Thursday, September 27, 2018

It has been a busy week between getting home from Colorado and getting ready for opening day of bow season here in New York. When today rolled in, I wasn’t nearly ready to head to the woods, but I couldn’t resist it, especially with the seasonal temperatures recently.

Over the past few years, the temps in the beginning of the season were well above average, sometimes reaching 90 degrees.Tonight it was 60 degrees when I headed into the woods, and I knew it would drop into the low 50s by the time I returned to the truck.

Brian and I chatted back and forth about what we wanted to do. Finally, we decided to go to an area where we have been seeing a couple of nice bucks throughout the summer. Amazingly, this area actually has a few alfalfa fields, and the deer have been feeding in them regularly.

Shortly after getting set up in the tree, I could see deer coming. A nice doe came up the hill out of the brush and headed into the field about 25 yards from my stand, and her buck fawn followed her. Before the end of the night, I saw three buck fawns and three does. I guess the buck fawns is a good sign for the future. I wish I could have seen one of the rackers, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be tonight.

Shortly before it got dark, Brian texted me and told me that he had shot at a big doe. By the time I got to him, his friend Jim was there to help us track the deer. With flashlights, we headed into the thick stuff where she headed. The blood was spotty at best. As we followed it, I began to get a little bit of hope when we could see where it was bleeding out both sides.

Jim got a little bit ahead of us and gave us a shout to come see what he had found. Excited, we both scurried through the brush to get to him. That’s when he tossed me a set of dentures. They looked quite old, and they had probably been there for some time. We imagined how someone could have lost them and not known it, but then I thought about my dad and how many times he has misplaced his own teeth. Anyhow, it made for a couple of great laughs among us.

We were in the woods until around 10:00 p.m. before finally giving up. It got to the point where we couldn’t find any blood at all, and a few of our flashlights were all but dead.

I guess it’s a part of bowhunting, even if we don’t like it. Brian has had some hard luck in recent years with his bow. Hopefully, he can get on the right track in the next month or so.

 

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