This past weekend was my one annual trip away from the family and out with the guys to the wilds of the Hill Country, where for three days we can pick, grunt, drink and scratch whatever and whenever we please. It is concealed as a deer hunt but in fact is just an excuse to get away and not shave or shower for a spell. We never miss it.
There are both the brown skinned White Tail and spotted Axis Deer on the ranch, but the spotted Axis are exotics and we’d have to pay to get one of them. We prefer cheap. In the past, the actual hunt was more important than it is now, but age and exposure has taken it’s toll. Nowdays the food, poker and bonding have a higher priority.
Diversity doesn’t play a key role here. It’s usually the same core group of six or seven guys that attend, the same brand of beer drank all weekend and the same food group for breakfast, lunch and dinner, that being chili. We still hunt mind you, but I’ve found that just watching the deer, wild hogs and ducks to be more entertaining than shooting anything. I’ve become a privileged observer.
Because of the thick cover of oaks, mesquite and brush, we usually hunt from an elevated stand about ten feet high with a swivel chair and an armrest. It’s primitive to say the least. Combined with the fact it’s still thirty minutes before sunrise and in the middle 30’s and you might briefly question your thought process.
So I’m sitting up there in the described surroundings, cold, alone and a little uncomfortable because my last six meals have been jalapeno laced chili washed down with Shiner Bock. My stomach starts grumbling loudly, which raises the concern I might inadvertently call in a large hog that wants to sex me up.
I’m starting to realize I might need to crawl down out of the stand in dim light, search out an appropriately configured low tree limb and perform a field dump in the mist. Lovely.
Rather than wait until the situation becomes dire, I begin the migration. About fourty yards downwind from the stand I find the perfect limb and complete my task, made all the easier since I’d stuffed a few pages of Field & Stream in my pocket that morning. My sinuses were acting up but even so I was apalled when I caught a whiff of my chili poo. I then realized that all the care I’d taken to arrive quietly, without cologne, and stay still until a buck arrived had just gone to crap.
I climbed back into the stand and watched the sun rise. Then I heard a noise from my left and turned to see a doe grazing nearby. Somewhat queasily I realized she was heading right for my poo. The poor thing is moving along peacefully, eating acorns and smelling the cedars and grasses and enjoying the morning and then all of a sudden she jumps straight up into the air, starts snorting violently and I see deer snot fly. She stares back at the still steaming pile one last time and then runs for the trees and relief.
Okay, that was a little embarassing. So I’m still sitting there kinda rehashing this wierd event when the doe reappears, only there’s about eight other deer with her… and they all head toward my poo! I watch as they nervously approach, run away and come back and then they all surround the chili pile and start to kick grass on it. It’s like the wierdest thing. Their snorts bring even more deer and pretty soon there’s like two dozen deer trying to cover my chili poop with whatever they can find.
This has gotton more than embarassing, these fucking deer have gotton insulting. Suddenly I realize that dangit, I’ve got the rifle in my hands. So I flick the safety off and draw a bead on the instigator doe and into the morass of flying grass I squeeze off a shot.
It must have been because of all the brush they had flying and all the snorting they were doing but my shot went over the doe’s shoulder and landed smack dab in the middle of… my pile of poo.
Ever seen a high velocity hollow point hit a pile of poo? Fuck the fan, there was ballistic shit flying like you’d never seen before. It was like one of those machines contractors use to spray on textured ceiling material had exploded. Every deer proximal to the pile that had been kicking grass had their backsides suddenly covered with airborne squat. As the shit flew up in an arc and then began to fall back toward Earth, it was like a Poopsid Meteor Shower had suddenly hit the herd. Startled by the flying crapnel and the sound of the gun, they scattered again to the safety of the trees.
So I’m sitting in the stand surveying a still smoking but now dented pile of chili poo and looking at the exit trails of two dozen shit spackled deer through the wet grass when I hear the sound of my buddy’s pickup coming to get me. I contemplated telling him the story but was still kinda blown away by the carnage and decided just to sit on it for awhile.
We made the rounds to pick up other hunters, all of whom strangely had similar stories to tell. It seems they’d all recently seen vast numbers of deer run by, but they’d decided not to shoot because all these were the wrong kind.
They were all spotted.
