Mistaken Identity by Randy Rowley 12/11/18 ©

On the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, I put my safety harness, light jacket, and backpack on, grabbed my Winchester Super X4 (SX4) 12 gauge shotgun, and walked towards the west side ladder stand on a small property near Round Rock.  I was hunting with a shotgun as the property was too small to hunt with a rifle safely.  As I neared the creek, a doe ran out, followed shortly by an eight-point buck.

He was in range, but I had two problems.  For starters, my binoculars were in my backpack.  I couldn’t tell with my naked eye if he was a legal buck for Williamson County, which requires bucks with branched antlers to have a 13-inch minimum inside spread.  Secondly, my shotgun wasn’t loaded yet, as I would soon have to climb the stand’s ladder.

I crept up to a big tree ten yards away, trying to use it to hide my movements.  As the buck watched me, I slowly leaned my shotgun against the tree and started to take my backpack off so I could get my binoculars.  But I wasn’t slow enough for him.  He twitched his tail, trotted over to the fence, and jumped over to the neighbor’s property.  The doe followed suit.

I kicked myself for not being ready.  I put my backpack back on, went to the stand, climbed it, attached my safety harness to the eye bolt, pulled my shotgun up with the pull rope, loaded it, and got settled.

About 45 minutes later, three does jumped the fence and started to graze about 100 yards away from me.  The buck I’d seen earlier soon joined them, but the four of them were only interested in grazing and showed no interest in my corn.

I watched the buck for about 15 minutes.  I wasn’t given the presentation I needed to determine if he was legal – looking straight at me with his ears relaxed.  I grunted a couple of times, which made him look my way, but both times his ears were alert.

The does went back to the neighbor’s property, and the buck followed them.  I grunted twice more attempting to stop him.  It worked – he made a U-turn and jumped the fence.  But he started grazing again.  He eventually went down to the creek, heading in my direction, but was still out of range.

Finally, near the end of legal shooting time, I was given the presentation I needed and determined he was legal.  As he still wasn’t in range, I grunted again, trying to coax him 20 yards closer.  But this time, he turned around, went back the way he’d come, and was soon out of sight.

Sighing, I decided to call it a day even though I had five minutes of legal shooting time left.  I put my grunt call and binoculars in my backpack, but I saw movement while unloading my shotgun.  A deer was heading straight for my tree and was only 15 yards away.  A skinny bush hid its head, but I quickly decided it had to be the buck I’d been watching most of the afternoon.  I figured he’d decided to get a closer look at the source of the grunts.

I put my shotgun’s bead on his chest, took the safety off, squeezed the trigger, and eighteen 00 buckshot headed his way.  He ran away with his back legs low and crashed into the creek.  I knew he was dead.

My son, Ryan, met me at the creek.  I thought the buck had run through the creek, but he wasn’t on the other side.  We walked a few yards, and I spotted his white belly on the stand’s side of the creek.

We walked over to him.  Ryan, who was in the lead, got to him first.  He said, “That’s no eight-pointer.”  I made it there a second later.  Ryan was right – it was a spike!

Blood rushed to my head, and I broke out in a cold sweat.  I knew I’d shot a deer, so I hadn’t completely violated the cardinal rule to identify your target before shooting, but I’d partially violated it.  Fortunately, I hadn’t broken the law, as he was a legal deer for Williamson County.

After I tagged him, we loaded him into Ryan’s wheelbarrow, wheeled it to my truck, loaded him into the bed of my truck, and headed to my house.  We skinned and gutted him and put him on ice in my backyard.  The entire time I silently scolded myself for making such a newbie mistake.

Genesis chapter 27 tells a story of deceit and mistaken identity – the story of Jacob’s theft of his older twin brother, Esau’s, blessing.  Isaac, their father, had grown old and blind and knew he was about to die.  He commanded Esau to get his quiver and bow, go hunt wild game, prepare it for him, bring it to him to eat, and he would bless him before he died.

When Esau left, Jacob’s mother, Rebekah, who favored Jacob and who’d heard Isaac’s command to Esau, hatched a wicked scheme.  She had Jacob bring two goats to her, which she prepared to Isaac’s liking.  She also had Jacob put on Esau’s clothes, and she covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins.  Jacob then went to his father to serve him the meat.

Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who suspected something was amiss, as his son had not been gone long.  Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”  Jacob replied, “The Lord your God gave me success.”  Isaac touched Jacob and recognized the voice was the voice of Jacob, but the hands were the hands of Esau.  But the smell of his son was the deciding factor.  It was like the smell of a field.  Isaac then gave his blessing to Jacob because he thought he was Esau.

Shortly after Isaac blessed Jacob, Esau came in from the field, prepared the game he had killed, and brought it to his father.  They then learned of Isaac’s mistaken identity and Jacob and Rebekah’s deceit.  Esau asked Isaac to bless him too, but Isaac had given his only blessing to Jacob.  Instead, Isaac prophesied Esau would serve Jacob.  Esau then vowed to kill Jacob.  Upon hearing this, Jacob fled to Harran, where his uncle lived.

Unfortunately, there are many sad stories of men today being as good an actor as Jacob was.  We put on fronts and act like we’ve got it all together.  When another man asks us how we’re doing, we give the universal answer – “I’m fine.”  Inwardly, many of us are weary, afraid, unsure of ourselves, jealous, bitter, proud, lustful, selfish, depressed, etc.  But we’re such good actors fellow Christians think we’re living the victorious life.  We say and do what’s expected, but we’re in chaos inwardly.  We have little peace or joy.

Proverbs 27:17 (BSB) says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another,” and Proverbs 11:14 (NASB) says, “Where there is no guidance the people fall, But in abundance of counselors there is victory.”