Halloween has always treated us well. I can remember the day before I was old enough to hunt when my dad would find a pay phone to call home and update us about his hunting trip. He always went bow hunting down near Oneonta, NY, in those days. After listening to him, I couldn’t wait to join him when I could get my license. Well, those days have long since passed, and we’ve been fortunate enough to share more adventures than I ever could have imagined back then.
Today we arrived in the Midwest. We drove for 18 straight hours. I took over the driving duties around midnight and drove until around 6 o’clock this morning. I ran into some horrible weather. The rain came down so hard I could barely see. Dad and Brian were exhausted, so they didn’t get to experience the white-knuckle driving.
When we set the tent up in a public campground, it was about 50 degrees. We didn’t waste any time unloading all of our gear, getting dressed in our hunting clothes, and getting right in the woods.
With a few hours left before dark, we all wanted to find places to set up for the next morning. I walked along a bottom that was choked in so much thick cover that it was almost impassable. Eventually, I found a runway along the edge of a creek. It ran along the bottom of a huge hardwood ridge. There were rubs and scrapes but nothing that really grabbed my attention.
After kicking about 10 deer out of a ravine, I decided to set up on the side hill. There were a lot of runways converging in one place, and it appeared that deer used a finger that dropped into the bottom as one of their main routes to get onto the ridge on the other side of the brush-filled bottom. With further investigation, I spotted some giant rubs.
A half hour after sitting down, I could see a nice buck headed my way. He had his nose on the ground and never stopped. I could have easily stuck an arrow in him at 25 yards if I wanted to. He was probably a 1 1/2 year old deer.
Dad and Brian both saw deer tonight. Brian seems very confident, but dad and I didn’t see very much that interested us. We will see what tomorrow morning brings. It’s supposed to be a nice morning.