I had a good feeling when I woke up today, and I felt like I was going to see a good buck. I had already figured out where I wanted to go, and I let my gut instinct guide me to the tree I call the 200-inch tree
.
During my 45-minute walk, I realized I had forgotten my safety harness in the truck. The sky was littered with stars, but it was still pitch black outside. I had to decide if I wanted to climb a tree or sit on the ground. I know better than to climb a tree without a harness, but I went against my intuition and climbed one anyway.
Shortly after it got light, I began hearing shots fired from a .22 in the same patch of woods that I was trying to hunt in. Within the hour, I could see a guy on the ridge behind me with a full backpack and a rifle.
After spotting me, he walked to the top of the ridge until I could no longer see him. Once there, I’m assuming he sat down. He started shooting his gun every 10 to 20 minutes. Eventually, the shooting subsided, and I figured things were going to calm down and get back on track. Unfortunately, I was wrong, and I spotted two more guys with rifles and backpacks.
I’m still trying to figure out why these people were in the woods before daylight on a Wednesday to hunt squirrels. It kind of makes me wonder about a lot of different things. I’m thinking there might have been a little bit of funny business going on, especially since the game warden told me a lot of poaching goes on in the area.
With the clowns walking all over the ridges around me, I knew the day was probably shot. A big buck had been making regular appearances in the area, and I was certain that the presence of the rifle-toting men would keep the buck away for the day.
Although I saw an 8-pointer at daylight and a few smaller bucks at 10:30 and 1:30. It appeared that the deer had been jumped by the squirrel hunters. The rest of the day kind of dragged. I saw a few small does right before dark. They never knew I was in the tree as they wandered past me.
Dad hunted the new spot this morning. A beagle and a cat chased some rabbits all over the area. Finally, Dad got sick of it and relocated to the stand I’ve hunted the last few days. He saw a really nice buck and a dandy buck. He said if he had a buck tag, he would have shot both of them. He said it appeared that a hot doe was in the vicinity. He also saw a small buck cruise through while he was sitting. All of the action occurred in the last hour of daylight.
Brian hunted the dead-end road today. He saw a doe and two small bucks this morning, but he didn’t see anything the rest of the day. It was really windy today. Tomorrow is supposed to be 20 degrees. It’s going to be tough to sit in the morning. Something in my gut tells me that we might finally get lucky. I’m hoping the feeling plays out. We should have a better idea in about 14 hours. Until then……………..I’m going to try to stay warm in my sleeping bag.
There are only three of us left in camp. Shawn left this morning. He’s going to try to get to Detroit tonight to see the Red Wings play their game. It was a pleasure to have him here. He took some fantastic photographs, and I’m hoping to use one of them for the cover of my book.