I can remember waiting next to the telephone on Halloween night when I was a kid. I always wanted to find out if my dad had had any luck while bowhunting in the Southern Zone of New York. He would always go to Oneonta with our neighbor Don Wood, and they would hunt for about four days before returning home. I loved listening to my father’s stories. The stories began when he was hunting with a recurve and continued after he switched to a compound. One year he was having bad luck until he met a man at Dandee Donut Shop on Main Street, and the man invited him to come hunt near his home in Stamford, N.Y. Don and Dad took him up on his offer and couldn’t believe the sign. Those were the days. I was a starry-eyed kid and had no idea which direction my life would take when I became a teenager.
Looking back on it, I must’ve known I wanted to be like my dad and share the same adventures. Eventually, we began having our own Halloween adventures in the woods, and we took some dandies on 10/31 of different years. Halloween was and always will be a magic day in the woods. The statistics I’ve compiled proof this to be true. I killed a 180-plus pounder a few years back on Halloween, and I felt proud to know I had finally outsmarted the mountain monarch.
Well, today’s Halloween hunt didn’t end the same as that one, but I still had a good time. Brian and I hunted together, and we waited on the edge of our seats. We both figured today was the day. I had 80% confidence that one of us — or maybe both of us — would put a good one on the ground. As the minutes crept into hours, my hopes faded away with the daylight. It just didn’t happen this year. I guess we will have to use it and learn from it. Statistics don’t always play out in our favor.
I’m headed to the Midwest at the end of the week. The forecast is calling for solid 75-85 degree temps the entire time. The low temps forecasted are for 71 on Wednesday. I’m not looking forward to this trip, but I’ll go enjoy my time in the woods, even if I’ll be a sweaty mess the entire time. We only get so many seasons to hunt. We have to make the most of the weather. We can’t change it, so we have to accept it and move forward. Maybe we’ll get lucky and a few will on their feet and moving in the high heat.