Memoir
Ryan Hermansen
2/1/2011
English 2010
Wrong Place At The Wrong Time
Every person in the world has that one interest, that one thing that lures them in and captures their fascination for the greater part of their life. They always look forward to it, look for any possible chance to get out and do this thing, putting aside work, school and even friends to name a few, regardless of priorities, it‘s at the top. This is what you call a passion, and this is what hunting has been for me all of my life. It is the highlighted weekend on the calendar of every year, other than football, nothing else is allowed to get in the way. About two years ago, a not-so friendly run of events took place during one of our hunts, this traumatizing event could have possibly scared my brother and I into never doing what we loved most, ever again.
There hasn’t been a year that I can honestly remember that didn’t involve hunting, even from my childhood, walking at six in the morning with my dad, knowing that undoubtedly there was a mountain lion or bear behind the next bush to eat me, I have loved everything about it. From the icy cold mornings to exhausted evenings, there is nothing else like it, the 5 days the hunt lasts simply never seem to be enough to keep me satisfied, so you must make every minute count. This time of year, everything is coming to an end. As you look around, you see that the trees have already changed their amazing display of blazing reds and oranges to their dull grey bare branches, and all the animals have begun growing their warm winter coats. With camouflage and orange from head to toe, scent killer on, and gun in hand you are ready to hit up the trails or even the roads to see what might be out feeding in the grassy fields. Your eyesight as you scan the view has never been more acute, sensitive to every movement and every deer shaped bush out there.
On that particular evening, around 5:00 p.m. is when my brother and I began to gather our things to make our last run for the day. We grabbed a quick dinner of beef jerky and ho ho’s then headed out. The decision of where to hunt that evening is as always, critical and important, but after much meditation my brother, Daniel and I finally agreed to road hunt. Down the road we went, it has finally begun, we both zoned in and set our minds towards hunting mode. As the sun goes down, you can feel the daylight literally slipping away from you, as shadows grow bigger and objects grow fainter. Determined however to take advantage of every last bit of light we can, we press on. By this time, a few does with their fawns have begun to come out and feed, but to our disappointment still no sign of any bucks. We continued to creep down the road, eyes still peeled, and then wait- I slammed on the brakes. Standing about 140 yards away, in the cover of sagebrush was a three-point buck. As a deer in headlights, we were slow to react because of our fervent excitement. Fumbling around for minutes it seemed, we finally gathered ourselves and made a plan.
Taking a closer look at the situation, we noticed that the deer was on private property, just our luck. The deer knew that it was safe where it was, and it knew that we did as well. We had no other choice but to floor it to the owner’s home, and see if he was there. With the car still running, we raced to the door and knocked rampantly, he answered with a smile and told us it was alright for us to hunt there, and we wasted no time getting back. I grabbed my gun and began my approach, stalking against an old garage and making my way towards the fence to support my shot. It was perfect, I had arrived undetected at the fence, and I raised my gun putting the deer in the scope sights waiting for the ideal shot, I was anxiously trying to hold the gun still. At last the deer looked up broadside, bam, I pulled the trigger, it was a hit! The smiles on our faces said it all, the smoke cleared and I saw the deer make its last few bounds about twenty more yards and it dropped. Giving the deer the time it needed to pass, we waited at the fence rejoicing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a beat-up blue truck with a white stripe racing towards us from the bottom of the adjacent field. “I didn’t do anything wrong”, I thought to myself, but they still came full speed towards at us.
When they finally arrived, they swung open the doors and instead of a greeting of congratulations, I was met by a displeased couple filling the mountain air with their yelling, swearing and firearms in hand. Through the shouting and the threats, I had quickly learned that I was one field north of where I was supposed to be. My heart immediately dropped, I didn’t know what was going to happen, would I be arrested, shot by these people or ever be allowed to hunt again? Trying to be rational and explain my honest mistake was rapidly appearing to be out of the question with these people. From the corner of my eye, I saw that my brother had already made the executive decision to book it towards our car. The man angrily told me that I had better do the same as my brother, but being the cocky 18 year old I was, I collectively walked back to the car, showing him he couldn’t bully me around, once in the car, however is when the real nerves hit.
We took off towards my uncle’s home and in one breath brought him up to speed on what had just happened. Although surprised, he was quite calm; without a second thought he told us just to let it blow over. Needless to say, we expected something more from him, some kind of resolve, we were going crazy. The thought of just hanging around and sitting in our trailer the rest of that night was simply unbearable. We hastily packed up our belongings, and got out of dodge, zooming down the two lane highway. We would unavoidably have to pass by the place where the events had occurred, but getting home was at the top of our list, and ‘just drive’ was my motto the rest of the way.
Everything turned out fine in the end, and I triple check each time I hunt now, making sure that I am aware of what is whose, so that nothing like this will ever happen again. As my brother and I clearly found out, it is important to not let your emotions get the best of you, because it can be very easy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.