Ahh late fall… and with the cooler air and falling leaves, comes the age old tradition of heading off to the woods for deer hunting. Wrapped in blaze orange, toting our favorite rifle, and clutching great hopes of bagging that trophy buck, we make this journey like so many before us.
Just wait till you read about the ten point buck!
I wish I could say that my memories date back to childhood, but I was a city kid who wasn’t raised around hunting. Other than a couple of trips to the Boundary Waters as a kid, I really never got any further than the woods in the park near my childhood home. My tradition has been short. I’ve been deer hunting since 2005, and only that long because a Navy buddy (Ric) found out that I’d never been hunting and invited me up to his brother Jim’s place. With great excitement (and trepidation), I agreed to go. I borrowed Remington 700 .270 from another Navy friend, Jim Kmecik, and I was almost set. Lucky to have a Cabela’s within an hour of the house, I ran out for the minimal supplies that the internet told me I needed… which included every gadget known to man, and enough blaze orange to cover half of Minnesota. The weekend was awesome, and I even shot my first deer! A large doe walked under my stand, and I harvested and dressed her all on my own (with limited instruction over the two way radio)… I was hooked! While registering the beast, a polite man asked if they could sample the deer for Chronic Wasting Disease. I agreed, filled out some paperwork, and the sample was taken. Later in January, I received a call from the DNR. You might imagine my mind racing waiting to hear the bad news… after all, most of that doe was eaten during Christmas! But it wasn’t bad news… my doe was in the clear. They were calling to tell me that when they sampled my deer, they entered me into a raffle, and I had won a brand new Remington 7600 .270! Not only did I kill my first deer, but I got my first rifle out of the deal too! This hunting thing was awesome! Full disclosure; After twelve years, Ric’s brother Jim maintains that because that first deer was harvested off of his land, half that rifle is his.
Many years of great stories have gone by since then, most are probably not suitable for a family oriented blog, but the relationships that have developed are the real story. Hunting itself has a purpose, but it’s a far cry from the real reason we head up to the woods.
Since Katie and I purchased Rustic Pines in the spring, this was our first opportunity to hunt the property and we were not going to miss it. We headed up on Thursday evening, arriving around our typical 10 PM mark. This fall had been warm through the end of October, but with November came the cold…and SNOW! I thought me and Mother Nature had an understanding… She would keep the snow away till December, and I wouldn’t complain about the cold. I guess the deal is off, because there was over 8 inches as we turned onto the road that led to our land.
It must have been a windy damp snow storm, because the north side of every tree trunk was painted with white. It made for a rather picturesque setting and Katie was ready to let her camera devour the scene. About a half mile from our driveway, we encountered the second indicator that it was a windy storm. A rather large pine formed a makeshift barricade forbidding our entrance. As with anyone who owns land in the area, I kept a chainsaw in the truck. With the headlights providing illumination, Katie and I quickly made work of the pine and were back on the road, for a bit anyway. 
A couple of hundred yards later, we dealt with another downed tree, and then another, and another… By the time we made it to the driveway, it was almost eleven, and I was pretty sure we would find more trees to cut on the way to the cabin. Thankfully, there were none, and a few minutes later, Katie’s concern switched from downed trees, to whether or not our truck would make it up the hill on our way out. I assured her it would (even if I wasn’t sure myself, there was no sense in making her worry about it).
Once inside the cabin, a fire was lit and unpacking began. It took a while longer than usual for the fire to warm our tiny cabin, but once it did, Katie and the dog both had smiles on their faces. There is no insulation in our cabin, and even though our wood stove does a good job of making it comfortable, when the fire dies, it gets chilly quick… like really quick. I am not a light sleeper by any stretch, ask Katie; It takes a hot cup of coffee and an act of Congress to wake me up in the morning. However, I found myself waking each hour, to catch the fire beginning to die. As many times as I got up to add more wood, I never once had to relight the fire. Since I’m the one tasked with tending the fire, I sleep closer to it, aka in between the fire and she who demands warmth. 
This presents an awkward conundrum; What’s the best way to take care of a sleeping wife? Stoke the fire without waking her, in which case she sleeps next to the wall where it’s colder, or crawl over her each time the fire needs tending and waking her up in the process. By the end of the weekend, I think a solution was arrived at; I’ll be insulating the cabin on our next trip.
Friday morning arrived with hot coffee… well, almost. On a previous trip, I had thought our propane tank ran empty, so the last trip, I went to one of those cylinder exchange stations, and swapped my empty for a full. When we arrived and hooked up the tank, I was frustrated to learn we still had no propane! I assumed it was the o-ring seal on the tank valve that was bad, because I’d had issues with that years ago. On our way up, we swapped tanks once again. Still, no propane! As it turned out, the hose that connects our tank to the stove had a fail safe that activated and was preventing the gas from flowing. We had some spare 1lb cylinders for just this emergency, and soon had hot coffee within our grasp. The answer to Katie’s concerns about the truck were soon answered as we pulled out of the driveway and headed to town. A stop at the hardware store provided a new hose, as well as some new coat hooks to hold additional hunting clothes. I will neither confirm nor deny that the chief reason for the trip to town was to stop at the liquor store for our favorite cream infused rum. Some days are just better when you spike your coffee.
Upon returning to the cabin, Katie satisfied that we will be able to leave, we warmed ourselves a bit and my thoughts turned to where I would place my deer stand. We’ve had at least one regular visitor to the cabin over the summer. She likes to nibble the clover in front of the cabin. Even though we have been clearing trails, the one most used by the deer runs west from the cabin which isn’t well developed. I decided this was my best chance for success. I toted the stand and requisite chainsaw to the tree I was to claim. 
I wasted no time putting up the stand, and Katie came out to help. Once the stand was up, I identified quite a bit of brush and tree branches that would need to be cleared away. Katie found it humorous that the snow on the branches above me abide by the laws of gravity when disturbed… I didn’t.
Once the stand was up, shooting lanes cleared, and the snow wiped from my beard, we returned to the cabin to warm up a bit. There, we began to fight. Katie and I don’t fight often, but when we do it’s brutal. I landed the first blow when I beat her by near twenty points in our first game of cribbage. I laughed and laughed, but I should not have. She came back with a vengeance and over dinner and through the evening hours, delivered strike after devastating strike. Really? A freaking thirty point hand??? Talk about bloodshed! I did all I could to lick my wounds as she waltzed across the finish, with the skunk line so far in front of me that it seemed like a mirage. 
BAM! BANG! SMACK! BOOM! The blows kept coming… When the smoke cleared, she had me three games to one… two of them SKUNKS! I went to bed a demoralized broken man.
Sleep was fitful, and I still had not recovered from the previous evening’s lashing, so when I stepped outside to visit the outhouse, and was greeted by strong winds and frigid cold, I thought I’d hunt from the warm confines of the cabin, but there are no deer there, so I got dressed and headed to the stand. Katie occupied her time with a book on her kindle. Note to self: you will have a solar panel, battery, and charging station ready for the next trip. 
What an absolutely beautiful morning… Not beautiful for deer hunting, no, it sucked for that, but the landscape, the snow on the trees, the wind causing large clumps of snow to fall from branches making me think there were deer close even though the deer were probably occupying a seat at the local bar… yeah, that kind of beautiful. After the morning hunt turned unproductive, I headed back to warm up. It was a good day, and the conversation was better than great. Just having the quiet closeness of the cabin, and time, lots of time, to talk about whatever, without a doubt confirms and builds the love you have for those close to you… even if they kick your ass in cribbage. The temps started to rise with the afternoon sun, and soon it would be time to make my way to the stand. The temps had climbed to the point where the snow had begun to melt. As I ascended the ladder to the stand, a rain/snow mix began wetting my face. Remember, this hunting thing is AWESOME! I imagine, as I sat in the stand, slowly soaking up the melting snow from branches above, that I contemplated the things hunters all over the Midwest were contemplating; Why is it raining? Why can’t the deer rut happen in August? Why wasn’t I born into massive wealth? Am I due for an oil change?, you know… stuff like that.
Soaking wet, I made my way back to the cabin, determined to convince myself that tomorrow’s hunt would be better. After a great dinner, I suffered another humiliating string of defeats by Katie, who wielded her cards with deadly accuracy. I stopped paying attention to the count after the second skunk… she claims the weekend total was 7:1 her favor… I don’t care anymore… I choose to ignore it, until the next time I defeat her and dance on her proverbial cribbage grave like I’ve won the fight of all fights. The next morning, a request for a walk was made… I thought, “what the hell, I can’t do worse than sitting in the stand”. So we both donned our blaze orange and headed for fire tower hill, 
My weapon, a 30-30, Katie’s: an iPhone 6. We walked to the hill, and continued south on a small trail. Katie lagged behind a bit in the hopes that I might actually have a shot at a deer. Technically this was the first time she went hunting with me, and I can’t think of a better partner. She damn near as stealthy in the woods as she is on the cribbage board. It may take some time before she carries a gun instead of a camera, but I’m ok with that. Spending time together is why we have this place. The night before, had been warm, so most of the tracks were a bit deformed, but I landed on a nice set of prints and decided to follow. A half mile later, deep in the brush where the prints were preserved, I discovered I had been tracking a coyote. Well shit. We turned around and headed back to pack up and head home. So much for a great first hunting story for Rustic Pines… Maybe next year!
Oh, The ten point buck? Yeah we saw one… Just west of Mora, where the bastard ran in front of my truck… as luck would have it, I couldn’t hit him either. That makes three skunks for the weekend.
