Utah archery mule deer. First hunt coincided with first Western hunt. hunting for a week, didn't know what I was doing. backpacked in a couple miles from a trailhead, camped around 9300'. the night before i shot my buck i was lying in my sleeping bag thinking this thing is just impossible, it's too hard, how is anyone successful at this?? and then i distinctly remember feeling a new kind of energy flow through me as i suddenly thought, "No. I know i'm not the most capable person in the world, and i know i'm not the smartest person in the world, but dumber, less capable people than me have taken deer with a bow. I will never give up. and i will eventually succeed."
the next day started like all the rest. climbing out of the tent in the dark. hunting on foot through the quaking aspen. found a group of three little bucks feeding in a little clearing. took off my shoes. put a stalk on. pretty sure they knew i was there. i'd close the distance a little (to like, 75 yards) and they'd move off a little. finally, they'd had enough and bounded off, but for some reason the third fork-horn pulled up, and didn't follow the other two. amazingly, he eventually went back to browsing. I got to within 50 yards. I had told myself 45 yards was my limit. spoiler alert: I didn't have the discipline to stick to my limit. I was so jittery. I sent the arrow on its way and heard it impact the deer but totally did not have the presence of mind to actually see the flight of the arrow. He dashed headlong into the trees out of sight. i knew I was supposed to stay put for 30 minutes but could only manage about 5-10 before i was tempted to just take a little peek. i started tracking, found the back half of my arrow, bloody. first major sign i saw was a big spray of blood against the white bark of an aspen, a few feet off the ground. as i stood there taking this in, i heard an animal move through the forest nearby. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a deer moving off. is that my deer? I wonder (and of course now twenty years later I know a lot more than I did then). still, I'm painstakingly trying to follow this blood trail which seems to be down to pinpricks of blood on single blades of grass here and there. I'm literally on my hands and knees with my face a few inches above the ground, hunting hard for signs. going back to the last known point, starting over. oh, the angst. That sick feeling. desperate bargaining with the universe.
eventually though, lo. a bloody bed, from whence i'd bumped the forkhorn the first time, when I stood there contemplating the blood on the aspen tree, probably mouth breathing like a dope. from the bed onwards, the blood trail became copious. easy to follow. and then, there, some 60 yards farther, lying dead, was my beautiful, generous forkhorn. It's possible i cried, but only the aspens know for sure, and they aren't telling.
turns out, I had shot him in the ham, and nicked the freaking femoral artery. I don't know, maybe it could have clotted up if I hadn't bungled into him and pushed him into pumping that leg muscle. It certainly seemed like the blood trail had been dwindling prior to bumping him out of the bed. And I would think if it had severed the artery properly, he would not have lasted even the 10 minutes I initially gave before following up. After I bumped him, it seems, he bled out quickly.
Since then, I've read Dead On! by John Jeanneney several times, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to be the most prepared hunter they can be.
So yeah, that was my first Western Hunt.
