Just What the Doctor Ordered !
By Josh Majors
This hunt was not supposed to happen . It was
early June and years of repetitive shoulder injuries were catching up with me . I went to my doctor and he was clear that the only option was surgery . This meant no bow hunting and probably no rifle hunting as it was my right shoulder and I am right handed . As we talked about the recovery process he said that skiing was a possibility if I work hard during my physical therapy . There would be no bow hunting as those muscles would not be ready to pull the bow .
After several months of rehabbing my shoulder and lots of help from my physical therapist and awesome doctors my shoulder was feeling better by the week . With only a week before the opening of the general deer rifle season my doctor reluctantly gave me permission to shoot my rifle with very specific instructions on how and where I could hold the rifle . I was at the range the next morning with my friends to get our rifles ready for the hunt . Every trigger pull was a fearful anticipation of what could happen to my new shoulder . That is when I told them about the other instructions that
my doctor gave me before I could go hunting . No packing any weight on your new shoulder !! I believe the consensus was that they wanted to see a doctor ’ s note to prove that I was not just trying to trick them into getting out of helping pack out any game we harvested . Luckily my friends were incredibly supportive and assured me that they would help me as we have many years of hunting ahead to pay them all back .
The opening day of hunting season we split into two pairs . One pair , Ryan and Charlie , were going to hunt from the bottom up toward the other pair Doug and I who started up high and worked our way across the top . Just after sun up Doug spotted a small four point and passed on taking a shot only 10 minutes into the season . We hiked for several more hours expecting to meet up with Ryan and Charlie but never saw them come up the mountain . We continued to hike well into the afternoon and saw several does but no bucks . We hiked out to our meeting point where we expected to get picked up by Ryan and Charlie in the truck but they were not there and we could not reach them on the radio .
With tired legs and sore feet we hiked the rest of the way out to camp and hoped Ryan and Charlie were late for good reasons . They were , Ryan harvested what is one of the biggest two points I have seen .
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