Two weeks ago I found myself out in the thriving metropolis of Western, Nebraska (population 200) for an early November white-tailed deer hunt. I was going to be hunting with a few of my good friends John R., Jay R., and Myron on John and Jay’s family farm. This was the forth time that I had been hunting out here and in the past I had always had a good time and a good hunt. A number of years back, with the help of some of friends, John built a cabin smack dad center of their property. When I say cabin, I don’t really mean a huge lodge, but more of a supped up Tough-Shed. It isn’t very fancy, but it is comfortable, roomy, and most important, it keeps the weather off of you. Myron and I arrived late Friday night and basically had just enough time to greet everyone then it was off to bed. First light was going to come early and we sure didn’t want to miss opening morning.
I woke up at 5:30 the next morning and got dressed, got the coffee going, and rousted everyone else up out of bed. We discussed the mornings hunt and headed off in our different directions. I had been to the property a couple of weeks before on my way back from my pheasant hunt in South Dakota and had placed a little pop-up blind along a fence line overlooking a bedding area.
On the way to the blind, I bumped a couple of does that were feeding out in the cut corn field that I would be overlooking as well. Around legal shooting light I noticed some movement down the fence line from me and it happened to be a little fork horned buck. Like antelope hunting, I really get a kick out of white-tail hunting out here. You are able to see a lot of animals and how they react with little to no pressure. It was going to be a short hunt for me so, I really couldn’t be too picky, but I passed on the little buck. I watched him for a while and then about ten minutes later some more deer came out feeding in front of me. I spotted them through the trees and noticed that one of them had a pretty good body on him. When he popped out I noticed that he was a seven point. He looked to be a pretty mature deer, so I decided to take him. I brought my 25-06 up and placed the crosshairs on him and got settled on his chest area and squeezed off the shot. At the shot I heard the distinctive “Q-whack†of the bullet hitting its target. The deer spun around and headed back for the trees. About 10 feet into the trees I found him crumpled up underneath a Bodark tree. With a short drag, I had him up to the road and in the next hour I had him back at camp dressed out and hanging in a tree.
By that time Jay, who has become our official camp cook, had a great breakfast whipped up for us. After a hot meal and a few cups of coffee the fellas took off to try and fill their tags. About 45 minutes later we heard a shot back at camp. A few minutes later Scotty had come back with news of success. I went back with him and helped him drag his deer back to the cabin. It was a difficult drag, almost 50 yards and it was downhill to boot!
After the mornings hunt, we all set about doing some serious work! Earlier in the year a large dead cottonwood limb had fallen through the most important building on the property, the out-house! We had found out about it before we had headed out to Nebraska and had built a new one. A true palace all the way down to the moon in the door. Now if you happened to be driving East on I-80 around the 9th of November, you are not crazy -that really was an outhouse on a trailer! Anyway, after a hole was dug and a little muscling around, we had it in place.
The next morning we woke up to a bit of fog. We still had 2 tags that needed to be filled and those guys headed out to were they were going to hunt for the morning. About an hour and a half later Jay came strolling back into camp with a big grin on his face. He had connected on a nice 10 point. We jumped in the truck and went to collect the deer. After a few pictures.
We loaded the animal up and took him back to camp. Myron was already back in camp with no luck. So being as how we needed to get back we packed up our stuff and got ready to get on the road. With a last minute photo of the hunters and the cabin we headed out.
Once again I would like to thank our great hosts Johnny and Jay. Can’t wait until next year!