Thread: 18 months of hunting

There she was. Twenty meters below me, in a rocky dip behind the boulder, watching me intently. Her head slightly cocked to one side, like she hadn't quite made out what I was, yet.

In an act of urgency - feeling like it was a make or break moment, I pulled my rifle to my shoulder and lined the cross-hairs on her neck. I squeezed off the shot and watched a puff of fur burst into the air, as she crumpled into a heap.

It was a triumphant moment - embellished by the knowledge that the amendments I'd made to my approach (informed by hindsight), had prevailed. However, it was also a moment tinged with regret. There was just something special about seeing a wild deer so close to me. Just it and myself - on a mountain top. Two independent living beings whose odds of meeting at the same time; at the same location; could only have been astronomical.

How often do you get an opportunity like that? Where a truly wild animal lingers; its gaze locking with yours; with virgin eyes - pure of any previous human encounters?

I guess it's something a lot of hunters avoid talking about or expressing. Perhaps dwelling on an activity which is very much wedged in that grey area between primeval instinct/necessity and a fascination with nature, just unnecessarily complicates things. And I, for one, with only a few deer to my name, was content to kill the hind for her meat, and the sense of achievement it would bring me. But a part of me wished I'd put the rifle down and watched her instead. It would have made for a worthwhile memory. Perhaps even in the deer's own mind -

- if only fleetingly.


(Story to come)

Deer story: A deer and some lessons... - The Mountain Gnomad