Non-fiction / Fall Flashback (Analysis)
I had a flashback a few days ago.
It’s funny what can trigger a stray memory sometimes. I was on assignment, driving through a new neighborhood for a project I was working on.
It was dusk. There were a few houses, but most of the lots were still vacant clover fields. I turned the corner and had just passed a new model home when off to my right I spotted one of the biggest bucks I’ve seen in years.
It was one of those small frustrations of life – here I am in a city of 40,000 people, less than a mile from I-94 starting at a buck that far surpasses anything I’d come across in my hunting days.
I stopped the car to watch him. He paid me no attention as he walked across the street to join a doe and a yearling on the other side of the road. He walked slowly as if he was king of the forest, and in these parts he almost certainly was. He had a beautifully symmetrical 6-point rack that was large enough to hold a basketball between the main beams with room to spare. His broad shoulders and slightly grayish coat marked the number of winters he has seen come and go.
Watching the animal quarter away from me, my mind drifted to that winter day years ago on the hunting stand when I came across my first buck.
The November morning was uneventful. Sitting with my back to a giant white pine tree late in the morning, I stared at the sun as it tried to burn through the winter clouds. It wasn’t enough to make me feel any warmer.
There was no snow on the ground, which made the forest incredibly difficult to watch. Almost everything in eyeshot was a uniform shade of Northern Wisconsin brown. While looking at my watch to see when I could eat my lunch, I heard a snort, and a thumping that almost sounded like someone was dragging a rake across the forest floor. A buck was making his way out of a pine field behind me and to my right.
I made my first rookie mistake that morning: I froze. I need to pivot 45 degrees to get in position to shoot. But the spike buck was passing broadside at less than 15 yards from me. And I could tell from the tail flicking that the animal was alert and uneasy about something. So I simply sat there, with my heart pounding so fast I thought my ears were going to burst.
It felt like hours, but the deer gradually made his way down into the valley that ran diagonally in front of my ground blind. I waited and when the buck stopped in front of a small clearing about 70 yards away, I leaned into the scope, held my breath and slowly squeezed the trigger.
Inexplicably, the animal’s uneasy walk instantly became a panic-laden run. I didn’t know it at the time, but I later found a three-inch tree brach, freshly torn and hanging in the air by a shred of bark just in front of where the animal had been standing. Barely visible from where I sat, the branch had deflected my shot.
In response, I made my second rookie mistake of the morning. Even a 7th-grade hunter’s safety student knows that standing is the most unsteady position to shoot from. But I was running entirely on instinct. In one motion I stood, turned to my left and slammed the bolt in my Savage .270 forward to kick the shell out. I worked the bolt backwards to load the next round and pulled the rifle up, expecting the buck to run along the bottom of the valley and to my left.
The buck was tearing through the forest, trying to make his way up the hill and back into the pine field when I pulled the trigger for a second time. He collapsed 150 yards away before I could bring the rifle back down. The bullet had hit the leading edge of the buck as he turned uphill and had smashed through the jugular vein and windpipe.
The antlers were tiny, barely 3 inches. Sitting in the car thinking of the experience, I couldn’t help but smile. I’ve seen bigger – fingers. But it didn’t matter. It was my first buck.
Twin xenon headlights in the rearview mirror snapped me out of my reverie. A BMW was bearing down hard on me, speeding through the subdivision, no doubt heading home to 2.5 kids and a mortgage the driver couldn’t afford.
When I looked back from the mirror to the field, the deer were gone.
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Am not one to write rude or mean reviews and am not gonna say something i don’t find to be true. i enjoyed this very much you have a talent for this. i say keep it up you can only get better.
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Your story is very realistic and you could feel the emotions running through you. It would be good if you added more to the suspense of him wanting to shoot the buck too. Despite a few mistakes with words, your story was very good for the first time.
This is a very easy read. The subject might be a bit off-putting for some people, but for people like me, you will have an instant friend because it smacks of home. Have a few suggestions.
Lil typo-Staring, not starting. Branch, not brach.
When you describe the first time you saw a buck, I would say encounter instead of came on. You were stationary.
You also say ‘spike buck’. Need to clarify if it was a spike or a buck, because using them together doesn’t make sense.
You also do not need to say ‘Inexpicably,’ because you just stated you squeezed the trigger, so it would make sense for him to run.
I’d suggest typing out numbers, and putting a hyphen between hunters safety, and combining it with the next sentence instead of breaking them into two=’seventh grade, hunters-safety student…., but I acted…’
You also mention making mistakes, but they don’t seem to effect the story, at all. Mistakes (mistake 1, mistake 2, mistake 3, in sequence) typically indicate a result different from the one being lead up to, but that doesn’t happen, here.
Overall, I liked this piece because it reminded me of going hunting with my father, as well as my brother’s first attempt at hunting, then years later my husbands first attempt, too. Especially about the spike. I think this is a good piece, nice and makes the reader remember their first experiences. Well done, and I hope you enjoy Urbis.
Very descriptive! I liked this! Being an Oklahoma native and growing up around deer hunters, I can definitely relate and it does describe many people that I know. Great job! Just one edit, “starting at a buck” should be “staring”.
good use of the flashback, and the hunting description was good all though I think it could be improved.
read Tom Mcguane’s “Heart of the Game.”
overall good job this is something I would like to read in a field and stream while I’m waiting to get my oil changed.
You have a gift in storytelling. The accuracy (literal and figurative) is proof of that. Those fine memories or details are what holds a readers interest. The beginning and end blends everything together and puts most things into perspective.
Nice story that brought back my own rookie fumblings pheasant hunting in Michigan. Unfortunately, between increasing population and urban sprawl, stories like this are becoming rarer.
November 02, 2006
Deleted User
It’s hard to say about you Goal Rating, depends on how many of us are hungry for points. Gave you seven on your Overall Score because I liked your honest writing and it’s a pretty good tale. Those of us who aren’t hunters and tend to feel sorry for all those creatures who wind up with their heads decorating someone’s den find it easy to forget that if it wasn’t for the supermarket we’d either be out there freezing our balls off trying to catch the bacon or we’d be real happy to see the guy that did.
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