recon6036
Well-known member
This isnt meant to be a sympathy post but some of you may remember last March I posted my brother and sister unexpectedly passed away within 4 days of each other. Anyway, my brother and I were about as close as brothers could be. We grew up hunting the Hiawatha National forest and in 2011 we started making yearly hunting trips out west.
Well, this year I headed to Wyoming for a deer hunt and decided to use his rifle and dedicate the hunt to him. On November 8th, 8 months after Mike passed away, I headed down into “The Hole” as we call it. I was solo and shortly after sunup, I crossed 4 or 5 sets of tracks in the fresh snow from the night before, that led into a conifer stand. I decided this would be a good place to sit, figuring the tracks were Does headed to bed and a buck may come by sometime. The sit lasted about 90 minutes due to the cold, so I decided to put some more miles on.
I made my way towards some BLM land to the north, with zero activity and few tracks, so I circled back to the previous spot.
I told myself, “just sit for a while longer, this is a good spot.” As I sat under a tree, my mind wandered; reliving many memories of my brother. As I was deep in thought, the buck appeared in front of me, no doubt, in search of the Does that crossed early in the morning.
In the next few moments, with the use of his rifle, the buck laid dead. I knelt next to the buck, placed my right hand on its chest and showed my respect to this deer I just killed.
Over the next couple hours, I skinned, quartered and deboned the buck then loaded everything into my pack for the hike out of “the Hole.”
About 10 steps into the pack-out, the emotion of what occurred hit. This one was for my brother.
Well, this year I headed to Wyoming for a deer hunt and decided to use his rifle and dedicate the hunt to him. On November 8th, 8 months after Mike passed away, I headed down into “The Hole” as we call it. I was solo and shortly after sunup, I crossed 4 or 5 sets of tracks in the fresh snow from the night before, that led into a conifer stand. I decided this would be a good place to sit, figuring the tracks were Does headed to bed and a buck may come by sometime. The sit lasted about 90 minutes due to the cold, so I decided to put some more miles on.
I made my way towards some BLM land to the north, with zero activity and few tracks, so I circled back to the previous spot.
I told myself, “just sit for a while longer, this is a good spot.” As I sat under a tree, my mind wandered; reliving many memories of my brother. As I was deep in thought, the buck appeared in front of me, no doubt, in search of the Does that crossed early in the morning.
In the next few moments, with the use of his rifle, the buck laid dead. I knelt next to the buck, placed my right hand on its chest and showed my respect to this deer I just killed.
Over the next couple hours, I skinned, quartered and deboned the buck then loaded everything into my pack for the hike out of “the Hole.”
About 10 steps into the pack-out, the emotion of what occurred hit. This one was for my brother.
