I’m borrowing a .270 Winchester with a basic low-power scope this season from another farmer friend. I’m happy (and a little proud) to say that I was shooting inch-and-a-half groups at 100 yards from our bench. Of course, the groups were off, but that’s cake.

Today, I visited the blind I’m going to use on opening weekend and scoped out the lay of that bit of land a little. I also spread a little corn around in the middle o fmy primary shooting lane. I’m a little ambivalent about baiting. On one hand, it feels kind of like cheating, what with the bait and scent and blind and gun. On the other hand, the point is to fill the freezer with good meat. And anyhow, I’ll get my fill of stalking (read: “stepping on *yet another* twig and getting laughed at by the pine squirrels”) on closing weekend when I’ll go into the national forest with Dangerous Dan.

I’m feeling pretty good about my shooting this fall, and about putting the hammer down on a gentle, unsuspecting, big-brown-eyed, oh-so-tasty doe. I just hope that I make a clean shot, then deal with the carcass well. It’d be a helluva shame to go to all this work, just to botch things in the end. But that’s what the guys I’m hunting with are for: to laugh at me when I fuck up, then show me how it’s supposed to be done.