A deer found him with his pants down

When the weather report showed chance of snow showers one day last week, I tossed the .270 into the truck and headed to one of my favorite deer hunting spots.

I like hunting when it’s snowing, not so much for tracking but more for the way snow muffles noise.

And, so what, if I didn’t shoot anything?  I could at least see if the whitetail deer had started rutting, by scouting for rubs and scrapes.

After stumble-hunting for a couple hours, up the mountain, across the ridge, and heading back down, it was time to take a bathroom break.

I stepped off the grown-over, logging road, leaned the gun against a tree, unsnapped my fanny pack, loosened my belt buckle…

And just as I was about to start my business, I spotted a deer, about 40 yards away, facing straight at me, staring.

I couldn’t see antlers, but the background had all sorts of vertical branches which could hide small horns.

My gun was a couple steps away, the binocs were buried under my jackets, and, in urology vernacular, “the train was leaving the station!”

When I finished, the deer was still there.  Hadn’t moved a hair!  And I still wasn’t sure if it were a small buck or doe.

I moved slowly for my gun, leaned it against the tree, and looked through the scope.

Pants down!

Not a pretty sight!

The gun was against the tree in such a way I couldn’t get my eye close enough to the eyepiece and I kept seeing a bright white circle, bouncing around the field of view.

And, even when I pulled the gun back, the circle kept dancing.

But the deer didn’t move. 

I lowered the gun, noted the eyepiece had been screwed down too far, unscrewed it to produce a better image, then looked at an obviously “bewildered” deer again.

At that point, she’d seen enough.

Slowly she turned, then bounded through the forest, hopefully, not to tell her friends what she had seen.