1970 sumthin'....

Thanksgiving afternoon...

My Clan never ate Thanksgiving dinner until after dark and after chores, couldn't waste a day of hunting season was the logic.

But, we did start to head back home, usually, prior to sunset and hunt on the way down....

Dad and I were hunting together and as we approached a creek crossing I picked up on what looked to me like fresh tracks in the snow. I asked Dad if I could follow them for a bit and see what it was doing. He said he was gonna continue on, but as long as the tracks didn't take me back up I could follow them. He wanted to get chores done.....

The tracks went down into the hemlocks that lined the creek and meandered around but kept in line pretty much with the creek, heading down stream. With everything in the world to prove to Dad I really wanted to get that deer. I had about an hour left to find it...

Down in along that creek are several places that back in the day were built up for the use of saw mills. There are dirt berms and channels constructed to channel the water so that water wheels could drive the saws, ect. The 15 to 20 foot tall burms are now covered with thick hemlock...

The deer climbed one of those berms and of course I followed....

Can't know who was more startled, me or the deer but there it was, bedded down at the top of that berm under a low hanging hemlock. As I poked my head up to look over the top, we were just about face to face...

The deer, which was a doe...busted loose and ran. I just about [bleep] myself.

Inspection of the bed found a small amount of blood there in the center of it. Someone else had gutshot this deer and it had got away from them. The deer had headed further down stream and I felt obligated to catch up with it and put it out of it's misery....afterall it was a large doe and we were after meat anyway.

It took a lot of cat and mouse and I can't claim to have known a thing what to do at that age but I was determined to get a shot at that deer. It seemed like this deer was never going to give up but I noticed each time I jumped her, I was closer and she didn't run as fast or as far as she did the last time.

Unbenounced to me, Dad had come looking for me and was keeping step observing what was goin on...on the other side of the creek.

Finally after hound dogging that wounded deer for so long I finally got a shot and ended it. I couldn't have been prouder of myself for both gettin' a deer and for cleaning up someone elses mess.

Dad came across the creek in his usually nonchalant manner and congratulated me in the closing darkness with a swat on the shoulder and a grin....I think he knew what I had just been through.

We were late for supper that night.........................

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