"It's been exactly a year since I last went hunting ... March 8 last year. I was in Novara and I had gone out to roe. I shot a female, but could not find her that evening, we had to return with the retriever the next day. It seems like yesterday… how much I missed all of this!". My words invest Fabrizio who is driving towards the stakeout, where he will accompany me on this first outing after a long happily forced break. Preparing the backpack, fastening the boots, arranging the shots in the sheath ... were once so natural and automatic gestures. Today I seemed to have forgotten the steps, I repeat everything twice, it takes me a long time to prepare. It will be that when you have been waiting for something for a long time then you want to enjoy every detail and the wait itself becomes part of the desire.
After weeks of insolent rain, the weather finally turns beautiful, the sun warms the humid hills and an invisible vapor softens the earth. To reach the stakeout we cross the fields sown in January and walk to the edge of the sown. The first sprouts of wheat mix with the tender clover in a green cloud that gives the hills the softness of the drawings we used to color as children with the powder of pastels faded with our fingers. The earth is soaked in water and with every step our boots carry a clod of mud with them, becoming enormous and very heavy. Ciack ciack our steps climb up towards a ridge that looks to the right towards a cut and to the left on a ditch bordered by brambles that divides the field, on top of which a majestic oak watches over the wood that overlooks the field at the top. It is from there that good luck, hope and previous releases promised my gift for this anniversary.
The first hours pass lazy in the sun of the last remnants of winter. Fabrizio and I tell each other about the hunting adventures, the pans, the satisfactions in a low voice, despite being stationed at a considerable distance from the edge of the forest. Range finder the highlights from which I expect (or hope!) To see a goblin appear, and we are always around 300 meters. With the sun still high, the first female does not take long to show herself. "Here she is! You see her?”Fabrizio whispers from the binoculars, while I already have it in the optics. She is an adult female, a boss that can be picked up even if in my heart I prefer to take a class 0. She doesn't stop to eat, she practically never stops, she often looks over her shoulder and seems busy rather than alarmed. "Be ready, it is likely that the little one will follow her too and they will start feeding”Fabrizio advises me. With the animal in view I feel strangely calm, a sixth sense tells me that it will not be my prey today, and I enjoy this direct from nature from a privileged armchair, stretched out on a cloth comfortably leaning on a backpack and without a subscription. The light is great, the magnifications are high, so I can see all the details of the somersault even if it is not easy to keep up with it because it moves constantly and suddenly lets itself be sucked back into the wood that had offered it. Behind her no little ones.
Let's go back to wide-ranging sbinocolare. "But that's a boy!"I break the silence with which we welcomed the fatal twilight, the" now X "as Fabrizio calls it. “… And beautiful too!”Comments Fabrizio admiring the stage already clean along double the ears. A small, an adult female, another class 0 female and a thin one follow shortly thereafter. "Five roe deer! They are all present at the roll call. We had seen them with Vincenzo last week but it was too dark to shoot". I choose one of the two class 0, but it is impossible to hook it in view: it jumps, runs, plays around the herd, it never stands still, its explosive childhood mobility makes me give up. The herd moves away from the edge of the wood and begins to descend towards the ditch. I am at 270 meters, but it is not easy to nail the cross of the lattice on a roe deer. I forget the little jump. "I hired the calmer little sister”I warn Fabrizio that he is following the action from his binoculars. In its prudence, the little goat is always attached to the adult female… too much! It is not sufficiently isolated from the rest of the pack, although the location is perfect. The little wild girl begins a childish race towards the ditch, the herd follows her at a good pace, the distance is now about 200 meters. "As soon as they stop I'm ready to shoot”I say to Fabrizio through gritted teeth following the roe deer with the magnification of 10. But the evolutions of the impertinent little girl keep the others too much in motion. Now the other little girl is finally alone, she has no other animals in the vicinity. "Beware that now I whistle!”Fabrizio warns me and all the animals freeze for a moment surprised by a curious sound.
On the last high note emitted by Fabrizio, the Blaser he attacks with his mezzo soprano timbre a fatal, unrepeatable verse, which causes the pack to flee to the right. The animals travel a wide semicircle behind us to take refuge in the cut. They all pass, a little one is missing. At the feet of a young man, however, we go to pay homage to the caprioletta. There are no mimosas for his remains but a lot of gratitude and gratitude for having redeemed my great passion for this hunt after a long time.
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