Hunting Season Opener

© By Othmar Vohringer

For hunters the season opening date is like Christmas for children. The closer it comes the more impatient we grow. We have been preparing all year for this event and as it gets closer we become restless, counting down the months, weeks, days and finally the hours. What will the new hunting season bring? Will we get that big deer or bear that eluded us last year? Will it be as good as last year or even better? The morning of the hunt is the only day of the year that I am awake before the alarm begins its annoying blaring. An hour before the sun rises over the mountain tops I am on my way to the spot where the deer leave the field in single file and head up a trail to the top of the hill where they will rest for the day.

When it gets just enough light to see shapes I put an arrow on my bow string and lean back against the tree. The waiting game begins. The deer will shortly start to move off the field and cross by my set-up and if I’m lucky my day will end in the kitchen - cutting and wrapping venison. But an hour later no deer have been seen at my set-up or on the other end of the field. What happened? There is only one way to find out: get up and search for another spot. I hiked up the mountain and found several good places that I know hold deer but I’ll wait to hunt them until the firearm hunting season opens. The worst thing I could do is walk around and risk alerting deer to my presence at this time of year.

This is hunting - there are no sure-fire recipes for success. Despite all the careful preparations you never know what will happen. Some hunters are out every day they can and still end the season with no deer taken. Other hunters are lucky and tag out early in the hunting season like twelve-year-old Tyler Mosley (Photo) from Merritt, BC. On the second day of the youth hunting season Tyler went out with his family to camp in the Petit Creek area. After years of following his father and older brothers on hunting trips this was the first time he would be the hunter and the others would accompany him. Brayden, Tyler’s older brother, led him along a trail where he had captured a large buck on a trail camera a few months previously. With any luck the buck would still be in the area. As the pair walked along the trail they noticed movement in the bush; it was the very same buck. Tyler aimed his rifle carefully and when everything felt right he squeezed the trigger and a few seconds later Tyler proudly admired his very first buck. It will be a memory that will last a lifetime and will be relived and retold many times at many campfires.

I wish you all have a good and above all safe hunting season.