Archery deer hunting: Don't look, and he might not see you

GRETNA, Neb. — The moment she saw the whitetail buck, her stomach felt like she had fallen from a tree.

He was 50 yards out, to the east.

She allowed her peripheral vision to register a tangle of antlers above his head, but she didn't count the points. She looked long enough to tell he was coming toward her platform mounted in a hackberry tree along the Platte River.

Don't look again. Look down. Look at your boots, but don't look at him. DON'T LOOK.

She couldn't help it — she stole one more glance.

The buck moved slowly, but still toward her. Her heart pounded as she looked away.

If she studied the antlers, counted the points, she would lose it. Her composure would be gone and, with it, an opportunity.

For Katie Lawry, putting herself in position to get this chance was something she loved about archery deer hunting. All the practice, the shooting, scouting, installing tree stands on 95-degree summer afternoons, forcing her eyelids open at an hour most 15-year-olds couldn't imagine being conscious — all of it was about getting a chance.

She fought to control her nerves as the buck picked a path only he knew through briars, willows and sandy soil. Mature whitetails don't get mature by rushing anywhere. They take a few steps and scan. Another step, a whiff.

She waited, but she didn't look.

When she climbed into the stand two hours earlier, the straight-A sophomore at Gretna High School had a lot of homework to do. The wind, an east wind, wasn't right. The afternoon, with temperatures approaching 70 degrees, was almost too warm. She began to doubt whether she should have even asked Loren to take her hunting today. But after 30 minutes, the worries left her like they always did in a tree stand.

She took in the bird songs, the shush of wind through cottonwoods, the scent of cedar, the glare of late-afternoon sun on the river, squirrels launching themselves from trees into leaf piles, making a shocking racket for such small creatures.

Still the buck came toward her.

This wasn't her first deer, not even her first big deer, so experience had taught her to focus on what mattered most — a good shot. A good shot requires focus and method and rhythm and breathing and more focus and release and follow through.

Her father, Tim, taught her to shoot. When she turned 12, she got in a program that matches young, wanna-be hunters with seasoned, bowhunter instructors. That's how she met Loren Katt, the co-op manager in Gretna who started bowhunting in 1970, before the days of compound bows, aluminum arrows and mechanical releases that cost hundreds of dollars.

Katie may use a compound bow and a mechanical release, but she hunts with the attitude of an old school archer, Loren says. She works hard, listens, respects the deer, practices safety. And she's good, he says.

In bowhunting, being good means, in part, being lethal. It means putting the arrow through the epicenter, a precise spot above the heart where a broadhead can cut major vessels and arteries and the lungs, so the deer dies quickly. And it means having the discipline to never take a shot that could merely wound.

She's killed eight whitetails with a bow, and last year, she killed a 6X6 buck, the kind most hunters won't see in a lifetime.

The second she awoke on Oct. 10, she knew she'd see the sun go down from a deer stand.

After the last bell rang at school, Loren picked her up, and they headed to the Lincoln well fields along the Platte River, an area reserved for youth-mentor hunts sponsored by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

Choked with cottonwood, hackberry and mulberry, the property is braided with deer trails. It's a perfect arrangement: Kids learn to hunt safely and ethically from certified instructors, and a burgeoning deer population gets held in check.

Still, the local deer herd remains high, populated with young bucks such as the one that caught her attention about an hour after she crept into the woods. Just a forkhorn, a four-pointer, as she likes to call a forky, but she stood, drew, fixed the sight pin on a spot behind and below the deer's shoulder, then returned the string to rest. The deer had transformed her from an observer into a predator.

Later, when she saw the big buck 50 yards out, her senses were heightened. She was standing, focused, ready.

Still looking away, she could hear he was close. Would he give her the chance?

Closer now. If the wind shifted, if he heard her shallow breaths, if something that humans call animal instinct caused him to look into the hackberry tree she was in, he'd be gone.

At last, she looked. He faced her, straight on. No shot — too much risk she might wound him. She stood still. So did he. A squirrel jumped from a tree and crunched into dry leaves. The buck took a single step, turning toward the noise, exposing his epicenter. She focused, raised the bow, drew the string, took aim, then released.

With a jump, he was gone. She waited.

She had been taught to always wait before getting out of the stand and checking for blood lest she scare a downed deer and chase it off. At this point, the hunt was about recovering the buck, making sure the meat wouldn't go to waste, ensuring he died to nourish her and her family.

In the fading light, she heard something coming toward her stand. It was Loren. She told him to approach carefully so as not to disturb the blood trail. "I told her, `Don't worry, I know where he's at.'"

She wanted to know if he was big, if he had an impressive rack of antlers. She had to ask, because she hadn't allowed herself to look.

"I told her, `You're going to be happy.'"

She was happy — the buck was a 7X7, bigger even than the one she got the year before.

She now has two deer of a lifetime in a lifetime that's just begun. But she says she's happy about every deer she's shot. "Any deer taken with a bow and arrow," she says, "anything you accomplish that you work toward is a trophy."

As she replayed the hunt in her mind, she thought about all of the things that fell into place, from Loren agreeing to go to the lousy east wind that put her in the hackberry tree to the squirrel that jumped at the right time. But there's something else, something she hesitated to mention because she's afraid people will take it wrong. "I don't want to sound cocky, but it's the best shot I ever made."