Ah, black Friday and opening day of shot gun season. After a long night of hunting of a different type, after shopping and finally getting to bed around 4am. I took Friday morning off from hunting in place of some sleep and headed out Friday afternoon.. I went to our private land and didn't have much luck, saw a couple spikes, a doe, and a few fawns but they were not within range plus not what I was looking for. It was a slow night as the fawns showed up early, but the other deer didn't appear until almost dark. It seems rut is moving along slow at least int he areas I am hunting. I am really thinking it's a trickle rut this year which is going to make it a long rest of the winter.
I went back out Saturday morning for opening day of shot gun season, just without the shot gun, I had my bow... Brrrr, it was chilly, when I checked the trail cam today it said it was 9 degrees at sunrise Saturday morning. I got in my tree nice and early, had high hopes the deer would be up and moving.. Nothing but foxes in the early morning around until around 9 AM, I was getting cold, frustrated and was thinking about getting down when I saw some movement down the woods from me. Here came 8 does and fawns, but no antlers... I watched them as they got closer, when I first saw them they were about 125 yards away, they slowed worked along this thicket too me and finally got close. Just not close enough, I was watching hoping there was some antlers with all these does, no go so I let them walk by at 38 yards, I thought about trying the shot, but I was cold and wasn't feeling over confident about taking a long shot and the deer were walking so I passed. I guess another part of my head I was still hoping a buck was behind them. They finally worked off past me and I watched them walk away, nothing followed. Then I noticed that two of them were coming back and I got ready.. The two does were walking slowly and feeding and then they got about 40 yards away and feed for a long time... I watched them for a good 30 minutes before the bigger one finally started getting closer... I had ranged the tree close to where she was and it was 30 yards, I thought she was right in line with that tree.... Well, she finally got into a clearing and I took the shot thinking it was a slam dunk 30 yard shot.. I put my pin on the heart and let it fly, it went about 2 - 3 feet in front of her and stuck in the dirt.. She jumped ran about 5 yards and stopped.. Both deer stood there for about 5 minutes looking around and then the other deer with the one I shot at laid down.
The bigger one stood and looked around for a good 25 minutes without moving more than a foot. While she was doing all this I decided now was a good time to get the range finder out and see why I missed and see just how far way she was at this point. She was standing at 44 yards and that was a lot further than I wanted to shoot, even more so after I had just missed her. I ranged where she was standing and where my arrow was, the arrow stuck in the dirt at about 33 yards, she was standing at 35 yards and that is why I shot under her. I just simply miss judged where she was standing... Just a swing and a miss, get back at it this week.
The deer finally walked away out of range, but I watched these two deer for almost 2 hours in total. When I was getting down around 11:30, I could still see them in the thicket up the hill from me still eating.. When I got to the base of my tree I looked up and watched them walk over the top of hill into the thicket.. I didn't see anything else of course.. Didn't hunt Saturday afternoon...
How did everyone else do this weekend? Anyone harvest a deer? We would love to hear about your hunts and see photo's if you harvested something! Leave a comment and share your hunt with us!
