Report from Deer Camp II

Well, that was a ride!

I had near constant deer activity from legal hunting +30 minutes to quitting at 1100. It was mostly all doe, with a couple of small bucks scattered here and there. One was a forker, the other an immature 8 pointer. If I had been looking for doe, I'd have filled a tag many times over. One even came and stood broadside to me and ate weeds at 10 yards.

Along about 1000, it was getting hot. I undid my bibs and jacket and tried to cool off. Just then a lone buck, out on the prowl came through, following the track left by a pair of feeding doe earlier in the morning. I got my Savage 99 ready and decided that this might be the best one I'd see all day. Frankly, I could have left him grow another year, but something inside of me decided to commit.

That is when things began to go wrong. I couldn't get the Savage situated on my shoulder. As I'd unzipped everything, all that fabric and Thinsulate had balled up on either side of my chest. He was going behind me. I grunted. He stopped about 30 yards behind the buddy stand. I thumbed the safety off, and was still trying to get a proper sight picture.

BLAM!

As best as I can tell, the shot went low. The buck stood there for a bit, and I got another racked in. Now I was all twisted around. The buck moved.

BLAM!

. . . The buck trotted off, got behind some cedars and tried to figure out what was going on. I kept angling for another shot. By this time, I'd had to come around the other side of the tree. Two years ago, with the stand situated 90 degrees counter clockwise around the tree, this would have been an easy shot, but now I was doing everything I could to get my eye on the scope. Eventually the buck decided enough was enough and cranked himself up and left the property.

I got my gear down and took off down the hill to investigate. I found tracks, but no blood. About 20 minutes later, as I was checking where he had crossed the neighbor's fence, I heard a shot from the direction the buck had gone. I hope the bloke had better luck than I did.

On the way to the pick-up point, I had two more encounters. A doe busted me and ran off, and then a whole herd of deer, spooked by my buddy's truck, came barreling down the valley 50 yards inside the treeline on the other side of the pasture.

My buddy? SuperCore made it to 0930 and came out. He'd had a couple of gear malfunctions that left him with freezing feet and hands. He didn't have as much as a hint of deer the whole time. He said he was going to drop home and refit. The boots he was wearing leaked and the HotHands he had were a couple of years old and useless. He's also brought some ski bibs that he hadn't checked before leaving home-- either they'd shrunk or he'd grown. Oh well, now that he's got an idea of what he's up against, he says he can grab some new gear and be back in 4 hours.

This was easily the most active Opener I've ever encountered-- over 2 shots/minute in the first hour and better than 1/minute in the second hour. However, all but a handful were distant. The word from the scanner is everyone is complaining they didn't see a thing. For all the shooting, the Orange Army was overall quite well behaved. I didn't hear any shots before legal hunting started. Nobody emptied any 20 round magazines. There were a lot fewer ATV's out this year too.

I'm switching rigs for the afternoon. I'm bringing out the Win Mod 70 in 30-06 that is better suited for working the food plots. Angus and I are going to Midway to see what comes out.