First Bow Hunt of 2008

Well I finally got out for my first bow hunt of the year on October 12th and man did it feel good to be out in the woods with a bow. The hunt started out with me loading all of my gear into my truck and taking the hour out to Kingston where I hunt.

When I got there I was having a hard time deciding what to wear because it was very warm, upper 70’s, that day. Finally I decided to wear as little of my hunting clothes as possible and to put the rest in my backpack since I didn’t want to get a sweaty and stinky before I started hunting. Now I don’t have all that far to walk to get to the tree that I hunt out of but since this was the first time out there this year I had to put in my tree steps and hook up the strap for the tree saddle that I use to hunt. So I started my walk out with all of my gear and I started think about the conversation that I with my buddy who had told me that there was a nice 10 point running out there and an 8 point that put the 10 point to shame. I was running scenarios thru my head about what I would do if one of them happened walk in front of me and present a shot, which is something I always try to do to help myself be prepared mentally for when the moment of truth comes. I was also wishing it was much cooler because I was already starting to sweat and all I was doing was walking. I finally got to my tree and started getting busy putting in the tree steps and hooking up the strap for my tree saddle and boy was I getting hot. I was sweating like crazy. Once I got everything set up I then proceeded to change my clothes into my hunting clothes and put my sweaty clothes into a big ziploc bag. I then sprayed myself down with scent eliminator to try and get rid as much of my smell as possible. When all that was done I put on my tree saddle and climbed up into my try to start hunting.

It was about 3:00 pm by then. I hadn’t been on stand more the 30 minutes when heard something that sounded like a deer but I was pretty sure that it wasn’t, due to where it was coming from, and sure enough it was a pesky squirrel running around on the ground below me. I don’t know what it is but for me there is something about being out in the woods that clears my mind and recharges my batteries. That was exactly what was happening on this day as I watched for deer and took in all of nature’s beauty. Finally at about 5:30 I say some deer. There were 5 does coming out of the woods to my left and walking to a spot in the bean field where the farmer had spilled some beans when he had picked his crop. The only bad thing was that they were at least 200 yards away and I seriously doubted that they would come my way and I was right. After about 30 minutes or so some of them suddenly started looking off my left and getting very edgy. Then they all bolted off to my right where I could hear them splashing their way thru the swap over there. I kept looking to the left to see what had spooked them but never saw anything. I don’t think they had a clue I was there because the wind was blowing in my face. So I settled back into a waiting mode and unfortunately I didn’t see another deer. I hunted until it was too dark to shoot and then got down and made my way back to the truck. Even though I didn’t get any shots it was still a great hunt because I did get to see deer and I was out in woods. I couldn’t wait for my next hunt.