Thanksgiving

What Are You Giving Thanks For This Year?

In my mind I’ve always associated Thanksgiving with hunting but I’m not sure why. We didn’t have a tradition of hunting on or about Thanksgiving when I was a kid. Hunting deer in Connecticut was difficult if you didn’t know someone with some land. I went a few times with my father and loved it but he needed to work constantly to feed us and pay bills, which interfered with hunting time. I used to think that should be against the law. If I’m honest, I still do.

I’m going to guess that those shiny posters of the first Thanksgiving the nuns stuck to the walls in grade school made me pair Thanksgiving and hunting. They showed Indians bringing a deer or a turkey to the feast. Sometimes one of the Pilgrim men, faithful blunderbuss in hand, would be bringing in a bird. Everyone looked so happy gathered around long tables set up outdoors. There were always those wicker cornucopias as center pieces. I remember wondering what you were supposed to do with the pumpkin that was always spilling out with other fruits and vegetables. Even I knew you didn’t eat a pumpkin raw like an apple.

As you can tell, a young boy could get lost in those pictures, especially if, like me, he didn’t like school. Those woods in the background would beckon me and I would drift. What would it be like to live and hunt with the Indians? The Pilgrims didn’t interest me. They looked like the kind of people that would send me to school to learn about what they thought was important. I wanted to know what the Indians knew. How to live off the land. Where the best fishing was. What was the best way to track animals? How to tan and make buckskin clothing. But most importantly, I wanted to learn how to make a birch bark canoe like I had seen in books.

I had this picture in my head of paddling my canoe home with my Indian friend. We would always have a big buck or moose nestled down between us. The lake’s surface would be like glass with just the ripples from the canoe disturbing it. In the distance would be a log cabin with smoke coming from its chimney. It would be Fall, of course, and the colors of the leaves in the forest would be that perfect combination of yellow, red, and orange.

As you can tell, I put a lot of work into my imaginary world.

When we moved to Montana, deer hunting was possible again literally right out our back door. The Sunday just after Thanksgiving was always the last day of the season. I had the same issue with working instead of playing like dad, so I usually didn’t slow down until the second week of November. I would hunt “for horns”, in other words bucks, until the day after Thanksgiving. If I didn’t see anything worth shooting, I would fill my tags with does. No matter what, Kerry insisted I get a young, tender doe for “company deer.”

I make a venison with a red bell pepper cream sauce over pasta that has converted every venison hater I’ve met. Once the company deer was harvested, I looked for an older doe without a fawn. We tried to have three deer in the freezer for winter. We made sausage, and hamburger, not to mention steaks and stew meat. Those first years when we had no money, the deer in the freezer were comforting.

One year I had been tracking a pretty good size white tail buck on the ranch. He kept a pretty regular schedule. He showed up on the first ridge south of the house working his way east, grazing as he walked. He would disappear in the brush along the creek that cut the place almost in half. Sometimes he came out and hung around in the Homestead Field, named after the original homestead house on the place. Sometimes he did not, however, and would keep to the brush, popping out near Dead Reservoir. It was called that because it never had fish in it. Naming fields took very little imagination.

There was no rhyme or reason to the bucks movements, and I knew that once the rut began and he was chasing does his pattern would completely change anyway, depending on what the does did.

I seriously began hunting Thanksgiving week. I saw him every day and put a sneak on him, but he always managed to disappear. Some guys would take the 800-yard shot but I like to get close and put the animal down in an instant, not risking wounding the animal and losing him. That’s the fun in hunting for me anyways. Getting close. A million years of deer instinct versus me and my human instinct.

Thanksgiving dawned bright and clear. Jack had already gotten his deer and Michael wasn’t hunting so they planned on staying home to play video games. Kerry was prepping the feast and was going up to the ranch owner’s house, who was on vacation, to water plants and check on things. But, no one was stirring yet when I headed out.

On a hunch I went east, well away from the buck’s normal morning route. The night before on the way home from checking on cows I saw a large group of white tail does gathered in a field dominated by two dry knobs. The does were frisky and kicking at each other. I wondered if some were in heat. If they were, that buck would find them. I was going to walk all the way down the fence line out of sight of that field and then creep to the top of the biggest knob. From there I could watch the whole field. If the does were there and if he showed up, I had him. Naturally, those are two big ifs.

It took about 45 minutes to walk to the knobs and the sun had just crested the horizon. It would be at my back which would effectively blind any curious eyes looking for me. I crawled on my belly the last few feet and peaked over the edge of the knob. There were ten to fifteen does grazing 150 yards from me. The wind, what there was of it, was going south so they couldn’t smell me. It was the perfect set up. The problem was the buck wasn’t with them.

This is the tricky part of hunting. When do you decide your plan is a bust and move? I lay there for an hour. It was comfortable. The sun kept me warm enough on a frosty morning. I chewed on an energy bar, drank some water and watched the deer. The sun kept climbing in the sky. Kerry was going to want me back to help with Thanksgiving dinner and I still had tomorrow to look for my friend. It was time to go.

I was crawling backwards to not spook the does when the buck showed up. He just appeared out of nowhere as bucks so often do. He was at a fast trot, head down low and making a bee line for the does. They looked up and got a little skittish. I was afraid he would spook them by being too aggressive and everyone would scatter, but they held their ground. He started rounding them up and sniffing for anyone in heat. I got set up in a prone position and had my scope on him. He wouldn’t settle down for a clean shot. I didn’t want to hit a doe by accident.

Around and around, they went. One by one the does started peeling away and leaving. The buck noticed and each time it looked like he was going to follow but then stayed with the herd. I then thought of something. I had a grunt call in my pocket. I had played with it before hunting season and made deer stop to look where the grunt came from. This buck was going to bolt, I just knew it. It was worth a chance. I got myself all settled in behind my scope, stuck the call in my mouth and waited until he was clear of the herd and grunted. Everyone stopped and looked my way. I was on his front shoulder and squeezed off a round. I saw the round impact just behind his shoulder. A heart and lung shot. The buck crumbled up in his tracks.

The does took off for the brush. I lay there watching him in my scope a while racking another round into the chamber, but I knew there was no need. I sat up and unloaded my rifle with none too steady hands. Adrenaline gave me shakes just like it always did when I had a deer down. I stood up and gave him one more good look with my tiny field binoculars to be sure he was dead then turned to walk down the easy way. I stepped in a badger hole that was beautifully camouflaged with cactus and fell over backwards. Searing pain shot up my leg from my calf. There was more from my hip and butt. A thought raced through my head. Did I just break my leg and hip on Thanksgiving? Kerry is going to be mad.

I had a hard time sitting up because I was laying with my head down hill and the cactus wouldn’t let me put my hands down. I got my leather gloves on and finally pushed myself up then gingerly got on my feet using my rifle as a crutch. I discovered the pain in my hip and butt were cactus thorns. I pulled those out with my Leatherman pliers. I was sure I had just pulled my calf muscle. There were no bulges on my leg indicating a broken shin. Overall, I had been lucky.

I wanted to get down to the buck to be sure he was dead and dress him out but with my first step realized I was in trouble. I couldn’t walk. Using my rifle as a crutch worked well enough to get down to the deer but it took quite a while. The deer was dead but now what? I couldn’t dress him out like this. I couldn’t kneel or even bend over. It could take hours to hobble home, and no one knew I had come up with a new plan. I could be anywhere on the ranch. What a stupid thing to do. I should have left a note. Sitting down on the buck none too gracefully, I tried to come up with a plan. I could shoot off three quick rounds, a distress signal when you are lost, but I only had three rounds, and everyone could be in the house and not hear it.

Then I saw Kerry’s car heading up to the main house. I waited until she got out and started yelling but she couldn’t hear me. I forgot I had unloaded my rifle when I used it as a crutch so before I could load and shoot off a round into the air to get her attention, she went inside. I wasn’t sure she would see me even if she heard the shot. Rifle fire during hunting season out in the country is normal and most of us don’t pay attention.

My calf was getting worse, and I was trying to stretch it out when Kerry’s car headed back down the road. I had missed her coming out of the house. Now I was really screwed. I was going to have to hobble home. Then I heard a four-wheeler in the distance and it was getting closer. Jack popped over a small rise and sped towards me coming to a stop next to the deer with a grin.

“I took the dogs outside and assumed the shot was you. Mom said I should drive down to see if you needed help. That’s a nice buck.”

My Thanksgiving Deer

“Boy, am I glad to see you.” I told him my tale of woe. Of course, he thought it hysterically funny. My family in general finds my pain funny. It’s my cross to bear.

With Jack’s help I got my deer dressed out and loaded on the four-wheeler and we drove back to the house in triumph. Alas, there was no crowd cheering me, but Kerry and Mike were suitably impressed.

“You found the buck you wanted!” Kerry exclaimed.

“He should eat good.” Mike said.

It took both boys to help get the deer hung up in the shop and skinned. We would take him to our friend’s butcher shop the next day.

My leg continued to worsen. I couldn’t walk without lots of help. This normally would cause a crisis in our house. If I can’t walk or even stand, who would make appetizers and gourmet meals for the family? Fortunately, Thanksgiving is Kerry’s holiday to cook. From soup to nuts. I tease Kerry about not cooking but she is a fine cook and especially good at baking. It’s just that during a normal week she is busy so I do the cooking. Besides, I enjoy it.

Still though, I needed to move around, and I just couldn’t. I needed crutches and we didn’t have any. This is where living in a small town comes in handy. Kerry called our friend Kari who was a Physician’s Assistant at the local clinic which was closed for the holiday. Her husband owned the butcher shop where I helped during game season making sausage. We had been friends for years. Kari said she would get us a pair as soon as her pies were out of the oven. Kerry went in and got them, and we proceeded to alternate heat and cold on my calf along with a ton of ibuprofen. Eventually my calf muscle calmed down so that I could enjoy the football games and snacks. Kerry brought me a tub of potatoes to peel at one point because she thought it would help my leg. She never explained how that worked.

Dinner was wonderful and as nighttime fell the temperature dropped and it began to gently snow. People talk all the time about being grateful at Thanksgiving, but I usually don’t think about it much. Maybe it was my painful leg or the medicinal whisky I took for it, but this time I did think about gratitude. We had a couple deer for winter. Everyone was safe at home. We had friends who would always help if things got rough. Kerry had a job running Emergency Services that she loved, the boys were doing well in school and I managed to build my own small business where I answered to no one… except Kerry but she was a good boss. There was a lot to be grateful about.

I hope you have a good Thanksgiving. Even if you don’t celebrate the holiday, it’s not a bad time to remember everything you should be grateful for. You don’t even need to strain a calf muscle to do it! However, a whiskey is always a good idea. While you are sipping, be sure to hit the heart shaped “Like” button and the button that has arrows going in circles. That’s a restack button and helps other people find me. Thanks again!