First deer of the 2009 Season

Well it was October 24th 2009, one day before the one year anniversary of killing my buck, we were hitting the woods again. I knew I had a good spot, had taken all the scent precautions, and the wind was perfect. It was a fenceline I was overlooking, the end of the property that I had permission to hunt on. Not 45 minutes had passed till a nice size doe started walking up the trail from the ravine. She was on the other guys property of course and when she got straight in front of me she turned and went the opposite direction of my tree. Well not to be outdone, I grabbed my Primos Can call and bleated once. A minute later she appeared. I drew as she stood at the fenceline looking for the other deer. She crossed the fence into my territory and meandered down the path oblivious to me standing 20 feet above her at full draw. It seemed like I held that bow back forever but it was probably like two or three minutes. She was quartering towards me. Not a perfect shot but it could be if it had to. I waited with my pin on her for her to turn broadside but she never did. As my arm started to cramp I said to myself, "I'm not letting this bow down. It's now or never." So I released. The deer stumbled and fell and took off back to the other guys property. Of course... The law requires you to get permission to track deer on others property so thats what we did. And find her we did. Not 50 yards on the other side of the fence. My shot? Well it wasn't where I aimed, but it did the job! :) Meet in the freezer!

The First Hunt of the Year

Well I didn't have an exciting night but Nathan did. He sends me a text at 7:05 p.m. saying he shot a doe. Great I was out of my stand in a few minutes and on my way to meet him. He hadn't found his arrow or a blood trail so we set off looking. It was pretty much dark at this time. We started following a trail we thought the deer took back into the woods (he shot it in the open field). After finding a speck of blood we knew the deer had gone that way, but I heard the deer walking around on the other side of some brush so we decided to back off so we wouldn't drive it deeper into the woods. Well that didn't work. We waited for Jon Havener to come help us track and set off once again in search of the deer. There wasn't much of a blood trail and it soon disappeared, but we continued to follow the narrow trail into the woods. Just as the search is about to be called off, we once again hear the deer walking. Shining the spotlight in the direction of the noise we spot the deer which in turn does an about face and walks off. Still alive... Not good. We decide to call off the chase and possibly return the following morning. On the way out we decide to take another route with less thorns. We walked and walked forever and made a wrong turn then got back on the "right" path and continued through the woods with our lights. Finally we spotted the field where our trucks were. Well that's what we thought. We crested the hill and crossed a fence and set eyes on a field that none of us had ever seen before! Some amish guy's place from the looks of it. We did the only thing we could do and continued walking. Through the field, right past his horses, and onto his lane. A lane! Should go to a road right? Not. The lane went from his house to more fields. Just as we entered another field trying to get our bearings straight on where we were John says "hey guys, do you know where we are?" Neither one of us did. "In our backyard!" Sure enough we went through one more small patch of woods and there we are at the Havener's house! Which is nowhere close (in walking distance) to where we hunted. But all's well it ends well. We got a lift back to our trucks and went home emptyhanded. And so ended our first hunt of the year.