We woke up today to a dusting to an inch of snow. It was in the mid-teens, and I had a feeling it might be a good day. My thoughts were backed up as we headed down the road to start our day. There were tracks everywhere. The deer obviously moved throughout the night.
As Dad and I made our way through the darkness, I was thankful that, at 74 years old, Dad can still go way back in with me. Although it takes him longer than it did three years ago, he can still get in and out.
When we split up and headed our own ways, we decided we would stay in the woods the entire day. The snow just won’t come off the trees. It’s hard to see more than 30 yards in any direction. It definitely hasn’t made the hunting very easy. I’m hoping one of these days the snow actually falls off the limbs. We haven’t seen the sun in about a week, and the temperature hasn’t climbed above 25 since last week. The conditions haven’t been ideal for hunting.
The woods came alive with deer today. At the end of the day, I saw 12 deer, and there wasn’t a buck in the bunch. I just couldn’t put an antler on any of them.
Dad saw six deer today and got a shot at one shortly after 3. Unfortunately, he forgot to move the safety forward before squeezing the trigger. The deer was in one of the only openings in the area when Dad tried shooting it. The precious seconds wasted cost him the deer. He ended up getting a shot, but the shot wasn’t a good one. He never touched the deer.
Marching out of the woods in the darkness, we both came to understand that this year hasn’t been one of our better ones. Nothing has gone right. It just seems like a comedy of errors. We can’t seem to line things up and seal the deal. The wind is supposed to hammer tomorrow and stay that way the rest of the week. I’m not looking forward to that, as the deer in this area don’t move too terribly much during heavy winds.