OUTDOORS: Make safe decisions as we head into hunting seasons

My phone rang just late enough to make me nervous that something was wrong. I was right. My brother, Bruce, had fallen from his deer stand. He was in the emergency room. My heart raced. My mind whirled. I thought about how high he hangs his stands. Always has.

I recalled the aspen tree above Gunflint Lake he told me to sit in one morning. In the darkness, I remember staring up at the metal platform of his portable stand 30-some feet in the air. Small screw-in steps alternated on the path of ascent on each side of the tree. I counted a total of seven. Seven steps to get me from ground level to stand. Putting my chances at roughly 10 percent of not tumbling from Bruce’s tree, I passed, content to ground-pound it for the morning. Now, I was frantically making my way to him.

I pulled the curtain back and saw him, flat on his back. My big brother, the epitome of strength, laid out. They had cut off his camo clothes to assess the damage. A bone in his leg was cracked, his arm was wrapped in a sling. He would later recall his elbow and arm “facing the wrong way” as he lay beneath his tree. I approached the bed, his wife, Pam, on the other side. I didn’t know if he was conscious. I didn’t know if he sensed I was there. As I came into his line of view, he reached up with his one good hand and pulled me close. He whispered in a raspy voice one of the sweetest sentences I’ve ever heard: “Call the DNR tomorrow, and see if they will give me a crossbow permit?”

The thing is, even in his medicated state … he was serious. He was hurting; he was injured; but he was going to be OK. Over the following days and weeks, the healing began. Bruce couldn’t remember falling. The pain, the long four-wheeler ride back to his truck, the excruciating ride to the hospital, these details stuck with him.

The thought of hunting with a disability permit and a crossbow also never left him. With October winding down, we decided to make our move.

We found ourselves side by side in my Double Bull ground blind overlooking a field edge in Alborn. Across Bruce’s lap sat a borrowed crossbow, his broadhead-tipped bolt ready for launch. Over the course of a couple of hours, the deer proved cooperative. A steady stream of does, most with their fawns close by, fed past our undetected hideout. The bucks, as they often do, waited till last shooting light to make an appearance.

We were glassing a couple of deer in the distance trying to discern antlers, when suddenly, a young six-pointer popped into view, cut the corner of the field and made his way quickly into range as the last legal shooting light quickly began to fade. Bruce pivoted and shouldered his weapon. The buck was close — we could hear him munching on the clover just upwind of us — oblivious to our presence. The buck took a couple of fateful steps, opening its front shoulder, exposing its heart and lungs. Thirty-five yards away, the deer ate peacefully as the crossbow was lowered. Bruce was sore; he had a cracked bone in his leg and his arm was still giving him trouble, but he still had high standards. He would let the buck walk. The deer would exit stage left, unscathed.

I understood. No matter how banged up he was, he didn’t want his already abbreviated deer hunting season to end just yet. We stepped from the blind into the long grass of the field.

“You have any idea how to unload this thing?” Bruce asked in the fading light. Both of us looked bewildered. I had never loaded, shot or unloaded a crossbow before. In fact, the one Bruce held was the only one I had ever actually seen.

There are times, looking back, that I question my decisions. Unloading the crossbow would become one such occasion. Bruce removed the bolt and we studied our options. The most logical choice was to shoot the bolt into the ground.

Not wanting to bust up a broadhead, we decided, based on our collective knowledge, the crossbow functioned much like a shotgun with a hammer. We figured if the string was pulled with enough force it would ease the tension on the limbs, we could then slowly pull the trigger, and the crossbow would gently reset. Being the one not busted up, I was assigned to pull on the string with both hands, as hard as I could, while Bruce gingerly applied pressure to the trigger. For the record … don’t try this at home.

I remember standing in the ankle-high clover, enveloped in the darkness, holding the taut string. The next instant, I was thrown violently to the ground. My hands screamed in pain as I jumped to my feet. I danced the painful dance of an idiot. An idiot who somehow trusted that his older brother knew what he was talking about. We began to laugh. The coyotes heard us howling our way back to the truck, shaking our heads, reliving the terrible plan we had just executed. Bruised, battered fingers plagued me for the rest of the fall. You don’t have to fall from high atop a tree: under the right conditions, you can fall with force from 6 feet.

The deer bowhunting season begins on Saturday, Sept. 14. Just a reminder — if you’re planning on hunting from an elevated stand, please wear a safety vest and tether yourself tightly to your tree. Most of us think we are immune to a treestand mishap; everyone who has ever fallen probably thought the same thing. I, for one, am still content ground-pounding it.

Bret Baker is a lifetime resident of Cloquet. He is a proud husband, father, educator and outdoorsman. He began guiding fishing trips when he was 16. Today, in his 40s, his passion is to introduce people to the outdoor adventures our region has to offer.