Well, today was opening day of the Northern Zone rifle season in New York. When I parked the truck the temperature was 29 degrees and a fresh coating of snow was cast across the forest floor. I was plenty early enough, so I knew I’d get to where I wanted to go before daybreak. As I made my way through the woods in the dark I saw a lot of tracks in the snow. It’s amazing how many tracks we sometimes see in the Adirondacks as compared to the amount of deer we see. Although one deer can make a lot of tracks a lot of deer make a lot of tracks all over the woods.
As I settled in behind a blowdown the sky began lightening up and soon enough I could see through the trees in front of me. A half hour later I glanced to my right for a few seconds then back to my left. My eyes instantly focused on a brown patch of fur, which was no more than 30 yards from me. As I continued staring at the spot a small buck quickly materialized from behind a big yellow birch. It was a wanna be spikehorn. He surely wasn’t something I wanted to shoot, but he would have been a nice deer for most people. I watched him slowly meander through the woods in front of me and head toward the long finger that tapers out of a nearby swamp. Since deer are so hard to see in the big woods I was already satisfied for the day. Anything else would be a bonus.
I sat until around 11 o’clock. At that time I decided to check some of my cameras. By the time I got done checking them I was ecstatic about being in the woods. I could clearly identify a few nice bucks and the big ones probably haven’t started moving too far yet. I’m still hoping to get a smasher on film before the end of the year. Hopefully that becomes a reality when I return at the end of the year.
When I met up with my dad on the other side of the mountain he told me he had seen seven deer. He couldn’t identify any of them as bucks. Shortly after we met up we walked toward a swamp, so he could show me something. When we got to a steep ridge that overlooked the swamp I saw a big deer take off running. I clicked the safety off and looked for an opening. I just needed him to turn right or left, so I waited. Within a few seconds it was gone. If I had to guess I’d say it was a buck just because the body was so big, but I could be wrong.
After getting out of the woods today I have a lot of optimism. The day really made me miss the week long vacation I used to take every year to hunt in the Adirondacks. I love that king of hunting and I do miss it. I like targeting specific deer and going after them. I’m pretty sure I could do quite well right now. Maybe I’ll do it again at some point in the future, but for now I’ll take what I can get and hunt places I never dreamed of hunting when I was younger.
Here are a few trail-cam pictures I got from the last week.