I have made the opening day either sex hunts many times so I knew to get there early, very early.
I was parking my truck 2 hours before daylight and had not seen anyone in this area. While getting ready, 2 trucks came. One stopped and the other headed down to the end of the road. One guy came over to talk and they were heading to a different spot than where I wanted to hunt.
The other truck then came back by…. leaving the area. Good, because I was headed in that general direction. As I was about to start walking, 3 more trucks came. One stopped and 2 headed on down the road right to where I was planning to head off into the woods. Thoughts were racing through my head…..are they going to the same area or spot I was planning to hunt? Should I just get back in my truck and go to another spot?
I hurried on down to where the 2 trucks were parked and saw that 5 hunter were getting ready to start walking. I decided to try to get to my spot….hoping they would go somewhere different. I spoke briefly with one guy and learned that they had hunted this area last year. As they walked through the Pine thicket, they started heading more north ....great. I turned more to the south to head to where I wanted to go.
I sat in my stand for almost an hour, barely able to see the ground in the ½ moon that was almost straight overhead on the clear, calm morning with the temperature about 40 deg.
Just a little before daylight, the first distant shot rang out…..maybe this hunter was hunting a clear cut where it was lighter. It was about 15 minutes later when I heard a second shot. About an hour later, a shot rang out a few hundred yards to the south of me. I watched carefully…but saw no deer sneaking through the woods from that direction.
Just after 9 AM, a shot came from just north of me…..the guys I walked in with????
This shot was followed by a second and then a 3 rd shot…..all in about a 20 second time span. Again I watched carefully….because these shots were only 200 to 300 yards away.
While scanning the woods for any movement, a 4 th shot came a little farther away…..and a different gun. Another minute goes by, and there is a 5 th shot….from yet a different gun north of me. I am thinking they must have killed something and the deer ran away from my spot. I keep watching but figured whatever it was, was long gone by now.
As the minutes pass….the woods all quite back down and I settle into my hunting mode again. There had been some active squirrels running on the dry leaves so when I heard a noise off to the north I thought it was a squirrel. But I looking for what was making the noise ....I spotted a doe coming my way walking fast and looked very alert .
I was standing and my gun was laying on the gun rest by my knees on the climber stand. The deer was coming to a fairly large opening just 20 yards away. As quickly as I dare move, I bent over and picked up my gun. By the time I got the crosshairs on the deer walking, it was 30 yards away and quartering away from me. I only had a little space left in the opening and took the shot. I watched the deer run out of sight but heard it crash.
I sat in the tree for a few minutes thinking maybe a Buck could be in the area, but with one deer already in an ice chest at home and another deer….hopefully nearby on the ground….I climbed down. I looked for blood, but was not sure where the deer was when I shot. I shoot a .243 cal rifle and it often does not leave much of a blood trail. So I headed to where I heard it crash and found it after a couple of minutes of looking. There was a good blood near the deer and I followed it back about half way to where I shot it. The trail was getting fainter the closer I got to the impact spot.
After gutting it, I took the climbing stand and gun back to my truck and returned with my cart. I am really glad that I finally made the cart after having the material for over a year. It sure made the long up hill “drag” a lot easier.
I also got to talk with the other hunters that were just north of me. The first guy had 3 does come by but they stopped behind some brushes. He could see them (?) so he started shooting. That was the first 3 shots. The next 2 shots were taken as a deer ran passed the next 2 hunters. Hunter # 4 had already climbed down [It was only 9 AM]. He said that when the shooting started he got behind a big tree. His gun was leaning against a tree 5 feet away. One of the deer stopped 20 yards from him but when he moved to reach for the gun, it ran away.
The first guy to shoot said that he found blood but they did not find the deer. I was talking to them only a little over an hour after the shooting took place.....so how hard did they really look??? They said they were going to make an evening hunt. I hope they went to a different area.
I got to the check in station about noon and there was several trucks coming in to weigh deer. There were about 100 deer reported at that time. I got to look briefly at the report sheets…….The best that I saw was two 8 points, biggest was 135 lbs. I was told that there were about the same number of does and bucks that had been brought in.
My “Trophy” doe was aged at 6.5 years old [only weighed 75 lbs field dressed]. They took a gland and brain samples to check for Chronic Waste disease.
