Black Friday – Opening Day of Shot Gun Season 2013

Ah, black Friday and opening day of shot gun season.   After a long night of hunting of a different type, after shopping and finally getting to bed around 4am.  I took Friday morning off from hunting in place of some sleep and headed out Friday afternoon..  I went to our private land and didn't have much luck, saw a couple spikes, a doe, and a few fawns but they were not within range plus not what I was looking for.  It was a slow night as the fawns showed up early,  but the other deer didn't appear until almost dark.  It seems rut is moving along slow at least int he areas I am hunting. I am really thinking it's a trickle rut this year which is going to make it a long rest of the winter.

I went back out Saturday morning for opening day of shot gun season, just without the shot gun, I had my bow... Brrrr, it was chilly,  when I checked the trail cam today it said it was 9 degrees at sunrise Saturday morning.  I got in my tree nice and early, had high hopes the deer would be up and moving..  Nothing but foxes in the early morning around until around 9 AM, I was getting cold, frustrated and was thinking about getting down when I saw some movement down the woods from me.  Here came 8 does and fawns, but no antlers...  I watched them as they got closer, when I first saw them they were about 125 yards away, they slowed worked along this thicket too me and finally got close.  Just not close enough, I was watching hoping there was some antlers with all these does, no go so I let them walk by at 38 yards, I thought about trying the shot, but I was cold and wasn't feeling over confident about taking a long shot and the deer were walking so I passed.  I guess another part of my head I was still hoping a buck was behind them.  They finally worked off past me and I watched them walk away, nothing followed.   Then I noticed that two of them were coming back and I got ready..  The two does were walking slowly and feeding and then they got about 40 yards away and feed for a long time... I watched them for a good 30 minutes before the bigger one finally started getting closer... I had ranged the tree close to where she was and it was 30 yards,  I thought she was right in line with  that tree.... Well, she finally got into a clearing and I took the shot thinking it was a slam dunk 30 yard shot.. I put my pin on the heart and let it fly, it went about 2 - 3 feet in front of her and stuck in the dirt..  She jumped ran about 5 yards and stopped..  Both deer  stood there for about 5 minutes looking around and then the other deer with the one I shot at laid down.

The bigger one stood and looked around for a good 25  minutes without moving more than a foot.  While she was doing all this I decided now was a good time to get the range finder out and see why I missed and see just how far way she was at this point.  She was standing at 44 yards and that was a lot further than I wanted to shoot, even more so after I had just missed her.  I ranged where she was standing and where my arrow was, the arrow stuck in the dirt at about 33 yards, she was standing at 35 yards and that is why I shot under her.  I just simply miss judged where she was standing... Just a swing and a miss, get back at it this week.

The deer finally walked away out of range, but I watched these two deer for almost 2 hours in total.  When I was getting down around 11:30, I could still see them in the thicket up the hill from me still eating.. When I got to the base of my tree I looked up and watched them walk over the top of hill into the thicket..  I didn't see anything else of course..   Didn't hunt Saturday afternoon...

How did everyone else do this weekend?  Anyone harvest a deer?  We would love to hear about your hunts and see photo's if you harvested something!  Leave a comment and share your hunt with us!

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