2015 turned out to be quite a season for me, despite not bagging a deer.  I hunted more than I have in recent years, and this year even ventured out of state with my dad.  Pheasant season was a nice change of pace for me.  I haven't gone out in recent years due to just being too damn busy to take the better half of a Saturday morning and spend it walking fields.  This year, though, I decided to try my luck, and I'm glad I did.  I wasn't in the first field where I hunt more than twenty minutes when an older couple's dog flushed a few birds.  They missed their two shots, so with nothing to lose I shouldered my shotgun and fired a shot.  I managed to hit a nice sized hen that their dog then retrieved to me.  I tried to give the bird to the nice couple, but they insisted that because I shot the bird I should keep it.  Well, I thanked them profusely and then a few weeks later served it as an appetizer at Thanksgiving.

     Even though I managed to harvest something during pheasant season, I had no luck during deer season.  I hunted two Saturdays on our hunting property here in town, and saw considerably more sign than I did last year, but still struck out even seeing one.  

     In November, though, I had the awesome opportunity to go away for a weekend with my dad to his friend's house in Orwell, VT, which is located in west central Vermont.  Orwell brings a whole new meaning to the term rural, but it's equally as beautiful.  We drove up on the Friday after Thanksgiving and met Mike and his wife Elizabeth at the Fairhaven Inn & Restaurant for dinner in neighboring Fairhaven, VT.  After a delicious meal (I had quail!), we retired to Mike and Elizabeth's home where we all fell asleep almost instantly.
     In the morning, Mike took great care going over a map of his 60 acres with me.  Dad had already hunted there many times, so he knew the lay of the land.  With me being the rookie of the group, I needed some instruction.  Not thirty minutes into the morning hunt I flushed a large doe who scared me as much as I scared her, but she was the only deer I saw for hours.  I bumped into dad a few times while I explored the property, but saw nothing more than sign.  After lunch back at Mike's house, we headed back out for a few more hours.  Right as the sun was setting and dusk was taking its rightful place in the day, I saw another deer slowly stalk down an opposing hillside facing me.  I never managed to get close enough to get a shot off, nor could I tell if it was a doe or a buck, but it was still exhilarating, as it always is, to see deer in the woods.  After a full day of hunting we all showered up and headed to the Iron Lantern in Castleton for dinner.   To no one's surprise, not a single one of us was long for the day after dinner.  
     Our hunting complete, the only thing left to do before heading three hours home was a nice, big breakfast.  Apparently, when you're in west central Vermont, the only place to do that is the Wheel Inn in Benson.  After completely devouring my Eggs Irish, I could see why.  This place definitely ranks in the Top 10 Breakfast Hall of Fame.  After our goodbyes to Mike and Elizabeth, Dad and I hit the road in his trusty Tundra and returned home in near-record (slow) time, but not without stopping for a couple frosty beers on the way home.  Just like our snowmobile weekends, this hunting weekend spent with my dad was time I'll never forget. 

This hunting season was kind of a wash, save for the opportunity to try out a boat-load of new gear.  It was the first time in four years that I was completely skunked and didn't see a damn thing, despite seeing a ton of tracks and rubs.  The last few pics show more tracks in my driveway the morning after hunting season than I saw all year, though.  But not all was lost, as I got to try out my new pants, pack, and hat, which can all be seen on the gear page.

This season proved to be my most exciting and worthwhile season to date.  Do I have a freezer full of meat? No.  But I still had a way better time than the last two deer seasons, and for one big, fat reason: sitting.  This season I made the educated decision to do a lot more sitting versus stalking, and boy did it pay off.  I hunted two Fridays and two Saturdays, with the first two days of the season being the most plentiful.  The first day I went out, a Friday, I met up with Jay at the property bright and early.  We did a little walking out to the back gas line, but he had an early conference call for work and ended up bailing right around 9 am.  I kept wandering around seemingly pointlessly until I decided to sit on this newly-discovered rock ridge overlooking a sizable gully in the woods.  I find an unnaturally comfortable sitting position, crack my thermos of hot coffee open and begin to enjoy the solitude of a cold morning hunting alone.  About 30 minutes later I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.  Forty yards down below me is a nice sized doe walking left-to-right, bobbing her head up and down as she looks for snacks strewn about the forest floor.  I didn't have a Massachusetts doe tag, so she wasn't a viable candidate, but I raised by shotgun and watched her through the scope for a good 45 seconds as she slowly walked the entirety of my field of vision.  She never knew I was there; no sniffs in the wind, so rotating ears trying to catch the slightest noise, nothing.  A few minutes later she was gone for good and I resumed my coffee drinking and PB&J nibbling.  I stayed out in the woods for another five hours or so after that before heading home and warming up.  I considered that a great day, as it was by far the closest I've had a deer to me while hunting the property.  

That was until the next day, Saturday.  Jay and I met again at the property and walked the full several miles of the high tension lines, to no avail.  Upon returning to base we decided to split up and go our separate ways - divide and conquer, if you will.  Jay made his way through the back edge of the property to the gas lines while I decided to follow an old path down around the back edge of a swamp right in the middle of the woods.  I walked a couple hundreds yards into the woods before finding a stellar sitting area.  Fifty or so yards off the trail I happened upon this amazingly shaped rock that perfectly mimicked the shape of a chaise lounge when putting one's ass on the ground and leaning up against it.  Once I had my lumbar pack off, thermos open, and various snacks laid out I was as comfortable as I've ever been while hunting.  Again, 30 or 40 minutes into my morning coffee I caught movement, this time out of my right eye.  Much like the day before, it was about 40 yards in front of me walking along the far edge of a stone wall that was perpendicular to me.  Walking right-to-left this time, this deer's identification managed to elude me due to his(!) continual head-bobbing behind the stone wall as he walked.  It wasn't until he was right straight ahead of me that he stopped and looked up standing still - because I purposely clicked off my safety as loud as I could.  I looked through my scope and {{GASP}} he had antlers.  Well, not a rack by any means, but this young spike horn was something, and that's all that counts.  And then it happened.  Buck fever: n. "nervous excitement felt by a novice hunter at the first sight of game."  That nervous excitement makes it awfully difficult to steady one's scope onto a target, and I being the ethical-as-hell hunter had absolutely NO interest in possibly maiming an animal, so all I could do was watch him through my scope as my cross hairs bounced around his torso due to the adrenaline coursing through my veins.  He eventually left, and I eventually settled down (I don't think the thermos of coffee helped, either) to curse myself out for being such an amateur.  But what could I expect?  I was into my third season of hunting and had my first buck in my scope - of course I was going to be amped.  The rest of the day unfolded much, much less exciting than the morning, and I ended up walking in the front door a little after 3 pm, hungry and tired.  

The last two days of hunting, another Friday-Saturday combo, were uneventful.  I saw a few scrapes and rubs, but no tracks and no game.  Still, it was two full days enjoying the solitude of the woods and getting some much needed R&R.  I know my persistence will pay off, if only because that little spike horn that got away is only going to get bigger and fatter as the years go by.  Well played, spike horn.

I did a few days of pheasant hunting and a day of turkey hunting this year, but nothing came from it.  It was nice earlier this fall to get out and enjoy the outdoors, but with no action on pheasant or turkeys it gave me a great opportunity to scout for deer sign.  I saw literally hundreds of deer tracks throughout the fields, gas line, and property woods, and saw the most concentrated cluster of rubs I've ever seen.  With this knowledge in mind I started to feel pretty optimistic about the upcoming deer hunting season. 

Jay, his buddy Mike, and I went out on the first Saturday of the season, December 3rd, and spent about four hours walking through the hunting property and the adjoining fields and gas line before we each had to tend to other scheduled activities.  Jay and Mike headed southeast towards the fields and were to meet up with me at the gas line on the back end of the property as I bushwhacked through the woods.  I got to the gas line early, and as I came out of the tree line I spotted a nice sized doe feeding in the clearing.  With the gas company recently clear-cutting the line, visibility was good - for both predators and prey.  I sat, poured some coffee, and watched her through my scope for several minutes.  At 200+ yards away, all I could do was watch her because it's shotgun only in Massachusetts.  Jay and Mike came up behind me from the fields, and she must have spotted them as she and two of her previously-unseen companions bounded across the gas line and into the woods.  It was exciting (and reassuring) to see three deer in such an open space, and we went the rest of the morning seeing squat.

The following Monday I used up a day of "personal time" at work and spent the entire day hunting.  I arrived at the hunting property a little after 6am, waited for the sun to illuminate the land enough to safely enter the woods, and proceeded to walk over seven miles that day.  Aside from my usual Cabela's thermos of coffee, I had packed a banana and PB&J sandwich to keep my hunger at bay for the day.  I walked to the fields, through the fields, down the gas line, up the gas line, into the woods, sat in the wood, stood in the wood, up the high tension line, down the high tension line, and sat on the high tension line.  Despite all of the above tactics, I saw zero deer despite seeing evidence of quite possibly the most concentrated deer population east of Jeff Foxworthy's "venison farm" in Texas.  

This past Saturday, the 10th, Jay and I went back to the property for one last go-around before the season was over at the end of the day.  We headed southeast towards the fields again and decided to sit and look out over the largest field for a while.  After we saw and heard nothing, we walked the length of the gas line.  We sat at one overlook again drinking coffee and discussing life in general, and again saw nothing.  We did a combo of walking and sitting for the remainder of the morning, hunting until a little before noon when we had to be back for family Christmas activities scheduled for that afternoon.  

Despite seeing three deer in three days and leaving an empty, unplugged meat freezer in the basement, it was still a good hunting season.  It's always nice to spend a sizable amount of time enjoying the outdoors, and with each season passing we in turn become better hunters stalking a larger population of deer.  One of these days we'll stock our freezer with the freshest of venison, but until then we'll be blaze orange-clad armed men walking through the woods.

So after spending countless hours at the local hunter's education course, the season came and went in what felt like the blink of an eye.  Deer hunting consisted of two Fridays and two Saturdays roaming throughout the property.  I saw one doe, several rubs, and hundreds of tracks in my four days hunting.  I hunted alone on the first Friday, with Jay, Justin, and Alex on the first Saturday, and then Jay and I hunted together the final Friday and Saturday.  It has been a relatively cold fall and early winter here in southern New England, which made it even more enjoyable for me.  I eagerly await next spring's turkey season, and cannot wait to get back to deer hunting next fall both here in Massachusetts, and hopefully in Vermont and the Adirondack region of New York.

I went pheasant hunting with my father-in-law Phil on this cool, damp morning in November.  We hiked into the fields around 7:15am and spent two hours walking the hedge rows and tree lines among the various fields.  About an hour in we were working the woods along one of the fields in the hopes that the birds had been pushed out of the fields, and we were right.  I spotted this pheasant in among the trees, and he took off like a bat out of hell.  One trigger pull later and I had my very first pheasant stuffed in the back bird pocket of my Cabela's hunting jacket.  I brought him home, dressed him, and cooked him up for lunch along with his heart and liver.  It was a great first pheasant hunt, and I hope to get out soon with a few weekends left in the season.