"DON'T
STUMBLE"
Last November, I had my first
opportunity to go deer hunting, with my grandpa and our friend Craig on private
property just Northwest of Torrington, Wyoming. I loved it. It was super fun, and
I want to tell you all about it.
Everyone
has their own little issues in life, such as how my poor brother struggles to
go on a road trip without needing to use the restroom two miles after we pass a
rest stop, and the next one isn't for another 73 miles away. My little issue in
life, however, is the ability, (or rather the lack thereof,) to successfully
pack all of my belongings before venturing out in the world. So, at 10 pm the
night before hunting, we realized that I had forgotten my camo hunting jacket.
I called my dear mother and requested for her to leave it outside for us, so we
could swing by and pick it up at o'Dark 30 the following morning.
I awoke to the sound of my alarm at
4:45 AM. Grandpa and I hurriedly got dressed and slipped out, taking some of
grandma's delicious pumpkin muffins with us to eat on the road, picked up Craig
at his house, and headed North. Along the way, we encountered this absolutely
stunningly beautiful Wyoming sunrise. We hit Torrington by about 6:30, and
headed straight for the property where we were to hunt. Our plan was to hunt
the canal bottoms, where there was water and trees, where deer would go early
in the morning to get a drink and have a snack. After this, they would go up to
some of the bluffs and blowouts to spend the rest of the day taking a nap. We
wanted to be able to catch this movement.
We were into the deer right off the
bat. Almost immediately, it can't have been more than two minutes after we had
got there, we caught the flash of a little puffy white tail crossing the dry canal
. I bailed out and almost got a shot, and it was a great, near-perfect
opportunity, but everything was moving a little fast and I just wasn't on top
of things. The two or three deer tore off to parts unknown, and we tried to follow
up with them, but it just didn't work. So, I got my head in the game and we
resumed the hunt with renewed vigor. It was still early, and we’d seen deer before along an irrigation drain on the north
end of the property. We worked our way through the grass and sagebrush along the
drain, all the while glassing the nearby fields. There was plenty of fresh deer
sign, but no deer. By this time, it was mid-morning and we were pretty sure the
deer had moved into their bedding areas near the bluffs.
We
stopped for lunch when we reached a small knoll near a windmill. I had a
question that I’d wanted to ask Craig
for a long time. He’s
been a missionary, a stake president and a counselor in a mission presidency in
our church. I’m planning to be a
missionary in a few years myself. So during lunch, I asked him how I could get
ready to be a really good missionary.
His main advice to me was "Don't stumble." It is so important
for us to never get caught up on stumbling blocks in any form, before or after
one's mission. If we stumble, we might fall before we can accomplish something
great. It was a great talk, and I really felt the Spirit as he was talking to
me. He’s a great man.
 |
| The bluffs |
After lunch, we started walking for the
bluffs. The bluffs are a series of low, rolling grassy hills and sandy
blowouts. In the middle of it all is a huge sand dune, and it was this area where
my grandfather had met with success in an earlier deer hunt. We hiked from the
truck, with me carrying the .243 and Craig using Grandpa’s .280 Remington. Actually, from our parking location, it
was a little hike to even get to our destination, and it was almost half an
hour of walking before we could begin hunting. Dang, we walked and we walked
and we walked. Sometimes, we would split up and search different areas, but we
didn't even SEE any deer. I wasn't feeling terribly discouraged, just maybe a
tad bit disheartened.
One such time when we had split up,
grandpa had told me to go check out a little blowout. We were starting to
approach the area where he had gotten his deer before, so we were using extra
caution. I was just walking along, and decided to look back to see where my
grandpa and Craig were. President Whitehead was hidden from view. When I saw
grandpa, I thought he was behaving rather weirdly. He was crouched down and, I
assumed, had decided to turn into an alien. I thought that he was making alien
antennae gestures with his hands, so (luckily I had the sense to not shout
out), I, via sign language, inquired as to what he was doing. He was pointing
at something in the distance which I couldn't quite see yet, and then,
suddenly, it hit me. He was directing me to a deer.
I hit the deck immediately. I sort of
crawled over to the edge of my bluff and saw the deer in question. She was a
rather large doe whitetail. I took my rifle out of safety, and, with rapid
breathing and huge amounts of adrenaline, squeezed the trigger. Right as the
bullet left the barrel I knew it was a bad shot. I missed, and the doe bounded
off. Naturally, I took off after her. My grandpa met up with me and we ran over
to the edge of another bluff, looking down over into a draw. She was down
there, looking nervous but she looked like she was going to stay. We
army-crawled up to get a clear shot. I got my breathing under control, heard the
click of the safety going off, got my crazy wiggling of the scope dead still,
and pulled the trigger.
BANG! Instantly, I knew it was a good
shot. But not good enough. She went down, and with one more shot she stayed
down. Man, it was an intense few minutes, but I got a deer! According to
grandpa, she was one of the bigger whitetails he had seen and she was as big as
doe whitetail get. She was very young and healthy and had a good life. The
amazing thing was, I had made my first shot only about 50 feet away from where
my grandpa had killed his deer! The #1 first thing we did was say a prayer of
gratitude. That is extremely important. Heavenly Father blessed us with this
beautiful gift of fresh meat, and it was important to give thanks. I was the happiest
guy in the world!
After cleaning her out, we started the
long walk back to the truck. It seemed like quite a hike on the way there
earlier, and I got very tired then, but the way back seemed really easy! I
suppose it helped to be a 13-year-old who had just killed a deer. We had to
hike all the way back to the truck and drive a long way around to get to my
deer and load it up.
We
hunted around a bit for another deer for Craig, but to no avail. Feeling
satisfied with the results of the day, we paid our thanks to our dear friends
in Torrington who let us hunt on their ranch and headed home. On the road, I
learned that Craig knew a lot about missile defense systems from his career in
the Air Force. He told us all about the workings of our ground-to air missile
defense system. It was awesome! I loved it, and it was one of the highlights of
the trip. It was really neat to hear about all the cool technologies and it filled us with national pride.
I had an amazing hunting trip. I saw
and learned so much, and got a doe deer to boot! The Lord's creation, Earth, is
just so beautiful! It amazes me that anything could be so gorgeous. I'm lucky I
got to experience Wyoming in all its glory, along with the fine men who are a
part of it, on this trip. I got to learn about: a) What I can do to prepare for
my mission, illustrated by Craig, b) How our ground-to air missile defense
system works, told by the same, and c) Heck, I got a beautiful doe whitetail deer!
-The Ranger
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