cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wonderful, Wonderful News. I am so happy right now. In fact, this ranks as one of the happiest days of my life. Right after one of the worst weeks of my life - how about that? I'm just going to cut and paste an email that I sent and tweak it a bit to explain why I am so happy. Simon walked outside and he peed! Also, I got a deer! The 2 things sort of happened together. First I nailed the deer at about 20 yards distance out back. It went down hard and I could see that it was absolutely a perfect hit so I walked over to it immediately, finished off the deer (although it would have been dead in about a minute anyhow) and then went back to the house to get some rope and my hunting knife. When I walked in, Simon was not where I'd left him. I found him in the bathroom. He likes it in there for some reason. When I walked in, he stood up. Shakily, but standing nonetheless. Then he started walking into the hallway. His feet were slipping on the wood floor so I thought I'd try him outside to see if he could do better. So I carried him out on to the lawn and set him down. He stood up and loped down the sidewalk. Then he stopped for a minute, sat down, then stood up and ran over in front of where the cars park. He crouched down a little and peed. Then he walked back inside ALL BY HIMSELF. It's a sort of drunken walk, but it's a major, major improvement. He's nowhere near 100%, is still having a lot of trouble with that front left leg and when he does walk it's not pretty. Stumbling all over the place and occasionally falling down. But this comes after a slight decline for a few days. Huge, huge improvement. Now I can let him sleep in the bed with me tonight. I've got the deer gutted and the liver is in the oven right now. I'm cooking it up for the dogs. Most people would be shocked that I'm 'wasting' what they would consider the best part on the dogs, but I don't do liver and other 'parts' like that. I didn't grow up eating then and so it kinda grosses me out. Besides, I love my puppy dogs and am perfectly happy to spoil them. In an hour or so I'm going to take the butcher block outside to do the actual butchering and get the deer in the fridge. It probably shouldn't wait for tomorrow since it's got to be at least 75 degrees here. I should describe the actual getting of the deer as well. Since this is a big event for me. First of all, deer are in season but this is technically archery season. It's legal to shoot deer but you are supposed to do it with a bow. Next month rifle season starts. The special bow season was carved out to make sure that bow hunters would have a good opportunity to get deer with their more challenging equipment before they have to compete with the rifle hunters. However, in practice there are way, way too many fucking deer here. The idea that bow hunters need a special opportunity is a joke. Every year there are fewer and fewer hunters in this county. Because land has gotten so expensive that the old time farmers and rednecks get driven out and obnoxious morons from New Jersey and Northern Virginia move in. Hunters here are hardly making a dent in the population. Hence the fact that there are actually deer visibly starving in some areas of the county. Also hence the explosion of lyme disease (via deer ticks), which Simon tested positive for and is still on antibiotics for. Culling the population is the ethical thing to do, with whatever tool one is proficient with. So, with all this in mind, I don't feel the slightest bad about bending the rules and hunting with a rifle right now. There are plenty of deer left for the bow hunters. Anyway, I went out to my usual favored ambush spot. I brought that scoped Remington 30-'06 that I'd bought for the elk hunt. I was a little sloppy getting into position and I spooked what looked like a yearling doe only about 40 yards away. I brought the rifle up and looked at the running deer through the scope. I could have pulled the trigger but I didn't. Taking a shot at a running deer is a real gamble. One that I don't need to take at the moment. No shortage of deer around here. Another one would be along soon enough. Indeed one was. I sat down long enough, hidden by a stand of tall grass, for all to return to normal. After no more than 3 or 4 minutes I felt that there was a deer nearby. I was in a position to see and shoot deer about 150 yards away on a nearby hill but I could not see something just downhill from me in this position. I didn't hear anything or see anything but some 6th sense told me to stand up (a big risk in a blind because you'll likely scare off anything that would have come into range) and get ready to shoot. This was exactly what I did. Rifle to my shoulder, within perhaps 30 seconds a deer took a few steps into view. It stopped broadside and turned it's head to look in my direction. The deer was only about 20 yards away at the most. I lined the crosshairs up on the chest, about a quarter of the way up from the inside corner of where the front leg met the body. That's where the heart is in most large mammals. If you miss there. it's ok. Down a little bit is a total miss. A little high and it's still a double lung shot. A little higher than that and you have a spine shot. A bit to the right or left and you are still within the lung region and will put the animal down with a single shot. As usual, I did not hear the shot. The deer crumpled instantly. The scope being zeroed for 150 yards, I knew that I would not be dead-on for the heart at such a close range. But again, even if you are close with such a shot, you're still ok. Seeing that it was a very good shot, I approached the deer immediately. I saw where the bullet hole was and knew that it would be dead within a minute or so. Still, no suffering is better than a minute of suffering. I held the deer's head in the crosshairs and squeezed the trigger. That shot, I heard. I have to say that I now have tremendous respect for the 30-'06 after seeing the results as I field-dressed the deer. The damage it did was tremendous, yet the bullet did not exit the body. I have yet to find it ( I will shortly). This is exactly what you want. All of the energy dumped into the target with the bullet just shy of going all the way through, This is such a relief. Simon walking and my finally getting a deer. I have to go do the actual butchering now. Which should be comparatively easy after the gutting (which was icky but I dealt with it). 8:22 p.m. - 2007-10-19 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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