No Excuses For Me

The question of going back to the same stand for the fourth night in a row was solved today. Even though I was breaking my own rules of bow hunting, I felt the stand warranted one more sincere hunting effort.

The wind was again perfect but just a bit too soft for my liking, but I sneaked into the area, and spotted a buck from a distance as he wandered off down the trail. That was a promising sign.

It turned out to be the only promising thing about tonight. I eased into my stand which was downwind of where the deer come from, and I climbed noiselessly into my stand, and eased my bow up off the ground. I nocked an arrow, stuffed the lower bow limb into my knee-high left rubber boot, and sat back to await some action.

Six hen turkeys and their poults wandered through, jabbering like a barnyard filled with domestic chickens, and they meandered off down the trail, and were soon out of sight although I could hear their vocalizations for another five minutes.

Then the woods fell silent.

From that point on, the woods were as quiet as a tomb. The tiny bit of breeze soon died, and the temperature hovered at about 50 degrees.

The combined forces of no wind, warm temperatures, and the continuing rut, was enough to keep deer bedded down. I sat without motion or noise, and only my eyes behind my face mask moved.

One fox squirrel scolded something out of sight 100 yards away, and a chipmunk scurried through the leaves, and those were the only sounds heard. It was obvious that very few deer were up and moving, and for the rut, there appeared to be very little going on. The new moon is due in two nights, and deer should be moving

A twig snap back in the woods alerted me.

About 5:45 p.m., a twig snapped back in the tag alders. It wasn't much of a noise, but enough to alert me to a moving animal. My good eye watcahed that area, and a doe fawn moved down the trail with little mincing steps. She took a step into the open, about 25 yards away, and stopped to look around and test the air for danger. This was an evening when bucks like this one stick tight to cover and move very little.

She moved with infinite patience forward, looking both ways like a school child checking for traffic before crossing a road, and then she stopped. She seemed fascinated by something 20 yards to my left and back in the tag alders.

She stopped in a slight crouch, poised for a quick getaway, and then wheeled and disappeared back to where she'd come from. I studied the area that seemed to spook her, and could see nothing in the gathering gloom, and all was quiet in the woods once more.

Later, on our way home, we saw just one buck standing on a side-hill near the road. He appeared to be a six-pointer that was about to begin his night of cruising.

I've had enough of a bad thing.

Tomorrow night, warm weather or not, I'm hunting elsewhere. My favorite stand will still be good, but hunting it right now seems an exercise in futility. I'll try it again when the weather cools off and the snow flies, and hopefully it will regain a measure of the greatness it showed last year.

So far this fall, the deer are conspicuous by their absence. A weather change is needed to fire up the bucks and does, and once some snow covers the ground, I'll try my stand again.

To show how miffed I am about this spot I even untied my haul rope, and lowered by bow gently to the ground and threw the rope after it. I'm done with it until the weather conditions change. But I shouldn't be too hasty; we have one more night of bow hunting and a wake-up, and it will be opening day of Michigan firearm deer season.

I won't miss that unless my back really acts up. Five bulging discs from a fall off my deck more than a month ago is slowly doing its number on me. I just want to get through Sunday's firearm opener before my physical therapy begins.

Now there's a good time for me to look forward to.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors