One With Nature

I just bought my deer license on-line. Thursday the brother-in-law and I will be traveling a couple of hours to public land for what used to be our annual, end of the gun season, 2 days or so in the woods. No, we don't do the opening day thing. We'd both rather come home empty handed than see a lot of orange clad bipeds stomping around, disrupting the peace and quiet.

We used to do this every year after a couple of months sitting in tree stands with a bow. The last time we went hunting together was 2 days, 3 years ago, when I got 1 and missed 1 with a revolver. Last year I hunted 1/2 of 1 day. Bummer! I haven't bow hunted in 3 years. That's my favorite method of deer hunting, but I haven't been able to participate recently for multiple reasons.

If you've visited here for very long you know that I hunt deer with either a .357 Mag or a .454 Casull. My brother-in-law uses a .41 Mag, which happens to be a great deer cartridge. Last time I let him use my bandolier holster because the crappy one he has is too big for his S&W, but a tad small for my scoped .454 Ruger. I keep thinking about buying one for the big Ruger but never seem to get it done. So once again I'll carry my scoped .454 in his crappy holster that's way too big for either my Ruger (red dot sighted) .357 or his S&W .41.

We've both decided that if a deer is shot by either, the drag back to the truck will be down hill, or flat at worst. He has a knee issue and I'm still bothered with gout and arthritis in one hip. I don't think that both of us, together, can drag a deer uphill where we're going. So why bother going when we'll both be limping around the woods? It's not about the killing. It's about the hunting, and being one with nature.