The last day of the 2023-2024 deer season in the northern part of Mississippi for me had its share of good, bad, and ugly. It was the middle of the week, and I had managed to get off work in time to hit the woods with about two hours of daylight to spare. Using the wind to my advantage, I snuck into a hardwood bottom that was right on the edge of a cutover where I had seen a good buck about a month earlier.
The Good
I was able to harvest a doe that afternoon at the buzzer of the 2023-2024 season with my 45-70, and she was a pretty big doe at that.
The Bad
I had to get that doe back to my truck, which was about a quarter mile away and mostly uphill
The Ugly
Okay here is where it gets interesting. To give a little background, I had had a dizzy spell earlier in the day while I was driving and talking on the phone using my car’s Bluetooth. I chalked it up to me not taking enough breaths due to being fired up about whatever I was talking about and thinking I had to yell in order for the person on the other end of the call to hear what I was fired up about. Fast forward to me beginning to drag this doe uphill. After dragging her maybe 50 yards I said to myself, “What are you doing? You brought your ALICE pack and game bags, go ahead and quarter this doe out.” So I took out my knife and began to make my first cut, and a dizzy spell hit me that nearly made me fall on my face. I had a slight freak out. Not only was I alone in the woods and dizzy for some unknown reason, but I also had a headlamp that I knew probably didn’t have more than 2 hours of battery life left and a cell phone battery at 35%. I also had no water in my pack, nor did I have any back at my truck, and the absolute anxiety exacerbating cherry on top of this crap sundae was the howling of the coyotes not too far off and me having blood all over me from a fresh kill. Knowing that this situation could turn bad quickly, I knew I had to call somebody. The first person I called was a friend of mine that hunted in the same area, and I knew he would be able to find me if for some reason I couldn’t get out. He’s also a doctor, which was a big bonus since I was a little worried as to what could possibly be going on medically, this being my second dizzy spell of the day. As much as I didn’t want to worry my wife, I figured I had better call her and let her know what was going on before she sent a search party after me. To make a really long story short, I was able to slowly quarter that doe up and make it up to the road (taking me about an hour and a half to do both). My friend and my wife met me at the road with bottled water and a Powerade, and after getting plenty of fluids in me I felt much better. The Doctor’s diagnosis: dehydration.
Lessons Learned
First of all, I know better. I work in the medical field and have an Exercise Science degree for heaven’s sake. My first lesson is to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. This has to be a daily routine, not just days I am going to be exercising or hunting. I hydrated very successfully during my Arkansas hunt at the beginning of the season, but for some reason all of my good sense left me by the end of the season. The next lesson I learned is to stay in shape. I trained for at least two months leading up to the Arkansas hunt by jogging and/or walking up and down the steepest hills I could find close to me and going for hikes in the national forest, but as soon as I returned from Arkansas I quit exercising completely. I guess my thinking was that I would stay in shape by hunting regularly back home for the next couple of months, but that was obviously not the case. The next lesson I learned was to ALWAYS have water on me and at minimum have it in my truck. If noisy water bottles are a concern, the Gatorade or Propel bottles can be refilled and don’t make a lot of noise when they are accidentally squeezed while in your pack. Coke bottles work too, but I don’t like my water having any hint of a Coke taste. The next lesson is a no brainer: keep your phone charged when you know you are going to be in the woods, and keep fresh batteries in your headlamp. Heck, take two headlamps whenever you are going to be hunting, and have spare batteries and a power bank for re-chargeable gear. Final lesson: It’s always a great idea to make sure somebody knows where you are going to be hunting (whether hunting solo or not), and it’s even better (if possible with your phone) to share your location with a friend or family member so they can find you if for whatever reason you were unable to call or send a message out.
For me, this hunting season was more of a blooper reel than a success, but I can honestly say that I have learned more lessons that will be far more valuable in the long run than shooting any deer would have been. Knowing that this experience could have turned out a lot worse than it did makes me appreciate the lessons learned and the venison in the freezer even more.