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.