guys, its awn....
went out friday. nothin
saturday mornin nothin
saturday night, nothin.
now, it got damn cold where i hunt in van buren county michigan.....
29 or 30. hard frost. ice in the creek.
went out in the woods and started bumping deer left and right, couldn't see shit, moonless, and i go by feel, i don't run flashlights. got snorted at at about 20 yards, almost ruined my scent lok. i got snorted at again by another buck halfway up my ladder.
grunted at that buck at the top, he came in at the stand, still too dark to see, got to the base and started stamping.
I sat quiet for an hour-fifteen before it was light enough to see.
deer all around, and then nothing.
when light came, some turkeys went crazy and flew down within 50 yards, figured i'd fill my turkey tag. while i was picking out which one to nail, anout six does and yearlings came piling in around my stand, totally took me by surprise. They were being chased. My stand is way high, like 25 feet, and none of these buggers could smell me.
buck came in chased them away, then started winding, and then into browsing. I let an arrow fly, but admitedly i was a fuzz high and behind. arrow passed through, he took off.
i let 30 minutes pass, and walked back to the cabin, lit a fire, packed some things, rearraged the truck for carcass transport, texted my buddies to help, and we got there about 2 hours after the shot.
drizzle started, and the wind picked up, i started getting nervous. We found good blood trail 20 yards from the arrow, and followed it. good blood. then we got up on the little ridge and the leaves were blowing across, totally jacked up the blood trail. we picked it up in some spots and tried to follow. we wasted an entire hour trying to pick up the next section.
my heart sank, we lost the damn trail. four guys, three and a half hours of looking in the obvious spots down low, creek bottom, oak swamp, fawkin everywhere.
We had to leave him in the woods.
dammit.
next weekend though, there's a ten pointer in the area. pre rut is awn, it came on like a switch on sunday morning.
rut will come hard just like predictions said they would.
its awn.
