Deer Season

A cousin of mine said it best: “I like deer. I like watching them and I like eating them.” That pretty much sums up my feelings and the feelings of a lot of people I know as well. Deer are beautiful animals and, though they can sometimes be pests, especially when it comes to gardens and seedling trees, I like seeing them, just to look at them. Venison tastes good too. So just because I use deer for a practical purpose and not simply aesthetics doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate them. This post covers hunting which some readers might find offensive. I would advise those readers who think this subject might be upsetting to them not to read on. However, if you have ever wondered why people hunt, this post might provide some insight.

The hunting season using modern firearms for deer has been the last three weeks of October for as long as I can remember. This is a very special time of year for me. It is almost sacred, a time of spirits. In the old traditions of Ireland and Scotland the last day of October is a very special day. In the old traditions it is called Samhain (I believe it is actually pronounced So’ain or something like that). According to these traditions, on the night of Samhain the veil between the living and the dead disappears and the dead can walk the earth along with a number of other otherworldly beings and monsters. Halloween is the now hypercommercialized American version of these old traditions.

I have often wondered if the weather and climate conditions here are similar to the conditions at this time of year in the old country where the traditions of Samhain arose. I could see how the idea that the boundary between the living and the dead thins and disappears at this time of year. Twilight, which is not really day but not really night either, is longer. At the same time the harvest is being brought in, insuring that life will continue through the winter ahead, all the plants are dying. The smell of living, growing things mingles strongly with the musty smell of decay. So it is a time of active vibrant life and at the same time, death. The living and the dead are present at the same time on the same plane.

I love being out in the stillness of twilight at this time of year. It may just be my imagination but, at twilight, at this time of year, it seems like I can feel the presence of spirits, the mountain spirits and spirits of the people who were on this land before me, my direct ancestors as well as other people. It seems that, without a lot of effort, one can touch almost physically touch times long vanished, especially if you are involved in a traditional activity such as hunting, where you are walking in the footsteps of the people who went before and experiencing at least some of the things that they experienced.

I feel spirits all year long but they are especially strong at this time of year and, in some places, the sensation is stronger than in other places. I feel the presence of spirits most strongly on overcast days after a good rain. They inhabit the mist and fog or a vagrant breeze. In at least some of the versions of the Samhain traditions that I have heard of, Samhain is a time of dread and danger. I have never gotten a bad feeling though I can’t say I have gotten any warm fuzzy feelings either. The way that best describes these spirits, as I feel them, would be watchful and mostly indifferent but not outwardly hostile.

Usually the best weather for deer hunting is overcast with either steady rain or showers. I tend to see more deer during the daylight on days like these. I don’t know exactly why this is. I do know that deer’s eyes are adapted for the blue light of early morning and late evening and they see best under these conditions. Blue to them is like blaze orange to humans. Possibly when it isn’t overcast, there is enough light at night, especially if there is a moon, for them to be very active so they hole up during the day. However, I have often encountered deer on the roadway in the middle of rainy nights so it is obvious that they can see well enough to be active on overcast nights. Weather fronts cause animals of all kinds to be more active so maybe it is something related to that phenomenon. It is also very hard to be quiet in dry weather, especially in areas with lots of hardwood trees that have dropped their leaves. The leaves dry out and crunch loudly underfoot.

Hunting is not going out and murdering innocent deer at will. As stated previously, deer can see better than humans so can be active during much of the time after dark and before daylight when it is illegal to hunt. They also have a keen sense of smell which they can use to detect and avoid a hunter long before that hunter is even close. Finally, there are restrictions placed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on where you can hunt, when you can hunt and how many and what type of deer you can kill, if you are good enough or lucky enough to see a deer.

Since deer are important to them, hunters tend to be keen observers of where deer are, when they are there and what they are doing, including what they might be eating. Also, if an animal happens to be carrying diseases or parasites, the successful hunter often gains intimate knowledge of this while field dressing or gutting it. This all holds true for any game animal. This might be particularly important as environmental conditions change. Hunters are liable to be some of the first folks to notice birds and animals that are in poor conditions or carrying new diseases and parasites or even carrying more parasites than usual. 

Because many hunters are also pretty keen observers of the surrounding environment, they also tend to notice a lot of non game animals as well. I have observed a curious thing that refers to the opening paragraph of this post. I know a lot of people who hunt who also look for deer when the season is not open. The object of this is not poaching. They will stop, admire and leave unmolested animals that they would not hesitate to shoot if the season was open. They also take pictures, though as I related earlier, taking photos is not hunting. I think most of these people would agree with this. I think they like looking at beautiful animals but they are also gathering information that could be used to make a successful hunt in the future. 

I rarely go more than about 20 miles from where I live to hunt. It is getting harder to hunt here. Much of the land I hunted when I was a kid is now posted no hunting or now has houses on it. The spot where I got my first deer and grouse is now posted. In addition, a lot of the private timber land is now gated, requiring an investment of the better part of a day to get into an area to hunt. There are only three weekends, a total of six free days off work, in the modern firearm season so an investment of an entire day is pretty big chunk of that time.

In 2009 I got a deer on some private timberland very near a spot where I got a deer in 1994. In 1994 I had the deer home in less than half an hour. By 2009 the road was gated and I had to drag that deer for about 4 hours, so long and far in fact, that I dragged the hair off the hide and there was a hole worn through the hide and flesh down to the shoulder bone.

The weather this year was going to be clear, at least in the area where I hunt, close to home. Clear weather is not the best for deer hunting. Access to many areas is now more difficult. And I ended up working the first weekend of the season, which I hate to do. So I was expecting very poor results this year and, if I did manage to get a deer, I figured it would be in a spot where it was going to be a lot of work getting it out. It didn’t work out that way.

I hunted for about an hour Sunday after work. This was all the time I had because it was getting close to dark by the time I got home. Monday after work I decided to try a spot that I had scouted earlier and was close by. I didn’t expect to see much, figuring the deer would be less active because of the clear weather. In less than 10 minutes from getting out of my pickup, I had my deer for the year. I had gotten a deer after investing less than 2 hours of hunting, one of the shortest hunting seasons I have ever had. I actually got it in almost the exact spot where I took a photo of some browsed piggyback plant that was in my post about scouting for deer.

Deer hunting is often like that. I have hunted entire seasons in good hunting weather, in good spots where I new there were a lot of deer, investing hours without seeing a legal buck. And sometimes you run across deer in unexpected places under unexpected circumstances. My dad always told me that you have to keep trying because you never know when you might turn one up and always be ready for the unexpected.

All that being said it wasn’t perfect. I killed the deer with one shot but that shot didn’t hit quite where I wanted. Always pray for single, quickly fatal shot. The deer I got last year was like that. It dropped like a sack of potatoes. That is when you know you had good hit and the deer died instantly without suffering. I always say a quiet prayer of thanks to the powers-that-be when this happens.

This year the deer didn’t die instantly and I watched it take its last few breaths, feeling awful the whole time and hoping it wasn’t suffering much. It was obviously done for so I didn’t shoot again and it was dead in less than a minute. The few times I have been badly hurt, it usually took several minutes for pain to manifest itself. So it is my fervent hope that the deer died before it really felt any pain but I can’t know this for sure.  

I don’t know why my shot was off but there are several possible reasons:

It was an easy shot except that the deer was standing in some brush. You don’t want to guess where your target is. You need to know so you can aim properly. I thought I could see enough of the deer to make the shot. Maybe I was looking at some maple leaves hanging on the brush instead of the deer’s side and aimed too low. I don’t know. After all the shooting practice I did earlier this year, it still boiled down to a judgment call, whether I could see enough of my target to make a good shot. Maybe I made the wrong call this time. In the future, I need to double check to make sure I am looking at what I think I am looking at. In 2011, I jumped a deer and in went behind some thick brush. I could only see a few small parts of it so I didn’t shoot because I had no target. The deer ran away through more brush and I didn’t get a shot. I didn’t get a deer that year but I know I made the right call that time.

The shot I took this year was an offhand shot. It is harder to take a steady aim shooting offhand and I didn’t practice any offhand shooting this year. In future years I will.

Finally, I discovered later that my scope mounts were loose. So my sights could have shifted on me, causing the shot to be off. I don’t know how the mounts got loose. I haven’t done anything to them in years but I now realize that this is an important thing to check every year as well.  

Waiting for the deer to die also made for reflection on how I will leave this world. Will it be after suffering a long time in some obscure corner of the mountains? Or after suffering a long time hooked up to a machine? Or suddenly or slowly after a car crash? Or maybe I will just go to sleep and not wake up. There are many possibilities. The only sure thing is that it will happen some day.

I don’t like killing but it is part of hunting. I have tried just taking pictures but this is not hunting. I don’t think there is anything wrong with taking photos but, to me it seems like I am more like a spectator than an active participant in life. I always offer up prayer after a kill. This is not the macho, praise God, high five type that you often see on TV hunting shows. For me it is a time of solemnity in the recognition that this creature has just paid the price for my existence. It is more of an apology to the deer for taking its life and asking its forgiveness as well as offering thanks to the powers that be, God included, for allowing me to procure food. The whole experience of killing a game animal, for me is rather unique, sadness and grief mixed with thankfulness and a sense of satisfaction at having secured a lot of food.

I have always heard it said of hunting that the work begins after you pull the trigger and I have found this to be true. Dragging the deer this year wasn’t very hard. I had to drag it several hundred yards over mostly flat ground with one small hill. Last year I ended up dragging a deer for about 2 hours and I have already related my experience in 2009. I know of one guy who died of a heart attack while dragging a deer and several who have severely injured their backs while dragging deer.

I took the deer home to gut it because it was close and I had access to running water and tools like gambrels and bone saws which made the job easier and cleaner. It was early evening, around 6:00 p.m. when I killed the deer and it was well after dark by the time it was cleaned and skinned. The process, done mostly by headlamp and with only hand tools, was not nearly as smooth as the farm butchering depicted in my Butchering Day post but I got it done. It was after 9:00 p.m. by the time I was finished.

There is an ethic I follow that almost everyone I know who hunts follows as well. This is, if you kill it, you eat it. Killing an animal and then taking only the head and leaving the rest is a despised act with everyone I know. We try to make as much use as we can of any animal that we kill. I have always felt a sense of responsibility to any animal I have killed. Since I took its life, I should make as much use of it as I can so it wasn't killed for no good reason.

Nothing is perfect so there is always a little waste. I have reached the point where, as long as I have made an honest effort to use everything I can, it doesn't bother me too much to leave something for the scavengers such as coyotes and ravens because, if something besides me had killed the deer, the scavengers would have gotten their share of it. We will get as much meat as possible from the carcass. The deer’s hide and brain will go to a friend who makes drums. The brain will be used to tan the hide. The hooves will go to that same friend to be made into ceremonial rattles. The heart and liver went to another friend who likes heart and liver.

When the modern firearm season is over, I am required to call in to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and submit a harvest report. This report includes where I hunted, if I was successful and, if I was, the sex of the deer and, if it was a buck how many tines or points were on its antlers. Over the years, I have also seen check stations set up where additional data like a deer’s age (determined by examining the teeth) are collected. For several years WaDFW was also collecting grouse wings for a study. To my mind this is an excellent way to collect data on wildlife, or at least game animals. You are getting data from people who are paying to collect it (my hunting license and deer tag cost about $60 this year) instead of having to track down a source of money from somewhere in order to pay someone to collect the data.

So ends my deer season for this year. Already I have experienced regret that I am not still out at twilight with the spirits, poking around the places that hunting takes me, places where I wouldn’t otherwise go. But there are a lot of things that I let slide during the summer that I need to take care of, not to mention getting everything ready for winter. So, all things considered, I’m actually pretty happy to be done for the year.

This is the deer I got this year. It is a two point or "Y" which refers to its antlers. We use western count here so you count the tines on each antler separately. A deer with 3 tines on both antlers would be called a 3 point while one with 3 tines on one antler and 4 on the other would be called a 3 by 4. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife splits the state into areas called game management units and there are various restrictions on what you can shoot in a given unit. In some units, the deer has to be at least a 3 point, with at least 3 tines on one antler. In others it must be at least a two point. In others, it is any buck with antlers. In areas where they want to keep the deer population in check, they might allow you to shoot does as well as bucks. It is hard to see in this photo but under my left hand is the deer tag, in official terms, the transport tag. You only get one for the year in this unit and, upon killing the deer, the date of the kill must be notched in the tag and the tag attached to the carcass. You get a big fine if you don't tag your deer. This prevents people from killing more deer than they are allowed. In this area you are allowed, one per year. My deer this year isn't a trophy by any stretch of the imagination. He is probably a little over two years old which means he should be good eating and just big enough to finish filling the freezer for the coming year. I hunt for food so I usually don't pass up a legal deer. This is the type of photo that may backfire in future years, especially if Vashti decides to be a vegetarian when she grows up. She wasn't really scared of the deer, mostly she was just curious. She likes venison but I don't think she has connected it with the living creatures that it comes from.