Deer Season, 2012

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.