An Okayest Sequence Of Events

By Tyler Mieden  | PUBLISHED September November 12th, 2021

Coming into this season, I knew my time in the stand would be limited. Due to family obligations, I hadn’t sat for more than an hour and 15 minutes. However, on the afternoon of November 7^th, thanks to daylight savings time, I finally got to sit in the stand for a bit longer. To say I was excited would be an understatement.

Of course, when you only sit in the stand for an hour at a time, you get conditioned to that. So by 3:30 in the afternoon, I was bored and my neck hurt from snapping it back and forth to the sound of all 100 squirrels dancing around me. It happened to be a Sunday and my beloved Green Bay Packers were playing the Kansas City Chiefs amidst all the Aaron Rodgers drama. I couldn’t resist pulling the game up and watching on my phone.

Around 4:30, as I’m dialed into the game, I hear a squirrel out in front of me. Of course, I look up to check and ensure I’m not mistaking it for a deer. I can’t see the squirrel, but I don’t see a deer either and its only 30 yards away. My eyes go back to my phone as Jordan Love is leading the two minute drill. Crunch, crunch, crunch out in front of me again and its getting closer. I look up, and see a deer 25 yards from me. Better yet, it’s got antlers.

I reach for my bow as the deer slides from my left to right. As I put hands on my bow and pull it toward me, I clank it off my ladder stand. The young buck in front of me gets nervous, but he proceeds into a giant shooting lane inside of 20 yards as I draw back. He finally stops at full attention and looks at me. Being the Okayest Hunter that I am, I draw back and see this deer at full attention, so I rush my shot. I let the arrow fly and watch it drop right underneath the buck. He spins off and runs 20 yards away confused and uninjured.

Sitting in the tree, I’m bewildered that I missed such an easy shot, and also am trying to talk myself into believing I smoked him. I know it isn’t true though. When he finally bounds off, I stand up to see where he heads off to and drop my phone out of my stand. At this point, I can’t help but laugh. My only shot at a deer all season had me distracted as the buck approached, clank my bow off my stand, miss a chip shot, and then drop my phone out of my stand. If that isn’t an Okayest Hunter sequence of events, I don’t know what is.