Patience pays off as daughter makes good on first deer hunt

I love it when a plan comes together!" As we admired the fallen buck from a distance, I couldn't help but think of that line used by George Peppard's character, John "Hannibal" Smith, in each episode of the 1980s television show "The A-Team." The line seemed to fit.

While we celebrated next to the blackened tree skeleton that Calli had used for a dead rest moments before, the morning's events replayed over and over in my mind.

It was the last weekend of Nevada's 2007 general deer season, and I was back in central Nevada with the only two members of my family who had been successful in our attempts to draw deer tags. Calli, my youngest daughter, had yet to fill her tag and was anxious to give it another try. The 15-year-old wasn't happy that Dallin, her younger brother, had bagged his buck opening weekend while she went home with her unused tag in her pocket.

I began the normally arduous task of waking a teenager well before sunrise, but to my surprise Calli was up in an instant. She had come to deer camp with a purpose and was so intent on tagging a buck that she got right up and began telling Dallin and me to hurry. "I want to be on top of the hill before daylight!" Yes, ma'am.

When it was light enough to see, we left the truck and began the long walk to the end of the ridge. It was there, where we could look down into the ranchers' fields, that we hoped to find a buck for Calli. But rather than finding a buck, Calli saw the ugly side of being in the outdoors.

As we neared our destination, a pickup truck thundered past, and I voiced my frustration. Our goals were the same, to reach the overlook before deer leaving the fields had passed by and into the thick trees on top of the bluff. That we had hiked down the road so as not to scare anything didn't matter. That we were there first didn't matter. All the driver could say was that I "have issues." And he was right.

The kids and I took a look off the end of the ridge but despite our efforts found no deer. Those we had seen in the fields at dusk were nowhere to be seen.

We hiked back to the truck and made our way to the far side of a narrow valley to the east. As we drove into the foothills, where I planned the next foray, we picked out a doe standing in a notch at the bottom of two hills. Our binoculars were up in an instant, and within minutes we had spotted three bucks in the herd of about 20 deer.

With Dallin at her side, Calli attempted to make a stock, but a two-point buck busted them, and soon the deer were on the move.

I knew the deer would head for one of two cuts in the rim rock at the top of a shallow draw, so we planned a stock that would cut them off at the pass, so to speak. We made our way to the back of the hill and climbed up to a knob between the two cuts. Just as we topped the rise, the deer reached the top of the cut to the south. The two-point buck climbed into a clearing and stood broadside as Calli laid the .243 over a gnarled branch on the long-dead juniper tree.

After waiting for two does to clear, Calli squeezed the trigger, the rifle barked, and the buck fell. "Chamber another round," I said, "just in case he gets back up." But he wasn't going anywhere.

Calli's shot was true. She had bagged her first buck. We were 2-for-2 with first-time deer hunters.

As Calli helped me carry the deer out to the truck, she understood better than before a hunter's connection to the earth, something her Grandpa Stewart, who grew up ranching in Nevada's harsh desert climate, often had tried to explain.

• DUCKS UNLIMITED BANQUET -- The Las Vegas chapter of Ducks Unlimited is holding its annual fundraising banquet Nov. 15 at The Orleans. Tickets are $100 per person and include a Ducks Unlimited annual membership. A sponsor level is $250, and a corporate table is $1,800.

Doors open at 5 p.m. A live and silent auction and prize drawings will be featured. Money raised will be used to conserve North American wetlands.

Contact Cliff Russell (702-378-5598) or Scott Bowles (702-461-8779) for more information.

Doug Nielsen is an award-winning freelance writer and a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His "In the Outdoors" column is published Thursday. He can be reached at doug@takinitoutside.com.