The Wind "Pig"

Like most of us I am not a fan of hunting in the wind. As I type the wind is stripping the last leaves from the trees in a typical late November temper tantrum. Between rain this morning and wind now another day planned for the deer woods has been cancelled. The weather has not been kind to me this year where deer season is concerned. Starting with rain opening day of archery to the mid October heat wave, wind, rain, skeeters it has been a tough year. But sometimes you just gotta go.

A few years ago the season had been going along at a good clip. Between me and my brother we had dropped quite a few does for friends needing freezers filled. I think this was the year he called in a nice 7 pointer and took it with his muzzleloader. I had gotten a double the same day with my muzzleloader with a pair of 120 yard offhand shots in less than a minute. Cool stuff. But then the weatherman said we were in the path of a big storm.

Weatherdude called it right a huge blow came in from the northwest hammering us with rain and winds that topped 70 mph. We had planned to hunt Cheatham county the next morning and talked about calling it off which any sane person would have done. Unlike other places, Tennessee isn’t known for it’s constant high winds so most of the time we just don’t go. But the forecast called for the winds to drop drastically during the morning so we loaded up.

When we got to the farm, by farm I mean a 20 acre mowed field, I headed to my blind only to find it had disappeared. Stakes ripped out and the blind nowhere to be seen. I checked the fence rows, woods, everywhere I could get to. No blind. The wind was still blowing 50+ so I went back to the house where brother was talking to the land owner, Pappy. The temps weren’t bad but the wind was howling so we decided to sit in the driveway using the house as a wind break and look across the field hoping the wind would lay.

Blind had been located by little cedar on the right. Found later in woods down the hill.


As the morning went on we talked about how stupid it was to sit in this wind since no deer were going to move but we figured we were there so might as well stay. Around lunch with no let up in the wind I looked up and standing on top of the hill is a doe. I poked brother to tell him it was there.
“Kill it.”
“Ok, you sure you don’t want to?”
“Nope, I don’t care she’s on your side. Shoot.”

I got braced, shot and say it with me, missed. She took off downhill bobbing and weaving. We tried to get her stopped but she kept running around the field then turned and ran straight at us. Finally at 50 yards we both yelled and she stopped broadside. I was loaded again and heard brother’s favorite saying when something gave me a shot…… ”That was a mistake.”

The doe we called “The Pig”. She weighed 142 lbs which is big here. Built like a football.

She dropped right there so we sat back down. It wasn’t five minutes later I looked up and said, “There’s your’s.”
Sure enough another one was standing not 5 yards from where mine had been. He took a shot and I saw the hit. The deer ran down and dropped 20 feet from mine. We looked at each other and agreed no one would believe this.

We had gotten two deer in 5 minutes at midday in a 50+ mph wind. Just one of those trips when Murphy was determined to ruin things but persistence or not wanting to drive home paid off. No one we talked to had considered going that day, hardcore or not.

As to the fate of the blind. It was found the next year when Pappy was driving his tractor near the fence row. It had blown over into the woods on someone else’s property landing upside down making it even harder to see. By the time I got it back it was useable but not in the best of shape. Later it would meet a bad end in a flood on another property.