Heartbreak Hunting
I was gifted my first Daisy air rifle at my 10th birthday party by my father much to my mother’s surprise. Most of the memories I have of that day at Malibu Castle are hazy at best, however, I remember the moment I opened that present as clearly as I remember the #cupofjoe I drank this morning with breakfast. By this time my dad had already taken my sister and I on multiple camping trips where he would teach us about the outdoors and let us explore the campgrounds on our own. I had been on several fishing trips with him to the coast by then, but I had yet to go hunting.
The first hunting trip my dad let me tag along on was a South Texas dove hunt he was invited to by a colleague. We walked the tall grassy fields keeping our eyes peeled ahead over the tree line anticipating the flybys. He with his 12-gauge shotgun and I with my brand-new BB gun, ready for the action. It’s virtually impossible to successfully harvest a migratory game bird with a BB gun but that was hardly a concern to me at that time. For the first time in my life, I was a hunter like my dad. It wouldn’t be long before I was learning about different firearm types and the safe and responsible ways to operate them. Hunting soon became the main father and son bonding activity between us, and I consider myself very lucky to have had (and still have) the opportunity to share that part of myself with my dad.
Over the years hunting has sharpened my senses and exposed me to valuable core ideas not the least of which being patience, discipline and persistence. These and many other principles were instilled in me through involvement in other activities and built upon at home throughout my life, however, learning about them through the lens of an outdoorsman continues to have a lasting impact.
You may be surprised to learn that most hunting trips end unsuccessfully – success being measured by the harvest of the particular game animal you’re hunting. Patience as it relates to this subject is not only relative to the amount of time you put towards the actual hunt, i.e. waiting for the right animal or right shot to present itself. To me patience became the conscious effort to really understand why it is that I hunt. What is it that draws my interests to the outdoors in pursuit of wild game, what kind of hunter do I want to be and what values do I establish in my own practice to in turn teach others? My answers to these have morphed over time, but I love learning about myself with each new experience – it’s a patient process.
Discipline started with learning the importance of sitting still, not fidgeting or whipping your head around as to not blow your cover and transformed into a deeper appreciation of the preparation required for a quick and ethical harvest. Success in hunting is directly related to how comfortable you are with your weapon. If you hunt with a rifle you must possess the skills required to be deadly accurate with that rifle, which requires a lot of practice. Practice takes discipline. If you hunt with a bow (which I decided to pick up this season) the level of practice required dramatically increases.
Persistence meant not giving up when success wasn’t reached. I completely missed the first deer I ever shot at with a rifle. I missed the first turkey I ever shot at with my bow just this past fall. Experience comes with each failure, you reflect on what could’ve gone better, fix it if it’s something within your control and try again.
Grandpa Elizalde (right) passed when I was two. He and my grandma would utilize every part of the game he harvested. They would eat organ meat, keep the hide and boil the bones down to make broth. Now that’s a level of hunter I aspire to become!
This brings me to the point of what inspired me to get these thoughts down. This past weekend I experienced something every hunter dreads: I lost an animal I without a doubt shot with an arrow. I made what I believed to be a decent shot on a mature axis buck only to discover not much of a blood trail for tracking, and in turn no expired axis deer. Axis meat is widely considered to be the best tasting wild game meat you can find, and this would have been my first. I feel like to fully appreciate the situations leading to this event you need to have at least a limited understanding of axis deer so allow me to give a quick summary: Axis deer (aka Chital) are a species of deer native to India that were first introduced to Texas in the 1930’s. Since then, they’ve thrived in both open range areas as well as high fence ranches. They’re widely sought after because their meat is delicious for one, but they also have proven to be one of the most challenging game animals to hunt here in Texas. Relative to the whitetail deer that are native to this area, axis deer are considerably larger in body size, quicker on their feet and much more evasive. Add this to their incredible eyesight and sense of smell and they make for one very difficult animal to hunt with a rifle, much less a bow.
Axis Buck
On the thousand-acre free range plot of land I’ve been hunting this year, there is an abundance of wildlife. Of the larger game animals there are whitetail deer, axis deer, blackbuck antelope, Dall sheep (aka thinhorn sheep), and Hawaiian black sheep (aka Black Coriscan). Upon recently taking the one whitetail buck I’m allowed to shoot earlier this month, I felt confident as I began switching my focus to axis deer. This season I have been doing things differently. With the arrival of my son James back in August I’ve been limiting my hunting schedule to one day, every other weekend which allows me three hunts and optimal time with family. On hunting days, I leave the house at 3am to be at the property by 5:30am to hunt the morning, spot and stalk hunt the afternoon, hunt the evening and be back home by 9pm. It makes for a long day, but I still get to enjoy the outdoors in pursuit of delicious wild game for my freezer.
My buddy Tom came along this time. He recently got in to bow hunting and I was excited for him to see the place. On the way out there, I was more concerned about where I would put him than what we might see, as the property is mostly set up for rifle hunting. Of the three hunters on the place, I’m the only one who bow hunts. I told Tom that he’s welcome to take an axis doe if he likes and has the opportunity to do so - we’d just share the meat. The property is rich with axis doe and I’d been allowed to harvest two this season. Once we got set up, I left Tom at a pop-up ground blind near a spot I’d noticed was a highly used trail for axis, and I walked to my tripod stand I’ve been sitting at all season. I commend Tom for not taking a shot at the axis deer he saw that morning. He described over ten axis doe walking no more than fifteen yards in front of him just before sun up, only to continue moving along before first light when he could positively identify and responsibly shoot one.
I had deer all around me from the moment I turned my headlamp off in my tripod stand. Mostly whitetail doe and a couple young bucks, this had been the norm in this area and I was already considering the places I could move my stand to next time that might put me more in range of the axis deer. Around 7:30am a herd of Dall sheep rolled in and began grazing about twenty-five yards in front of me, spooking the whitetail deer out of the area. They hang out for fifteen minutes, completely unaware of my presence when at the north tree line approximately one hundred yards away I see a lone axis buck curious to the commotion. He makes his way around the thickets of trees east of my location and gets within fifty yards of the Dall sheep before joining them grazing. My heart is pounding out of my chest at this point. I’ve been hunting this land two years now and have never been this close to or even seen an axis buck this impressive and mature. If you’ve never heard the term “buck fever” look it up. Essentially your brain floods with adrenaline, you hear your heartbeat in your ears and in extreme cases begin to physically shake from excitement. I’ve been hunting for twenty years now so I rarely get this reaction anymore when hunting, but this moment was an exception.
What do you do at this point? I attempted to slow my heart rate by controlling my breathing. I became laser focused on the task at hand and tried my best to remain composed. There were about fifteen Dall sheep still in the area, so drawing my bow undetected and timing my shot was certainly going to be a challenge. My first draw attempt spooked the axis and he ran about thirty yards into the trees. I could hear him scraping at tree limbs with his antlers just out of view, so I knew he was still around. Eventually he cautiously started walking back to the area as I drew back my bow a second time. No dice. He sensed me again! Five minutes later he walked back out and continued grazing with the sheep. Heart still racing I successfully drew my bow and aimed the sight pin right at the heart. Release. Shot placement looked center up/down a little right of where I was aiming. Arrow didn’t fully penetrate through but that’s okay – when I shot my whitetail buck the arrow hadn’t fully penetrated and he died within seconds. Upon impact the axis buck runs to the nearest groups of trees, turns broadside facing me (this is where I verify shot placement) and runs due east into the sun. I tried to keep my eyes on him as he was running away but was blinded by the sunrise and some patches of brush. All signs indicate a good shot and a dead deer. I wait ten minutes and get out of my stand to go fetch Tom so he can help me track the animal.
It was hopeless. What little blood trail he had left for us had gone stale in the tall grass one hundred yards from impact. We resorted to scanning the fields on foot and with our binoculars certain we’d stumble upon him under the next group of trees. We lost hope of finding him as the sun began to set around us, nearly eight hours after we began the search. We drove home defeated and I returned the next day with another buddy and his tracking dog to search again. Another full day of searching with no success. As I’m writing this, I find it very difficult to describe the feeling other than saying it is heartbreaking to know that despite my best effort I fatally wounded an animal and was unable retrieve it. Hunting can provide next level excitement and a full freezer, but it can also humble you real quick and bring you to your knees. Three nights in a row I had dreams about the one that got away. Did I walk right past him? Possible. Could he have survived my arrow? Unlikely, but still possible. Could I have done anything differently to cause a more favorable outcome? I believe so.
My first mistake was shot placement. Ideally, you want to aim for the heart and lungs (commonly referred to as the “boiler room”) which is directly up from the back of the front leg, between one-third and one-half of the way up the body. Although my arrow was perfect vertically, I was about three inches back of where I had aimed, most likely hitting the liver. A liver shot deer will die but won’t leave a prominent blood trail to track. The blood we were able to find was dark and opaque – a common indicator of a liver shot.
My second mistake was leaving my stand too quickly. When a deer gets hit, their natural response after the initial bolt is to find a safe place to bed down. They’re usually losing blood and it won’t be long before it expires. When you blow your cover, you run the risk of “jumping” your deer or basically giving them a reason to get back up and keep running – now they know you’re there. I was overly confident in my shot and certain the deer would be down, so I made the choice of getting out of my stand prematurely. I should have stayed put for an hour at the very least. I spooked the sheep as I was climbing out of my stand, causing them to run the same direction as my deer. This couldn’t have helped my situation.
My third mistake was pursuing him after noticing the faint blood trail. This should have prompted me to pull back, leave the area, and return later to retrieve the animal. Of course, analyzing all this now it seems so obvious to me, but that’s part of hunting as well. Making decisions in the excitement of the moment is what it’s all about. You just hope to make the right ones.
So, there you have it, a full recap of what I’m calling my “heartbreak hunt”. I plan to keep searching for him when I return in a couple weeks. Hopefully by then there will be some sign of where he may be – buzzards, smell, something. Maybe he’ll make a full recovery and I’ll have a chance to redeem myself. If you hunt long enough, statistically this situation is bound to happen to you. This week I’ve had to keep reminding myself to be patient, stay disciplined and be persistent – I can’t wait to get out there and try again.
