Sean Spoerl & his doe
Opening Gun Hunt, Luck or Skill?
By Rick Spoerl
Is it skillful woodsman ship or pure dumb luck? How does Joe blow kill a giant buck nearly every year and some of us don’t even see a deer? How do we approach the opener? With the stealth ness of a Myles Kellar or Chuck Adams. Or a haphazard way like ole Joe blow.
Joe sits in the bar the evening before (in his blaze orange) drinking beers and telling the other patrons about the big buck he shot last year. Than after only two hours sleep gets up at seven o’clock and walks out to his stand, burns a mule at the bottom of his tree, climbs up in his tree stand and about seven thirty in the morning sparks up a grit and watches a ten pointer walk a tree line right to him (down wind never picking his head up). He grabs his gun (that he hasn’t sighted in the past eight years), puts the cross hairs behind the front shoulder, pulls the trigger and hits the buck just inside the vitals letting the monster buck live long enough to run almost all the way to his truck. Than as Joe finishes putting his tag on the buck another hunter walks up and helps him drag it the rest of the way to the truck.
I on the other hand have really tried to play the game right. I have scouted previously while bow hunting, and know of a great spot to sit on opening day. A hard woods valley with a swamp at the bottom of the hill. Agriculture field’s close by, seven or eight active scraps along a trail that intersects with three other trails. I put up a fifteen foot stand at the intersection two weeks before the opener and don’t disturb the area. Opening morning I sprayed down my clothes with scent spray, and walked (into the wind) to my stand an hour early. I bring a pee bottle to use just in case. I sit the whole day living on a granola bar and water and don’t see a deer. What’s wrong with this picture?
The fact is, that luck does play a part in all hunting, but definitely more so during gun deer hunting. Every deer hunter seems to know a Joe Blow. But if you pay attention to Joe every year soon you’ll see his luck runs out. Here is one of our deer hunts.
This year would be different. I was definitely do for a monster buck sighting. I hunted with my usual gun hunting companions. My teenage son Sean and my Uncle Al. After seeing a lot of deer during bow hunting this year we were excited about the gun hunt. I had passed up some does and small bucks but had seen a nice buck and heard about several more in the area. Since we only had a couple days to hunt we would first shoot does for meat, than buck hunt.
I sat in a valley and watched twenty five deer go past me. Some running, some walking, but all of them knew the deal. They knew they were being hunted and were sneaking and hiding. Hardly going about their daily business. I finally shot the twenty sixth deer at eight thirty in the morning. After talking to Sean on the radio knowing he hadn’t even seen a deer (and he was only three hundred yards from me) I was worried it might be one of those years. It was a big doe. And being as that my zone is on the "earn a buck" watch list (a possible Wisconsin rule making you shoot a doe before a buck because of over population) I will have earned a buck tag for the next year. That means I won’t have to shoot a doe before a buck. And I have some tasty venison for the table.
About a half an hour later I heard a shot a couple hundred yards to the north. "Sean, did you shoot" I said on the radio. "Yah" he said. "Did you kill it?" Sean called back "she’s licking her back". "Shoot her again" I told him. "Oh, I spined her". Meaning he shot her in the spine like his last deer. "Is she dead" I asked him. "Oh, no she’s still alive" Sean told me. "Shoot her again" I said. "BANG". "Ok, she’s dead" he replied. Sean shot a nice big doe. And what a shot. He downed the deer at over a hundred and fifty yards with his 270. There was a ton of brush in the way too. He was very happy and I was proud of him. He had a cast on his left hand he had broken playing football making it all the more challenging. Last year he got skunked so this really made up for it. Now we would just hunt big bucks.
Over the hill next to me not three hundred yards away was my uncle. Uncle Al didn’t see a deer until three o’clock in the afternoon. At that time he called me on the radio. He said "hey Rick there are two does in the bastard valley (a wooded valley recently logged with thick brush and tree tops laying everywhere making dragging a deer out difficult) if I shoot it will you help me drag it out? I said sure. I was standing with my son Sean at the edge of the forty acres we were hunting talking to some friends from the farm next door. I told them to plug their ears. "BANG". "Well I guess he got one" I said "BANG, BANG, BANG". Oh, oh. I called him on the radio and asked him what was going on. He said "she’s down; I’m going down the hill to her". "BANG". "What the heck is he doing" I said to Sean. Uncle Al called back "ok he’s dead". "Did you shoot a buck"? I radioed. "Well it’s kind of a buck". Uncle Al had shot a unicorn buck with three small nubs on the only antler he had. He thought it was a doe. It was a good buck to take out because of its poor genetics, and after sitting for nine hours and not seeing a deer he was getting a little anxious.
The three of us were hunting on the same forty and in the two days of hunting we never did see a buck. Uncle Al saw two deer, one of which he shot. Sean saw three deer in his two days a field and I saw twenty six.
Some deer sense the pressure of the hunt the day before while others might go about there routine for an hour or so. When the bullets start flying you can bet the deer aren’t going about their normal daily patterns. It can’t hurt to play the game the right way, but be aware that luck does play a large roll during gun deer hunting.
We only had the opening weekend to hunt because of the demand my wife put on me to pay the mortgage. We thought we did everything right and never saw a respectable buck. Joe Blow on the other hand shot a thirteen point buck with a twenty one inch inside spread.
Uncle Al & his Unicorn Buck Rick & Seans 2005 Deer