northms

Time for an update.

Well today was a wonderful day. No other way to start off the story. My brother, I, and another older hunting partner picked my dad up from his living facility around lunch and took the one hour drive to the hunting camp.

We got him in the box blind after some hard work on his part of being a trooper. As mentioned in the opening post he is limited to only movement in the right side of his body, his strong side, and obviously has great mobility limitations. We were able to drive the truck all the way to the box blind so he just had to take a few assisted steps to get him inside and on the old bus seat we have in there to sit on.

Well by this time it was about 230 and it was time to play the waiting game. I couldn't help but think as we sat there back to about 15-20 years ago when it was us 3 sitting in the stand, while he helped us learn to hunt as young boys. It strangely felt like old times again, and for one day again, he was one of the guys.

After about a 2 hr wait we had 3 does sneak out of the timber in front of us and mill down the hill to right in front of us. We propped his gun up on a sand bag for support and waited for them to come closer. After a couple of minutes they came in to 50 yds and I finally gave him the go ahead to shoot at the biggest doe once the others cleared. He shoots with an eye patch over his left eye due to the fact he can't close each individual eye now after the stroke.

Well he let the rifle ring out and the doe whirls around and runs back towards the timber into some high sage. We thought he hit it but weren't too sure. I got out to check for blood after a little while and found one speck on the edge of the woods, then tracked for 50 yds and there she was. Great double lung shot. Not bad for one good arm, one good leg, eye patch wearing hunter lol.

When I came out dragging the deer from the woods he had a smile that would have warmed the hearts of the coldest man in the world. He was on cloud 9 and I'm probably more proud of this hunt than any other deer I've ever killed. Funny how the important things in life come front and center when faced with adversity.

This is the first deer he has killed since the 2005 season when he suffered his stroke. For at least this one day I know he felt normal again, and it's something we will always remember and cherish. It was emotional as I drove back out of town after dropping him off again, but by this time the calls were rolling in. Evidently he had already been spreading the word lol

Below is the picture of us, my ugly mug on the left, Dad in the middle, and my younger brother on the right. And as you can tell he's a big ole miss rebels fan by the old sweatshirt he always wears under his camo.