All we need is a little Patience

By Bret “T-Bone” Amundson

All right, everyone start whistling.  If you know the Guns N Roses classic, then I’ve already gotten the song stuck in your head.  Sorry bout that.

The song unfortunately becomes my theme from day 1 of the gun deer season in Minnesota.  I’ve been hunting a piece of land near Moorhead, Minnesota with my bow tag for the last month and have seen a fair amount of deer.   Including a couple shooters and one Picasso that would look great hanging in my living room.

I arrived early in my stand yesterday, thinking that the gun hunters would be pushing a lot of deer around.  By 9:30 I’d only seen 2 deer and that was right at daybreak.  2 does probably kicked up by the group in the woods to the east.

I was torn between two ideas that were fighting in my brain: 1) I should hunt the thousands of ducks and geese in the area.  2) I had just heard someone say, “a lot of deer will get killed between 10a and 2p, make a sandwich and stay in your stand!”

The fact that my dog was in the truck swayed by decision a bit, but the love of hunting waterfowl during the migration won it over.  I climbed down and headed towards the biggest flock I could see.

I spent a couple hours on some public land and knocked down 4 ducks and 2 geese.  I’ll take that any day!  Just seeing the flocks of birds in the area, circling flocks of geese, mallards that would bomb in from a mile high, low flying redheads that would buzz the tower at Mach 6, was worth the trip.

But, were there hidden fees?

After a quick lunch, I headed back to the stand around 3pm.  Earlier than usual, because “a lot of deer will get killed between 10a and 2p”, remember?

Needless to say I didn’t see anything.  Then just before 6pm, gunshots rang out in the woods next to me.  Minutes later I watched a buck, stumbling through the woods.   I could hear the group next door looking for blood.  I decided to help.

I climbed down and drove over to where they were parked and said, “Who shot the buck?”

“Did you see it!?”   They asked.

“I did and I know where it is”.  Their faces lit up and high fives went around the group.   Ronald Burg, the shooter, swore he’d hit it, but couldn’t find the blood in the fading light.

Burg, the elder statesmen of the group, along with his group had been hunting this land for around 5 years without success.  In fact, he’d be hunting “forever” without bagging a buck, so the group was ecstatic.

Sheepishly, Tim admitted to missing the same deer earlier along with….are you ready for it….a really big buck!

I showed him the photo of “Brutus” on my phone and he said “yep, that was him…and he ran right at your stand when I missed.”

NOOOOOOO!  “What time was this?”

“Around 2pm. “ Was the inevitable response.

“A lot of deer will get killed ….” You get the idea.  Don’t get me wrong, I had a great afternoon with the waterfowl, but Brutus is a beast.   There’s no guarantee that he came within range of my bow, but you never know.  The fact that he was shot at could mean that he’ll be in a new zip code for a while.  We’ll see.

It was a pretty good day though that I won’t complain about.  Next time, however, I will make a sandwich and stay in the stand all day.

by Bret “T-Bone” Amundson