Dan O Brien's Narrative Essay
Dan O’Brien is one of those guys with whom you only need to speak for a short while before you understand how deeply connected he is to hunting — and to the animals he hunts. At age 48, O’Brien is already a 35-year bowhunting veteran. As a youngster in Pennsylvania, he got his introduction to hunting from his dad. Since then, O’Brien has taken hundreds of deer over the years, and most of those deer have been bow kills.
Dan O’Brien’s huge non-typical scored 217 2/8 inches. It is the second largest Connecticut nontypical by Pope & Young standards, and the largest by Northeast Big Bucks Club standards. Photo courtesy of Dan O’Brien.
In recent years, in Connecticut he filled multiple tags each year as he honed his hunting skills.
In the late …show more content…
He had been thinking of his dad, who had passed away 10 years earlier, and, with the encounter earlier in the morning, his emotions got the best of him. He was mentally fried so he left his gear in the tree, and exited by making a big circle away from that little patch of woods where the deer bedded.
O’Brien had lunch, talked to Rob for encouragement, cleared his head, and went back out at 2 p.m. The wind was perfect on this beautiful and cool September afternoon. O’Brien was in a better frame of mind, and he thought he was ready to close the deal if the buck came out of that little pocket of woods.
Around 5:30 p.m., when things were getting “just right,” O’Brien heard a noise and saw the back end of his deer heading in the other direction! He thought for a moment that the hunt was over. But then the sound of a slamming car door and a car engine starting seemed to turn the deer back around. He was heading back towards O’Brien’s stand.
The monster was heading right to a break in a stone wall, which would have presented O’Brien with a shot, when the buck suddenly got uncomfortable and stopped short. The wind was perfect, but the deer seemed to know something was wrong and hung up at 45
Dan O’Brien’s huge non-typical scored 217 2/8 inches. It is the second largest Connecticut nontypical by Pope & Young standards, and the largest by Northeast Big Bucks Club standards. Photo courtesy of Dan O’Brien.
In recent years, in Connecticut he filled multiple tags each year as he honed his hunting skills.
In the late …show more content…
He had been thinking of his dad, who had passed away 10 years earlier, and, with the encounter earlier in the morning, his emotions got the best of him. He was mentally fried so he left his gear in the tree, and exited by making a big circle away from that little patch of woods where the deer bedded.
O’Brien had lunch, talked to Rob for encouragement, cleared his head, and went back out at 2 p.m. The wind was perfect on this beautiful and cool September afternoon. O’Brien was in a better frame of mind, and he thought he was ready to close the deal if the buck came out of that little pocket of woods.
Around 5:30 p.m., when things were getting “just right,” O’Brien heard a noise and saw the back end of his deer heading in the other direction! He thought for a moment that the hunt was over. But then the sound of a slamming car door and a car engine starting seemed to turn the deer back around. He was heading back towards O’Brien’s stand.
The monster was heading right to a break in a stone wall, which would have presented O’Brien with a shot, when the buck suddenly got uncomfortable and stopped short. The wind was perfect, but the deer seemed to know something was wrong and hung up at 45