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.