Happy Thanksgiving

 Before I let ya know what happened this week, I just wanna say,"Happy Thanksgiving". I hope you are enjoying a relaxing day of fun and festivities.

Took Monday off to get my house stuff done, forgot ice cream and pumpkin pie..... Anywho Tuesday got up and took my boat for a drive.... when I got to the lake it was hard water. Plan B, I headed home unhitched the boat threw some decoys in the car and headed to sit in a field for couple hours. Since it was past sunrise and headed to be a warm day I didn't have a whole lot of hope in this hunt, but it was better than sitting home. Turns out I could've saved gas and sat home.

Since everything was locked up with no soft water to be found I made plans to head to my river spot on Wednesday. 

I missed.... alot.... I was able to hit 4 ducks- 2 black ducks and 2 hen mallards. I tried to stay and finish my limit but around noon they had pretty much stopped flying. So I packed up my gear and headed home.

Seriously last week of deer season

 Monday I started my hunt for a buck. Jake let me hunt on his property he had quite a few nice looking deer on cam. 

I started the day with a couple doe's and a little 6 chasing them around. After they left I had 2 more yearlings enter the field. That's when my day changed, Jake called me and asked how I was doing. When I told him what I had seen he let me know he had a giant over by him and if I didn't see anything in the next 15-30 minutes to shoot over to the house. 

Well long story short we ended up putting a spot and stalk on this deer. We ended up cresting a little hill and the deer was standing there looking at us. So I did what any idiot would've done, I brought the rifle up and steadied it to the best of my abili.... boom. Miss, deer still standing there chamber another rou... boom. Miss, deer still standing there chamber another roun... boom. Miss, deer walking away need more shells. Jake says,"I didn't think we would need anymore". So he runs the mile back to the house to get more shells while I keep track of the buck. When he gets back we gather ourselves and walk over to where the buck was. He wasn't dead but the doe he was with took off and then so did he..... Complete misses... 😭

List of excuses:

1. Never shot gun before

2. Did not adjust scope for my old man eyes

3. Afraid to move didn't have solid rest

4. First buck I've taken a shot at in years

5. Biggest buck I have seen on the hoof

This picture does him little good Jake says he would've gone 140 and is the biggest deer he's seen in his woods..... and I screwed it up.
 

So, after been completely demoralized I pulled myself together and finished out the day in the panel blind. Having no luck that night, Jake said it was ok for me to hunt the corner woods in the morning. So I got there well before daylight and was still sulking from the miss the day before. When the first deer of the day appeared, a little doe with a big body trailing. It was the he/she buck (antlers completely broke off) if I had my cross bow he would've been dead. I could've tagged him as a doe and kept hunting for a buck. When he went into the woods it was a good hour before I saw the next deer which was a little doe. I noticed some movement behind her and got ready. Sure enough it was a nice 8pt which I really couldn't see I just knew it was a big body and alot of antler. The little doe cruised by me at 40 yards and he wasn't far behind. As soon as I had a clear shot I let him have it with Jake's 6.5 Creedmore. That round just dropped him, he didn't even go 5 yards, game over tagged out.

 By the way after some adjustments I used the same gun to take this deer.

 Free at last, Free at last Oh thank god I am free at last.

Now who's down for some duck and goose?

Last week of deer season?

 Monday started out great with a shot at a nice buck after only 20 minutes on stand. After the shot it looked to me that I had made a good clean shot. So, I climbed down from my stand and went to the truck to get my knife. I got to the last spot I had seen him and immediately found the blood trail and half my bolt. After 20 yards I found the other half of my bolt minus the broadhead. The bloodtrail was pretty easy to follow so I didn't think it would take too long to find the buck. After getting to the end of the property I had permission to track on, I ended up backing out and getting permission to track on the next property. With the landowners permission I went back and continued the search, the property owner even came out to help. After a couple minutes Sheila took point and stopped following blood, she was just kinda meandering slowly looking for a dead buck. An hour or so went by without any good news and with nothing else to follow I had to call off the search. I think I had hit him a little far forward in the shoulder, he bled but I'm pretty sure he made it.

I had kept my buddy Jake up to date with all the goings on of the morning. When I told him I didn't find the deer he told me the neighbor was cutting his corn and I should sit at the pothole. So that's what I did, I got my hunting clothes back on and headed over to sit at the pothole. The pothole is a low spot in the field that Jake has permission to hunt. After only a couple passes they stopped cutting the corn, with only a couple hours til dark I waited it out. With only 15 minutes to go I finally had some 🦌 file into the pothole. When a decent doe stopped and just stared at me, with only 20 yards between us, I was unable to restrain myself. After watching the bolt zip right through her my heart sank, I thought I had made another bad shot. Well, that doe didn't make it 75 yards when she went down in the field. Now that I have a deer at the processor I can mess around and try for a buck. Jake tagged out last week with a nice wide 8 and has been giving me free reign of the property he has to hunt. We just got done pulling the cards for his honey hole property and saw a giant that he's going to try and put me on Monday. So maybe there will be another deer pick after this one..... 🤞

She weighed in at a decent 100 pounds.

Still Deer Hunting

 Yeah no pic, no deer, no end in sight. 

The rut is just starting to kick off, saw some decent bucks chasin' doe's yesterday. Nothing came in close except the one that was under Jake's stand, I tried to get it off my phone but no luck. Anyway the only deer that got close enough was the doe a buck was chasin' of course I waited for the buck to appear, of course he never offered a shot. 

Anywho just thought I would drop this so you know what's goin' on and how I'm doin'. 

Oh yeah my hands are doing much better all swelling is gone as are the bruises. Saw the Doc yesterday and says all is going as planned. 

Yay me.