A woman's hunting story

[IFallsRon]

A true hunting story written by a girl

By Joan A. Theisen

Ever seeking new experiences, I went deer hunting for the first time this year.

Growing up in a family of hunters — deer, grouse, elk, moose — you name it, it was hunted; I never had the desire to hunt. As a teenager I was busy with friends, as a young adult I was busy with college and friends (can you say party?), and as a mother I was busy with the kids. I’m also sure a lot of it was the idea of getting up at an extremely early hour and walking through the woods in the cold to get in the right spot before daylight. Anyway, as the hunting season approached every year, it seemed to be more of a guy thing, a test of masculinity — I had nothing to prove — I don’t have a (the right equipment).

This year however, I am starting to look at my life more in terms of experiences than in years, so I decided to give it a shot (no pun intended).

Now I am fortunate to live on 16 nice acres of land surrounded by farm fields and two lakes. Some of the land is wooded, some is not and wildlife abounds. My husband and I got up around 6:30 a.m. so we could get out to our tree stands by 7 a.m. because sunrise would be about 7:30 a.m. As we were walking to the stands that were situated in the wooded area, I remember thinking how peaceful it was. No chirping birds or scampering squirrels, no sounds yet from the far off highway — just peace. We walked about a hundred yards from our back door to the stands. I climbed up with a 20-gauge shotgun and sat down on the bench seat. The stand was not enclosed, but I was dressed for the elements so I didn’t feel the cold. Let’s see, feet — socks, wool socks and sorrels; lower extremities — underwear, cuddle duds, fleece pants and flannel-lined denim pants; upper extremities — t-shirt, cable-knit sweater, quilted flannel shirt, faux carhart jacket, orange outer liner; head — orange stocking cap and orange hat with faux fur ear-flaps that Velcroed under my chin; hands — wool mittens that the ends fold back to become a glove (what a great concept!) Yes, it was a lot but I could still move my arms and legs and after all it’s not a fashion contest.

Anyway, back to my story. As I sat there in my stand in the silence of the early morning hours, I thought about how beautiful the silence was. We are always surrounded by so much noise that we don’t even think about it anymore. Most of us think that peace and quite are what we get after the kids are in bed and we can watch our favorite show in “peace and quite”. A lot of the noise we make ourselves, inside our own heads (no I’m not schizophrenic), I just mean by constantly worrying or planning for our futures or thinking what we have to do when we get back to work on Monday. Here in my stand, the silence was calming — almost like a drug. I was able to forget about the stress I was under from other areas of my life and just concentrate on the complete silence. It was absolutely one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced.

As the sun started slowly coming up, the forest started to slowly come alive. A bird started chirping, squirrels started running around (no offense but I really hate squirrels, they scare me and their beady little eyes mean they cannot be trusted), a rooster crowed in the distance and…..the guns started going off. Since we live on a dirt road in the country we know all of our neighbors so we could tell who were getting deer or a least shooting at them. Three shots in a row, was our neighbor Shane (we always tease him about how many shots he has to fire), shots on the big field kitty-corner from our house was our neighbor Jeff, further down the road are the Larson’s and so on.

Then it was my turn. I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see what I thought was a large doe but it turned out to be a buck (the horns were hard to see because of the brush). I raised my gun being as quiet as I could, took aim right behind the shoulder, closed my eyes and shot. Yes, I said I closed my eyes. I quickly opened my eyes and he was on the ground. I stood up in the stand looking at him and something seemed odd. He only had a horn on one side of his head. Oh My God! I HAD SHOT MY BUCK’S HORN OFF!! Thoughts began to race through my head — how will I ever live down the ridicule of the neighbors, I won’t be able to get him mounted, aren’t the horns the most important part? Nobody shoots off their deer horns!

By this time, having heard the shot, my husband was over by the deer and having examined the scene deducted that I had not shot the horn off, but instead, when the deer hit the ground it broke the horn off. I had actually shot him behind the ear in the neck. O.K., let’s focus on the positive. Even though my deer was now a three-pointer instead of a six, it was not my fault and the fact that I hadn’t shot a gun in over 30 years and brought it down with one shot, actually meant that I did pretty ****** good. Yeah, me!

What do you mean I have to, to say it nicely — clean out the deer? Isn’t that what the husband does? O.K., O.K., to those wondering if I did it, yes I did and it wasn’t that bad, but next time I’m carrying a pair of rubber gloves. That’s all I’m going to say about this small housekeeping issue.

By now it was 8:15 a.m. Time to take a bath and hit the sales at the mall. Who says a girl can’t have it all?

Footnote: After shopping, lunch, and a nap, I returned to the woods at 4 p.m. and shot another buck at 5:30 p.m.

My husband never got a thing, although he was very proud of me.

[Lisa Almquist]

Great story IFRon. Thanks for posting it. It's great to read a "girl power" story!

[Hammer Handle]

My neice (20) got her first deer this year. Great for her! Her sister (18) has already shot 3 including a big buck...so she felt "pressured".

Very proud of her!!

[Lisa Almquist]

Oh that's so great! My sisters' just think I'm crazy to be a fishergal-no competition there! I think there's alot more ladies who hunt/fish out there-I'd like to see some stats on that. Thanks for sharing HH-get those girls on our forum will ya?

[Kallista]

I liked the story but can i say one thing?

Meat is most important not horns

sorry just saids my peace..

signed a girl