Sitka Day 24: Deer Hunting
There’s one week left of deer season here in Sitka and it seemed only fitting that when an opportunity to go hunting arose, I should take it. We took half a day and six miles and walked a path into the woods. To say what path we took (and more importantly, where we left that path and bushwhacked by compass) would be to break a cardinal rule: you don’t tell people where you got your deer. But I will say this: the peaks rose around us through cracks in the canopy, water wove and bent and narrowed, and eventually we found ourselves amidst old growth hemlocks and the lovely, rushing silence that comes with falling snow.
The weapon was a bolt action thirty-aught-six with a black walnut buttstock and stellar spotting scope. The objective was one deer, should we be so lucky, because this hunter already took five this season and six would put him at his limit.

That rush of spotting freshly laid tracks! A buck judging from the toe drags, and a very nearby one at that. Snow fell rapidly and yet these tracks lay undisturbed. We froze and looked. Looked again…then followed the tracks until we found an animal “superhighway” where many deer had passed before. Was it minutes or half an hour before we found the spot where the buck had bedded down? My pal took off his gloves and felt the ground for warmth. He looked at me and shook his head, whispered: “He’s probably watching us right now.”

It made a good spot to rest indeed, and had I come prepared with shelter I would have offered no objection to making camp for the night…for the rest of winter…for that matter, until all of spring comes rushing forth from these mountains and with it new life. They say in order to hunt well, you have to think like a deer. Maybe for a few moments, we did.