Story By: Corey Kalinowski
There were just five shells in a box when my dad passed away ten years ago in September. When my mom handed me his gun case, I opened it up and noticed a box of Federal 12-gauge slugs waiting to be used...
Hunting has long been a part of the Kalinowski family, and I am forever grateful for all it's taught us and provided for us. We called my dad by a nickname, “One Shot Ski.” For every bullet he shot, there was always some sort of game to show for it. He was an incredible marksman, hunter, subsistence gatherer, and butcher.
To honor him with his final box of slugs, I vowed that first season without him to make all five bullets count. My goal was to spend them only on unique, special, and memorable hunts.
This year, a pretty special deer showed up at a place I like to hunt. I have used two of the five slugs from my dad's gun on two other deer over the last decade. Monday morning, as I prayed before the hunt, I grabbed slug number three from my pouch and chambered it with a feeling: “Today's the day.” Now, over the last four years, I've chambered this round many times only to take it out after a hunt…or quickly reload with a different slug to shoot a freezer filler for meat & sausage.
As my wife reminds me, “You're an optimistic hunter and fisherman… Every day is a good day, every spot is a good spot, and every cast could be the best cast.” However, that Monday was different. I had been in the stand since 6:00 a.m.
At 12:25 p.m., my heart raced as this deer came by one hundred yards upwind of me, on his feet and looking for a doe. I'd never seen anything quite like it. I thought to myself, “This is the biggest deer I've ever seen in my life.” He was walking directly away from me, but now was my chance. I gave a few soft tending grunts and waited…Nothing! Just his shadow slipping off to the west and into a doe bedding area.
Twenty minutes passed, and there was nothing but rival squirrels battling and sounding like a herd of elephants everywhere around me. My heart raced and sank all at the same time. That had been so cool…but would that be my only chance?
Five more minutes passed, and my head was on a swivel. Every crack of a leaf or branch, every bird and squirrel, grabbed my attention. “Where you at?” I said quietly under my breath.
Minutes in this moment felt like an eternity.
Then, I heard a crack. I looked into the thickest brush approaching my downwind side, and I saw the flash of what looked like an antler and a body. “It’s him!” I thought to myself. Heart racing, I scanned to confirm my ears and eyes. Was this the buck? Was this the same buck I’d just seen?
To my amazement, it was. I caught just enough of his movement to know it was him, but this brush was thick, and the ol' monarch knew what he was doing. He'd done this before, approaching downwind to smell his way toward a grunt. Slowly but surely, he made his way closer…from seventy-five yards to sixty-five to sixty…and, in the thickest cover imaginable, he stopped! I had no shot. The deer was sniffing and checking his potential rival, and he was locked up.
He saw nothing, smelled nothing, and the wise ol' buck was done. He knew something was up, and he didn't like it. With his nose in the air scent checking everything, he didn't move anything but his head and ears to decipher his next move.
As he stepped to turn around, I had a fifty-five-yard shot quartering away at his vitals. A small window of opportunity. The safety came off. I took aim and made the shot, doing the best I could with the nerves I had. BOOM! The moment was done, and shell three was spent…
It was a moment I would play back in my head for the next twenty-four hours.
I climbed down my tree, investigated the shot, replayed the scenario, and it wasn't ideal. There are times you shoot and feel good and times you shoot and don't. I doubted the moment… and backed out.
“When in doubt, just back out.” That’s what Dad always said.
My gut was sick. Did I blow it? Did I miss? Did I mess this up for everyone? Not just for me, but for every hunter to whom I owe the mutual respect of doing my best to make the shot count?
I called a few close hunting friends and asked for advice based on the information we had. We decided that a tracking dog the next morning was our best option.
I called my brother Kyle, and he told me he’d prayed for me that morning at work. “Corey, I literally stopped working and just prayed… Lord, send Corey the biggest buck today.” With complete faith and confidence, he told me, “Corey, that deer is dead. Get some sleep and facetime me tomorrow when you find him.”
I fell asleep in CJ's bed at 8 p.m. I got some decent sleep, and the tracking dog was scheduled to be at the property where I shot the deer by 8 a.m.
The track began shortly after 8 a.m. with a group prayer for wisdom, guidance, and gratitude, and then we were off. Some of the previous day’s sign at the spot where I shot the buck had been eaten overnight by a little critter of some sort. The tracker burst my bubble and said, “Well, this is not quite what I thought, but let’s get this deer.” The dog took off with his nose to the ground, and away we went.
One hour turned to two, and two to three, and my hopes were slowly sinking. “This deer is gone… I didn't make the shot I needed to, and he's gone.” Five hundred yards into the track and feeling sick, I prayed again. “God, help us find this deer.”
The trail picked back up at hour three. We were 800 yards in, and the deer seemed to have changed his direction. He’d been heading south but then moved into a thick log jam to the east. My experience caused my heart to race.
“He has to be in here; I know he's close…” I told the tracker.
I shouldered my gun, anticipating the need for a possible second shot. We walked slowly. The dog was working through the timber, and my eyes were checking every piece of deadfall for tips of antlers or a deer in the thick brush.
As we walked north around a nasty pile of trees, I glanced to the south and saw a deer lying with its head down. I grabbed the tracker, whispering with excitement, “There he is! That’s him! Is he dead? Should I shoot him?”
We confirmed he was expired, and I set my gun against the nearest tree, took off my hat, reached my hand into my pocket, and grabbed the empty shell I had been saving.
Clutching the shell… I began to cry.
I felt gratitude, I felt sorrow, I felt happiness, I felt pain… I felt close to my dad and yet so far away. I did my best to take in the moment. My shot hadn’t been perfect, but the process was.
It was humbling. I’d had to ask for help, and lots of it. We’d prayed and we’d been prayed for. We’d relied on the Lord and put into practice everything we had been taught over the years. We did it together.
The process is always the point. For ten years, I have been saving these shells to honor my dad's legacy but also to cherish the new memories being made. I can't take credit for anything; having people around me helping me out, praying for me, supporting me, and showing up for the highs and lows is what made the difference.
Fins, fur, antlers, and feathers come and go, but who we hunt with and how we hunt is what we pass down.
I called Katie and gave her the news that the hunt was over. We picked up the kids from school, and we reflected together on the memories we’d made this year. We've gone lots of seasons without a trophy, but this year, we got to reflect on what will most likely be a once-in-a-lifetime deer.
I was excited to make Polish sausage and venison backstraps. That evening, we would fry up them tenderloins! As a friend told me, “There's a lot of meat on them bones, and a lot of bone on that meat.”
Thank you, Lord, for a hunt like this.
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