour into the sunrise, this lesson that I have learned could win me, at least to this point as the middle school me shakes with cold and nerves, the biggest buck of