Luann kills two deer

November 19, 2009. Luann is sitting in the Log Cabin Hunting Blind. Two deer approach from the right at 7:55 am. She raises her trusty .30-30 lever-action rifle, puts one of the deer in the crosshairs, and squeezes the trigger. The deer exits into the woods to the left; the other one stays put. She racks another shell into the chamber, and a deer comes into the picture from the woods to the left, and assumes it is the same one she just shot at (pardon the misplaced preposition). Lining up the crosshairs again, she sqeezes the trigger, and nothing happens; the gun is jammed. At that time she attempts to call me on the walkie-talkies, with no luck (I think my walkie talkie was in the cabin, and I was not). So she gets out of the blind to come back to the cabin, and the deer remain in front of the blind.

Back at the cabin, after careful examination of the weapon, it is determined that one of the .30-30 shells is defective. We reload the gun, and Luann talks me into going back out to the blind, so I do. Now, it is raining, and warm, and not particularly good for deer to be moving, so I get bored after a while, and head back to the cabin. Luann says she is going to go and sit for a while. When she approaches the blind, there is a deer hanging around in the area, so she opens the door, goes inside, takes off the safety, aims, and shoots. The deer drops instantly. It is a buck.

Luann calls me on the walkie-talkie again (this time I answer) and she suggests that she is going to need some help. Knowing the code, I grab a knife, and head to the blind. When I get there, she is standing at the buck, obviously happy.

Now it is time to "gut out" the deer. I suggest that we move the deer a little ways from the area of the blind, and while looking around, notice what appears to be a bright red maple leaf about 6-7 yards away. The only trees in the area, however, are cedar trees. On closer inspection of the "leaf", it is obviously blood. We follow the blood trail (no snow, so not an easy task), losing it a few times, but coming back and getting back on track each time. We finally find a deceased doe about 300 yards from where she was shot.

Luann has never missed a deer. Over the years, she has bagged the same number of deer as she has pulled the trigger. So when she told me she missed a deer, I questioned it. Ordinarly, I would have said we need to look for blood, but when she said the deer that exited left when she shot, and returned, I dismissed that theory. Obviously, now we know, that the deer that came "back" from the left, was a completely different deer. There were a total of three deer not two.

There is still a six point buck hanging around in the area of the blind.