Opening day of rifle season— SUCCESS!

Gabe has been preparing for hunting season the last few months, putting out corn and salt blocks religiously. We tried going out during archery season with no luck— we saw a few small does but nothing worth taking aim at (we will let them graze and get ready for next year 🙂).

This weekend was opening weekend for rifle in Maryland. Friday evening, corn was put out alongside the salt block Gabe had laid out earlier, and on Saturday we got up well before dawn to drive to my family’s private land to hunt. We set up with our heated vests, hand warmers, Buddy propane heater (so thankful for that one!) and waited for the sun to come up and dawn to break.

Alexa, play that Luke Bryan song… “sitting here, waiting on a deer…”

Our first visitors that morning were the same two does I’d passed on during archery season. We watched as they grazed on the corn (meant to hopefully attract something bigger!) and hoped that their more adequately-sized friends would be in tow.

No such luck… until I spotted a 4-pointer coming out of the woods! Again, we waited, hoping a larger buck would be shortly behind. No luck…

So, we took a lunch break to warm up and wait until closer to dusk when the deer would be ready for dinner. We ate, took a nap, went to the gym, and got ready for round two.

We went back out in the afternoon and immediately spooked the 3 deer in front of our hunting line of sight. No worries, they will be back— they had just heard us walking down and ran off.

So, we again set up with our hand warmers, and this time brought toe warmers, so no Buddy heater needed this time, and we waited. And waited. And finally our two little doe friends came back out for dinner, joined by a spike (a buck with only 2 points— two antlers with no additional points). We waited some more, hoping again that a larger buck was close by.

By the time we were getting close to dusk and the end of shooting light, a few more does joined the herd. Gabe was waiting for a buck, but I was satisfied with just getting some meat in the fridge, so I took aim at the largest doe in the group.

Huge thanks to my dad for having me in shooting sports growing up (shoutout Daddy if you’re reading this!), I’ll say I have pretty good aim— a shot straight to the heart and she was down. I am grateful it was quick for the deer’s sake (and ours— no tracking in the cold needed 🙂). I always say a quick prayer afterwards, so I did that while we waited a little while longer to see if Gabe would get a chance at any deer wandering back over before we finally walked down to do the dirty work.

Doe down! Post-shot selfie :)

I’m proud to say I did the field dressing all by myself (with some pointers from Gabe, but all work was done by me— I’ve come a long way from STRUGGLING through my first deer haha— it’s gross!). I dragged the deer back to the truck all by myself, too (obviously Gabe offered to help, but I was determined to prove to myself I could do it). I did have help getting the deer in the bed of the truck (shoutout Gabe for that one!), and off to the butcher we went.

After field dressing and dragging it up to the truck by myself (proud moment!), Gabe loaded it into the bed and snapped a few pics before we headed to the butcher.

To celebrate opening day, the butcher had a heated tent with samples of the different options you could order (different bolognas, hot dogs, sausages, etc.), as well as some fresh, hot, deer chili to sample! The butcher we had previously used did not do this (nor was it expected, of course), so I was surprised and grateful to see what options I had when ordering processing for my deer. I got our typical ground, steaks, and backstrap, as well as some roasts, bologna, and snack sticks. I expect to get a call for pickup in a week or so!