Although, I lost my notes from the last few weekends, I can give a quick recap. I saw a few tails here and there, but overall my sightings were well below average. It was a little disappointing after witnessing what I witnessed the last few years. It might be time to change areas. Most trail camera pictures have steadily declined, and it appears that there’s a little more pressure than when I first started covering a lot of the ground in the surrounding areas of where I’ve been hunting.
Dad saw a lot of deer this year in the mountains. He did a lot of moving around, too. On the last Friday of the season he killed a nice 8-pointer. It was running after a doe and he never got a good look at it, so he fired a shot and connected. Although he was a little disappointed because the deer wasn’t as big as he thought it was when he shot, he was happy to put a mountain buck on the ground.
After he fired a couple of signal shots, I headed toward him. When I got to him, he was sitting on a log. He had thrown his back out while trying to drag the deer, Looking at the task ahead of us, I knew it would take us the better part of the day to get the deer out. With a fresh coating of snow on the ground, I chose to drag the deer because I figured I could make good time.
When I reached the road just as darkness was settling in, it felt incredible to finally be able to give back to my father, who has has given me everything. This might be the best deer hunting day I’ve ever experienced. It was beyond amazing in more ways than I can ever begin to address.
The rest of the weekend was fairly slow. I’m hoping this winter doesn’t smash this region again. I’m not sure the deer herd can sustain another winter of heavy snow and extremely low 
temperatures. I look forward to what next year may bring to us.
Here are a few pictures of dad’s deer.