We were hunting at Gunnar's parent's place in Sherwood and Sid has three replacement heifers there. I had forgotten about the heifers and so had Gunnar so there was no plan for if they showed up at the truck or feeder. Well of course they were at the shed we park at when we got there and followed us to the blind. Jonathan tried to scare them off but they just thought he was great fun and crow hopped around enjoying it!
We decided to just get in the blind and hope they'd go away before the feeder went off…. no such luck! They hung out right under the blind until the feeder went off. Right away we had two does and three yearlings/fawns come into the corn. I was thinking "Great, here's the two does we need and we'll be done! Perfect!" Yeah that's not what happened. Before the deer had come in far enough for us to have a shot, one of the cows started headed down toward the feeder. Soon another cow followed and they were both at the feeder and scared the deer away. Wonderful… NOT! Fortunetly the deer didn't run off far so we could still see them and possibly thought we could get a shot on one of the does if she came out into a little clearing to the far right of the feeder. We would not be risking accidentally shooting a cow! Did the doe come into the clearing? Nope! Did all three yearlings, multiple times? Yup! So by now the cows are just hanging out under the feeder, not eating corn, not really doing anything just chilling and keeping the deer away. Darn heifers! At one point, I looked over at Jonathan and whispered, "what do we do?" He look at me and said, "I don't know, I've never been in this situation before! Its a new one to me." haha
We could have shot a doe at one point over the backs of the cows, which obviously we would never risk, but other than that never had a chance. At this point we were brainstorming what to do, just wait, get out and try to make the cows follow us back to the truck and try to feed them (that meant we would run off deer and who knew if any more would come in), yell at the cows, we were texting my dad updates and he suggested shooting them haha. FInally, the cows actually ran at and chased the deer completely away. So at this point we have two cows under the feeder and not a deer in sight. I finally decided to try to whistle at them. I knew Sid does a cow call when he's there to feed them but I didn't want to do that and scare off all the deer so I decided that whistling could possibly work but wouldn't be as loud at yelling. What do ya know?! Worked like a charm, they came RUNNING back to the blind!
The deer were so focused on the cows, that they never even looked at us. If we were ever too loud they would just look at the heifers! So now we have the cows back at the blind but no deer. We contemplated getting out and setting off the feeder again but decided to just wait. Finally one of the two does that had been in earlier came into the corn but was so skittish because she could still see the cows. I was planning on making a neck shot so I wouldn't ruin any meat but she was just too antsy for me to feel comfortable to make a good shot. I told Jonathan "the second she's still I'm shooting her, watch the cows and make sure they don't start heading back!" Well not only weren't the cows heading back they had decided to try a new form of entertainment, rubbing the blind legs! I thought we might get tipped over at one point (ok it wasn't that bad but it does present a problem when you're trying to make a good shot and have a cow shaking the blind!) Finally she gave me about half a second broadside and I took the shot. She humped up like she'd been hit, jumped and kicked and ran off. I was pretty sure I'd made a good shot but we never heard her go down so I wasn't positive.
I felt better, at least we had gotten ONE deer despite the cows! After that they started to head back down toward the feeder again. I tried whistling again but I guess they had called my bluff and weren't interested. Fortunately they veered to the right and the last we saw of them they were hundreds of yards away and not causing anymore problems!
At this point it was starting to get dark and we were running out of time to get another doe. Fortunately more deer started coming in so we were hopeful… well for a little while. A old buck who had already shed its antlers, three yearling, two nubbing bucks and a doe, and a little 6 point came in…Nothing to shoot! We watched them until we were just about to get out of the blind. We had about 5 minutes left of shootable light left. We see a doe, she actually comes in! She FINALLY gives Jonathan a shot, we were running out of daylight here! He went for a neck shot and missed… She ran off up the hill, passed the feeder and stopped perfectly broadside. I asked "can you shoot her that far?" He, being very ticked off at himself at this point says "I'm going to try!!" Shot and dropped her like a rock!!
We did it! Two doe down despite some problematic heifers!! HA! We had to blood trail my deer for probably 250 yards before we finally found her! I had blown out both lungs and she still ran that far! Animals are amazing! Jonathan tricked me twice, once on accident, thinking he actually saw her, and once on purpose to be "funny" that we had found her. So when he did actually see her I didn;t believe him. Darn brothers!
Jonathan's deer was exactly where he shot her. Apparently instead of going for her shoulder he went for her spine and nailed it! Jonathan was a gentleman and drug my deer all the way back to the truck and even gutted her! I kept telling him Gunnar would do it but he insisted. He started gutting his then we realized that you could pull her hair and SKIN off with your fingers. NOT normal! No one can figure out exactly what was wrong with her. It was just on one side and it the front but she was not worth risking to eat. We ended up calling the game warden after Jonathan, my dad, Gunnar, Gunnar's dad and Reb all looked at her and had no idea what was wrong with her and dumping her in a brush pile.
Fortunately Gunnar, Reb and Sid had all gotten a deer on their hunting trip and gave us two of them so we got enough deer to fill our freezer despite shooting a sick one. So weird!
It turned out to be a funny and fun memory with my brother and successful on top of that despite some pesky heifers trying to ruin our day!
With our trophies!
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