Clarksville doetags.

112 year old rifle. 3 year old doe.

Harness up and drag out.

Venison Tartare. 45 degree weather cools them out quick! Coated with fat inside and out.

Not as easy as it looks.

Two eight points bucks, both legal sized came by about 9:15. I'd been sitting in a box stand in one of my hosts green but frosty fields texting and watching the treelines. The bucks were moving along, one a little nicer than the other, snatching mouthfuls of winter rye backlit by the sun.

I'd been on the road at 5:15 from Tyler coming up to hunt the morning and maybe afternoon. The trip is 117 miles on mostly vacant good pavement so it was an easy drive but hard to get out of a warm bed and face the frosty dawn and donut-shop coffee. The donut shop folks are always SO friendly....and the coffee is universally bad. Lotta deer in fields and powerlines on the way up.

Coyote at dawn, hull-down over the crown of the field. No shot by the time I transitioned from binocs to iron-sighted 1898 Krag.

Doe appeared in the trees under the hill at about 10:00. 150 yards. The Krag shoots just over the beaded front sight at that distance. It's not a pure Krag...someone sporterized it years ago cutting the stock back and replacing the ladder sight with a lyman peep. Creepy two-stage trigger that could be improved. I got an intentional mind-set and a good sight picture and started the trigger.

One thing about open sights: you can see the animals react. She spun away and disappeared under the hill with her tail flagging high. That usually means a miss but I felt like the shot broke well. Hadn't fired this rifle since I shot a doe offhand two years ago. Replayed the shot in my head a few times. Maybe a little high. Could have hit a twig in the trees. A few minutes later though, I saw a vulture turn on a wingtip, then another and they landed very low in the tree branches. I figured she was down under the hill.

She was sprawled out in a boggy patch about 20 yards from where I shot her. Bullet hit three inches high but good enough. I had to harness up like a sled dog with a bit of webbing and drag her out. Flagged down some guys to put her in the back of the 4-runner and got her to the rack for weighing, dressing, skinning, quartering and stashing in an icechest. She cooled out quick. 45 degrees.

First deer of this season. First doetag at Clarksville this year. We have until the end of February.