Music To Our Ears: Matthew's First Deer of the Season

Matthew told the story of this mornings' buck after it was all gutted, skinned, and sitting in the refrigerator. It is surprising how quickly he got it; he didn't even have time to sit down up on the ridge!

He had driven his truck up to the clearing and walked the rest of the way up the road to the turn around and on up the path to the east ridge. Aaron was taking the west ridge. It was still very dark as they were walking up the mountain side, but the first hints of dawn were beginning to show up. He kept his steps in the tire tracks from the path the 4-wheeler had made on previous days. This kept the crunching sound of the dried leaves down to a minimum.

It was difficult to see through the dim light of the morning, but Matt thought he was coming up on the big oak tree that he had planned on sitting beneath. It was about 6:35 am by this time. He thought he heard something walking, so he froze and scanned his surroundings. He was looking on down the trail, beyond the tree, when a form materialized before his eyes in the foreground of the picture! It was a buck, only about 20 feet away from him! He had walked right up on it, and didn't even see it at first! It dropped where it was standing on the first shot fired from our 30-30! He then shot it a second time to put it out for good.

Matthew came down to the house and got his 4-wheeler. He drove it up to the ridge to make the task of moving the deer carcass much easier. After loading it on the back of the vehicle, he brought it down to the house and we strung it up to our multi-purpose swing set in the side yard. Matt then proceeded to gut and skin the carcass and cut it up into pieces to store in the freezer.

It was a 4-point buck and probably weighed around 100 pounds. After we were finished taking the meat off that we wanted and deboning the roasts, we were happy to have about 35 pounds of prime venison meat!

Aaron came down and went back up in the hollow a couple of times throughout the morning, but he did not get a deer. He did see some, as well as turkey and squirrel, but he didn't get a shot off at the deer. Maybe tomorrow?

Here are the pictures I took, which may have been the first kill of the modern gun season of all the hunters out today!

On the back of the four-wheeler:



Hanging up on the children's swing set:



The gutting:



All skinned and ready to cut up for the freezer:





We feel blessed to be able to harvest this meat supply that God has provided us here at Pure Water Hollow!