Perseverance

“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”  – Marie Curie

It’s been six years since my friend Christine got her first deer. She was with her father in my blind located at the west end of the 24 acre tract that comprises the south part of the property. She was sixteen at the time and studying for her driver’s education test when a small doe wandered into range. At her father’s urging, Christine took the shot and the deer dropped – a clean, humane shot.

Since that time, Christine has become very enthusiastic about deer hunting and has pursued time afield while balancing the end of high school and her college career. Five AM wakeup calls, cold mornings, rain, mud, snow – none have broken her spirit. What was eroding her confidence, however, was a number of missed shots through the years – often well within her proven range.

No longer a teen, this young woman became determined to change the trajectory of her hunting performance. A few weeks ago, Christine, her father and mother and I set up a range behind the south pond on the property and Christine shot round after round until she could effectively set a round within a five inch circle sixty feet hence.

Her work earned her some better shooting habits (stay calm, take a deep breath, squeeze, not jerk, the trigger, and stabilize the gun) that paid off last night during Michigan’s special “antler-less deer” weekend. Christine was in the “Boathouse” blind (so named because it is a former children’s play structure now seated in a wooded glen on the farm – and we left the plastic steering wheel and pirate spyglass attached) for the afternoon hunt. Her father, another friend, and I were also posted for the hunt and her mother joined us later.

Within an hour of being afield, Christine shot. We all became more alert as there is always a chance that a missed deer would run toward our position or other deer would become active. Indeed, three small deer darted past our position and two of us shooting didn’t have any success. We figured those were the deer in Christine’s sights and, unfortunately, another miss.

Evening crept in quickly and we soon were packing up the six-wheeler with our gear and headed toward Christine’s stand to collect her. She said she thought she might have hit the deer and described a shot at about 75 yards. We recounted seeing deer run past us and convinced her that she likely didn’t score a hit.

This morning, Christine, her father and I were out around 6:30 AM – she taking the Boathouse again and her father in a tree, me in the “Blue Heron” blind (for a description of this blind, see: First Light).

After a mostly quiet morning – discounting her father’s missed attempt, ahem – we thought driving the corn (walking abreast, 20 yards apart) might yield some action. About forty yards into the drive, Christine announces, “Blood!” Without getting too graphic, generally when tracking a deer, one looks for a blood trail – this was a significant one. This one also began close to where she reported shooting the deer the evening prior.

Yes, the short trail ended at a very nice sized deer that had been shot optimally. To her credit, Christine limited herself to a single “I told you so” for each of us. I’m very proud of her!

One more little story. My cousin, Sean Lee, plays for the Dallas Cowboys as a linebacker and he quickly became a leader on the defensive side of the ball. He was just featured in an article that has his father describing his and his brother’s athletic development:

It was Sean’s older brother Conor, a future kicker at the University of Pittsburgh, who was the family’s best athlete.

“But Sean was always more tenacious,” his father said. “You’d tell him to shoot 100 free throws a day, and he’d shoot 200.”

When Craig Lee first asked Sean’s AAU basketball coach to not play him so much in games, the request was denied.

“He plays so hard, the other kids know they have to play that way to stay in the game,” the coach responded. “I can’t take him out.”

The rest of the feature can be found here: Cousin Sean

I admire both Christine – my adopted niece – and my cousin Sean. There might be something to this whole perseverance thing after all.




Curie quote from:  http://www.brainyquote.com/