There are mornings when you wake up to go hunting that you feel like it's just another day in the woods and there are others that just have that feeling, the feeling that you will acheive what you are setting out to do for the day. This particular hunt happened to fall on my birthday weekend. Usually, a group of us go on a weekend hunt, either north at Joe's place or even at Mark Twain and stay at the Wind Mill Resort with Wade. This year it seemed to be that everyone had some business to tend to so the normal shindig was off.

Not a big deal as it turns out, had an oppurtunity elsewhere thankfully to Chris. To back tract a few months, a friend that I had grown up with asked me to help him put his property back together so we could deer and turkey hunt on it. We cleared some timber, made few roads, some draws hung stands and began hunting opening weekend of rifle season. There is a ton of potential for this ground, lots of sign and plenty of movement but to date no deer had been taken. Perfection takes time I guess.

Chris and I only had time for a morning hunt this today, I arrived at Chris's at 5:00 am and departed soon after. During the drive we decided to both hunt his two man ladder stand, a great idea as far as I was concerned due to the fact that he has seen a whole lot of traffic through here, (plus it was my birthday and I had the first shot).

We arrived in Montgomery County early. During the walk to the stand my whole body relaxed, just thinking how great this moment was, I walking to a stand with a guy that loved the outdoors as much as I do, both of us geared to make this hunt sucessful. We were in the stand by 6:30 and situated shortly after, no wind, no squirrels, no nothing. This was not what we were hoping for.

About 7:00 am the wind started to howl, at least 10 to 15 mph winds with pretty good gusts. At this time we knew we had to keep our eyes open because hearing a deer step in was out of the question. At 7:30 I told Chris we wouldn't see anything till after at least 8:00, hoping the deer would come off the fields and hide from the wind. Of course to make me wrong, it wasn't 10 minutes later that 7 mature does come off the field bee lining for the pasture in the valley that we have cleared for them.

I was so excited I raised my gun 30.06 like I'd never seen a deer before. That stopped in their tracks at 70 yards out. You'd think with a rifle you would think they are far enough away not to see you, thats how excited I was. I put my crosshairs on the my target, gently squeezed the trigger and CLICK, was the next thing I heard. Not good, I forgot to put a round in the chamber.

By this time not only had they saw me but they heard every bit of me opening the action to lock a shell in. With out much time to react, one doe hung back, curious I guess. She was about 70 yards quartering away but I still had a window that I was comfortable with. The trusty Remington 700 connected just as she has done in seasons past.

I was thrilled that I was correct this morning, acheiveing what I set out to do.