October 9, 2012
So, this hunting with a Bow is a lot harder
than it appears on TV. For some reason I thought the deer was supposed to walk
right in front of me and position itself so it is completely broadside, leaving
me to take a perfect shot. Um…NO! That's not the case...
First thing I learned was…ground blinds are
NOT for me. I hate sitting on the ground hearing every little rustling noise,
tree branch cracking, and feeling like something is stalking me. I just kept
waiting for a mountain lion, coyote, or Jason from Friday the 13th to jump out
at me. The first day of hunting I was so scared of hunting in the ground blind
alone that I made my husband hunt with me. Did I mention my husband has ADD? He
can only sit for less than a minute and then he has to move around. If the
sound of him rustling in the blind wasn't enough to scare off the deer, the
smell of the gasses he was producing totally did. Don't get me wrong, I love
hunting with my husband more than I dislike it, but we do have two different
styles of hunting. So, that night I tried it alone…sat in the blind nice and quiet,
sprayed myself and the blind with sent blocker, and within 15 minutes, the rustling
and noise of the woods had me jumping out of the blind to take a 100 yard walk back
to a deer stand.
This deer stand is about 8 feet in the air
and looks down on an empty trace with woods on both sides. It's great during
gun season. Anyone who sits there normally shoots a deer.
About a half hour goes by and out of the
corner of my eye I see a Doe, about 50 yards out, crossing the trace. My heart
was pounding so hard I was worried the Doe could hear it. As I raised my bow,
it looked right at me. “Holy Cow”, it sees me...I play possum. We stare at each
other for a good 40 seconds. My arms are tired. The Doe looks back. I get ready
to pull back and the Doe takes off into the woods as a baby fawn follows…Oh
Man!!!!! So close…
I turn and position myself to be ready for
the next time a deer gets within shooting distance. As soon as I get turned, I
hear a noise behind me. I look back and there are two does. They just walked
out of the woods…the only problem is…I can’t turn around without them seeing me
move. I just sit and watch them look up at me and continue to walk to the other
side of the woods. At that moment I
decide to turn in that direction and in mid-move another deer comes out the
same direction as the last doe. It’s to my side so I try to move very slowly,
and it looks up at me. I just sit possum style again for at least a good
minute. That’s when I see another Doe
walk out…and another. At that moment I
knew God was either testing my patience or messing with me. As I try to move to
get a shot, one of the does see me and they all take off. I saw 8 does in less than 15 minutes. Once I get turned and ready, NOTHING! Yep
that’s right nothing…not one deer. For
the love of God!!!! After that we put a
trail cam up in the trace, attached to the deer stand, and got some awesome pics
of deer and turkey. I will post them
below.
The next morning I went hunting out of a
metal stand, not too far from my ground blind in the field. The night before,
my husband saw two bucks walking through this area. We call it the ‘lick area’
because we hung an apple lick up. Unfortunately,
it was a 60 yard shot and he wasn’t prepared.
(To find out he was just sitting on his 4-wheeler watching a movie when
he noticed them.) After about an hour, I
look up and see two does playing in the field to the right about 65 yards out. I turn and position myself. One of them acts like she’s going to walk the
trail right to me, but the other is jumping around and playing, distracting her. I wait patiently for about 15 minutes, and I
see them moving my direction. Then, one of them put their nose in the air and
made whizzing noises. Yep, she smelled me! Off they went in the opposite
direction.
Maybe this next weekend I will have better luck…Maybe!!
PHOTOS
Here I am in my blind hunting, it was so cold. Megan seen this picuture and wanted to know how I could even see the deer. I had small opening for my eyes. But man was I cold...
This is the view from either side of the trace stand. Great crossing spot for deer...
