You’re Welcome.

The sun hasn’t officially set on the 2023 rifle season across the state of Minnesota. Down here in Zone 2, Logan and I tucked our heavy irons away on Sunday night. However, those north of highway 70 have one more weekend left to hit the woods. And although the dust is starting to settle, I’m not sure Tyler has come down from his high perch on that east ridge of Beltrami County Highway Department land. His mind is still there it seems. In a recent text string, he threw out a few pictures of family bucks of days gone by and wondered if we’d ever know who’s was bigger. Bragging rights aside, he admitted that daily he still looks at the pictures of his biggest buck to date.

                                                                   So, how did we get here?

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Text messages loaded with trail camera pictures regularly interrupted the fall high school football season. While Logan was tackling Broncos from International Falls, Aaron was trimming trees and tending to stands on the Bemidji plot. Poppa Tom committed to the team early this year and I’m most certain that Tyler now looks forward to deer season almost as much as he looks forward to teeing one up at the break of each new Spring. During the early Fall, Logan and I tied ourselves in and tried our best with a stick and a string but archery deer continue to elude us. With that, we all eagerly awaited the call to the Northwoods. Not everyone has to fill out packing lists and days off requests. Tom is retired. Aaron lives there and Logan is but a child. So, per usual, Tyler and I filed the requisite paperwork. We later learned that packing lists are overrated anyway.

On Friday, Tyler lit off early from the concrete jungle for Pine City and a quick afternoon visit with Mom. At about the same time, Grandpa Tom pointed his all-terrain Ford Mustang south from Warroad so that he could make the swamp road by dusk. All the while, Logan and I slogged through one last day of schoolwork, both eager for the dismissal bell and the Orange Migration.

Our ride to Bemidji was uneventful but enjoyable. Logan drove from Pine City to Deer River without incident while Tyler and I solved the world’s problems. We covered: salaries and wages of the working man, politics and inflation, war and gas prices but mostly just talked about Sports. With his youth, high school, and college career in the rearview mirror, it’s fun now to talk with Tyler as an adult with a fresh perspective on teams and talent, parents and problems and what it means to be a teammate willing to go to battle for each other in the back alleys. After our pit stop, I took over behind the wheel.

Just after sundown, we reached the welcomed warm glow of Arica’s kitchen. After we unpacked supplies into the garage and personals into the fish house, we devoured a pile of pulled pork and salivated over a few more trail camera pictures. Things looked promising as we all agreed to post in our usual spots come morning. After another quick run through and gear staging in the garage, each member of the hunting party retreated to their respective sleeping quarters but not before pecking through one last round of Snapchat, Insta and Facebook posts in the dark. `

I routinely set my alarm for the predetermined time but cannot remember the last morning of opening day that I’ve needed it. In the darkness I repeatedly cracked open my eyes and checked the time in anticipation of the starting bell while the boys snoozed away at the opposite end of the fish house. When I could take it no longer, I climbed down from my bunk, flipped on the lights and like Grandpa Joe used to always say, I announced, “Daylight in the Swamp”. I grabbed my toothbrush and hurried off to be the first to use the facilities. Our morning muster was scheduled for 6:30 am in the garage. Some slugged down coffee while others stowed last minute jerky and Halloween chocolates. Aaron reported that the ignition on the trusty old red, white and blue Honda had frozen through the night leaving us down a wheeler and forcing us to call it something else from now on. Once again, Logan, Aaron and I would be 3 cowboys on one horse. Tom and Tyler usually stick around for 10-15 minutes after the first wave departs. This walk out would be no different. With sunrise fast approaching, we headed for the hills.

Roughed Grouse stood sentry watch on both ends of the woods. Tom and Tyler were greeted by a covey of birds announcing to the darkened world that strangers were approaching. To the south, a lone fool bird stood stubbornly in the middle of the 4-wheeler trail blocking our way in. Illuminated by the headlights, Aaron challenged Logan to jump off and grab him as the grouse declared to the other critters of the forest that the Orange Army was inbound. In the cover of darkness, the boys of Kamp Kirby 2023 exchanged well wishes accompanied by handshakes and fist bumps as each went our separate ways.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself high up in the familiar red oak of our southernmost outpost. Doing my best to keep my heart rate and body temperature down, I buckled in for some morning prayers. Maybe twenty minutes later, a single shot far off in the distance signaled the start of shooting hours and the speculation that follows. Periodically the new morning light was punctuated with sporadic gunfire. None seemed close enough to spur local excitement. That is… until it was so sudden and so loud that it was obvious.

At 8:12 am, the Outfitter squeezed off a round and then just as quickly fired off a text to me wondering if I had been startled by the shot. Hearing him crack one off so close left no doubt in my mind that our hunting party was in the game. A picture came through confirming that tracking the buck would not be necessary. Tipped over in the dusting of snow a stone’s throw from Aaron’s stand lay a typical 8-point buck. A flurry of text messages followed updating the rest of team. Logan celebrated with that first cold sip of Mountain Dew and a picture confirmed. I followed suit and a picture confirmed. Tyler joined in and sent his own picture of a celebratory sip. I think a new tradition was born. Somewhere in there, Grandpa Tom was brought up to speed. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief and prepared to hunt out the rest of the morning.

At one point, Aaron climbed down to tend to the required task ahead of him but just as quickly scrambled back into his stand after he looked up to see me through the trees, aloft and clinging to another hour of the morning hunt. We later learned that our two stands are only separated by 131 yards as the crow flies. It’s no wonder that I nearly jumped out of my bibs when he shot that morning. Aaron also held off on cleaning his buck because Logan offered to help. Later when Logan slipped through the woods towards the kill site, I easily picked him out between the hardwoods and decided that I would call it a morning and head over for pictures and supervision. It’s always good having a high school linebacker around to help drag a carcass from the rolling hills to the trail along the gravel pit. I retrieved the Honda. We hoisted the deer into the tree at the homestead within the hour.

Back at the house, we skun out the buck and then sliced up some summer sausage for lunch. Aaron and I drove up the road a bit to investigate the data collection stations that the DNR spread throughout the county. Spinal columns were to be disposed of in strategically placed dumpsters along with heads and horns for the next few days. We were on a fact-finding mission in hopes that transporting deer would be a problem for us in the days ahead.

That evening the youngest of the Kirby boys decided he would join our war party. His dad conceded that Naysen would not last the 3 plus hours that the rest of us prepared for. Because Naysen and Aaron would be walking out much later and posting together in the stump blind high along the edge of the bean field, the opportunity to shake things up with the remaining stands was there. Tyler jumped at the chance to leave his usual box stand and head southeast into county land with his brother and me. Logan, Grandpa, and I stayed committed to our usual haunts. Once we changed the settings on Aaron’s safety harness from large to husky to accommodate Tyler, we instructed him on the finer points of locking into a portable stand of which he’d never tried before. The evening hunt was on.

When Aaron’s sky-scraping stand was visible on the east ridge, I pointed Tyler in the direction and left him to figure out a few things on his own. It took him a couple of trips up and down the climbing sticks to square away his gear in the tiny perch above and to water the grass below. The sun never actually made an official appearance on Opening Day. The overcast clouds made for hazy cover all day, but once we were all settled in, the moderate temperatures allowed us a comfortable sit.

Midday reports were quiet. There wasn’t much activity aside from the squirrels and carrion birds. When a fawn moved in on Tyler and a doe happened by Logan, it sent signals that things were changing. In the last hour of daylight, Logan witnessed the rut in full effect. A spike buck and his goofy little buddy gave chase to a poor doe that stopped in Logan’s shooting lane, panting in exhaustion. It was hard for him to keep track of the trio of deer scurrying through the underbrush. At times the only thing visible was the constant movement of their legs in the cat and mouse game that is the fall mating ritual. When a much larger deer showed at the top of the hour, the Bear reported that he had seen a shooter buck but had no shot.

Logan lobbed a snort wheeze at the big dude to no avail. He wandered off in search of love. Time sped by but lucky for us, the second act was about to begin. For the next 15 minutes, the intensity picked up as both boys had does within range and the rustle of the suitors in the distance. Throwing care to the wind, deer were on the move and chasing each other near and far. The news put all three of us on high alert. 30 minutes of daylight remained. I reminded my boys that there was plenty of time left.

The large deer appeared again but avoided Logan and ambled off to the south with his nose to the ground. Fortunately, his path meandered up the south ridge and downhill east to west towards Tyler. Facing backwards in the stand with his right knee on the seat, Tyler wrestled with the safety tether that kept him secured to the treetop. He clenched his great grandfather’s 30-.06 rifle in his hands as he searched through the scope for an opening in the forest. Too busy to count points on the buck, Tyler immediately knew that this was one worth taking. He struggled while mounting and dismounting the rifle, looking for a safe and humane shot. Tyler tried stopping the buck with the challenge and password but in the heat of the moment, the right words and phrases escaped him. The buck continued down the ridge. At about 50 yards there was the slightest path for a bullet to travel and as he had trained on video games his entire life, without any more hesitation, he fired.

From the same stand, a second buck had taken his last step. Tracking this one would not be necessary either.  

A pulse of adrenaline shot through me. I could sense the same happening in my boys for a moment as texts messages fired off in rapid succession. Immobilized by Tyler’s shot from a steep angle, the deer required a follow up one to put him down. Daylight was starting to peter out, and Logan was inbound. For the second time in less than 10 hours, I climbed down and hurried over to provide support and supervision. From a covering spot above, Tyler directed me past the leaning aspen tree and slightly down hill to where I found his paralyzed buck. I quickly dispatched the beautiful whitetail with an ethical finishing shot and the celebration was on. Tyler had taken the biggest buck of his life.

In the fading light, I snapped a few quick pictures while we waited for Logan to arrive. Grandpa Tom, Aaron and Naysen sent their congratulations and patiently waited for our return to the house. When Logan finally waltzed up - he leaned his rifle against a nearby tree - grabbed the buck by the horns; turned to his brother and said, “Yep. That’s him. You’re welcome.”

And so, the story will go… - Little brother passed up an iffy shot at a November 10 pointer knowing that the deer was headed in the general direction of his big brother. And although these two knuckleheads sat side by side for the past two seasons to double team some deer, this year they did not. What they did do was make for another memorable hunt for the record books. Logan plays it as though he gifted Tyler the brute. Tyler laughs it off as brotherly banter. Official harvest reports give rightful credit to Tyler who made a great shot through the heavy hardwoods on a moving deer. More pictures and stories followed. After the biology lesson and gutting the deer was completed, the three of us made small talk while we washed up in the waning bits of leftover snow. Suddenly there was movement beyond in the darkness.

Logan’s powerful headlamp scanned the perimeter as both boys wondered out loud if we had become the hunted and were being approached by wolves or coyotes. None of us thought to rearm ourselves but instead shined as many lights into the woods as we had available. All at once we spotted our visitor. A large skunk was making a beeline for our little friendly gathering in the woods. Without hesitation, Logan turned and burned. He declared that he wasn’t about to stick around to mess with no skunk…like Ricochet Rabbit, Logan was gone in a flash.

I hollered into the shadows and demanded that Logan return and fight this thing off with us like a man. He reluctantly returned and shone his moonbeam in the vicinity of the approaching timebomb. I yelled to get its attention and when the skunk picked up his head and realized that he was uninvited, he turned tail and disappeared into the night.

Tyler would later surmise that perhaps his younger brother wasn’t the kind of teammate willing to go to battle in the back alleys like we thought he was. He certainly showed his true colors when he abandoned us for safety as the threatening skunk approached. The jolt of excitement was enough to break up our powwow and refocus us back to the task at hand. I loaded up as many packs and rifles as I could carry and wandered off into the darkness in search of the wheeler. Tyler and Logan grabbed antlers and got to dragging. We met up a short time later and apparently, I got a little close for comfort and nearly ran Tyler over with the recovery vehicle. Luckily, I did not, and we all returned safely back to the ranch for more handshakes, hugs, and high fives. At dinner we all got to retell our sides of the story over some second-place chili and a couple celebratory drinks.

For the remaining days, not another shot was fired. We had does check in on us from time to time along with a fox and a porcupine. The grouse continued to patrol the woods and tempt us as well. This was another stellar season with the Outfitter taking a great 8 and Tyler upping his game and joining the 10-point club.  Now a few weeks removed, the venison has been processed and there are reports that trophy mounts are nearing completion, but the truth is we were never after any of that. It was the in between times that make family deer camp so great. The teamwork to drag or skin and quarter a buck. The conversation and optimism of each early morning reveille as well as the laughter that fills the garage when we regroup in the evening. Passing out snacks and sharing cleanup chores… it all matters.

                            They give their strength so that we may have ours.