After having climbed in I opened the door window and secured it with a hanging rope. The window gave me a direct view to the feeding place about sixty meters ahead. Just around three o'clock I had it all ready; a comfortable position, the door window securely opened, rifle loaded and everything ok. The temperature had fallen during the drive from Helsinki to Urjala. Now it was minus six of centigrade.
The view through the shooting opening was actually like a painting: a couple of clouds in the deep blue sky, a hay barn behind a snowy field, tall spruces around the field with snow on the branches. I smiled, leaned backwards a started to wait.
Only after twenty minutes I suddenly noticed someting moving behind the closest spruces behind the feed approximately a hundred meters away. I could not see what it was but my first guess turned out to be right: a lonely deer was closing carefully the feed. It stopped for a couple of minutes before it stepped to the field, out of the woods. As the deer approached the feed I could feel the increasing pace of my heart.
Quietly I rose my rifle and aimed through the scope. It felt almost too easy, the red aiming spot was clearly visible, the rifle was steadily laying on a soft rest and the deer stood still. As this was my first deer hunting ever, I wasn't sure of the right aiming spot. It was also difficult to determine whether this animal was an adult or a fawn. As the deer rose its head towards me I fired. The shock of the hit made the deer kneel for a moment, but it immediately made huge leaps to the left accross the small snow covered field. For a moment I wondered whether the shot was a bad one and reloaded quickly in order to shoot again. But after a couple of seconds I saw that the deer's movements slowed down. The animal reached only the edge of the woods and fell down.
What to do now, I wondered? Then I clearly remembered the instructions given: if it is a deadly shot and you can see your quarry, you don't need to go to have a closer look. The rest of the herd can be close. So I lowered the rifle and send a SMS to my hunting buddies Sakke and Heikki who waited besides other feeding places: first fawn shot down.
Sakke answered immediately with congratulations. He wanted to know whether my quarry was a fawn or an adult. A fawn - to the best of my knowledge - I answered (which later on turned out to be a wrong answer!). Sakke also informed that so far his surroundings had been quiet.
After a half an hour's wait I received a message from Heikki: he had also shot one deer. An adult female was his definition. Couple of times I looked at the deer still lying quietly in the fringes of the woods. Ok, everything fine. Let's see what will come. And it surely did. Only after twenty minutes again I spotted movements in the woods. This time without no hurry I waited until all the herd was there: three deer around the feed and later on one significantly smaller also approached. Now, when four animals were visible, it was easy to see that the last that came was a fawn. As two fawns are equal to one adult I decided that the fawn will be my second target. It felt almost too easy: I lifted the rifle, had a long time for aiming, waited untill the fawn stood directly in a 90 degree side angle and - bang! The fawn jumped three metres up, took two leaps to the left and fell down. Later it turned out that the shot was perfect, straight through the heart.
What an evening - fist time and two deer! As a reply to my message Sakke also informed that he had shot one - so the hunting was over. I gathered my belongings and stepped out into the blue dusk. To help the work of our hosts I dragged the first deer out of the woods. Actually it was not so small!
