NO BLOOD, NO HAIR, NO IDEA

What do you call a blind deer?

No eye deer.

What do you call a blind deer with no legs?

Still no eye deer.

What do you call a blind deer with no legs or penis?

Still no fucking eye deer.

   My last post was in April. It now being a week into 2022 gun season it seems a good time to catch up. The pandemic is over. Tell that to Bird and Shewho who got hammered with the virus a few weeks back. I didn't get it or a turkey in May. It's probably the first time in thirty years I've been skunked during Spring turkey season. Getting old. In August I turned 70 and two days later got my right eye operated on for advanced glaucoma. It didn't go well. The doc may have arrested my eye disease, but screwed up my vision in the process. My shooting eye is like looking through a glass of water; distorted and blurry. This made compound bow season impossible. I never got in the tree until early November for crossbow. If I concentrate, with the help of a scope I can hit the bull. So let's take it from there.

    It was a slow start. Hunting the cemetery stand, I saw a few small bucks and does, but no shooters. That changed early one morning when I heard crashing and grunts behind me. To my left (too far for a shot) I caught sight a big bodied buck with a nice rack dogging a doe into the thick stuff. This was a definite shooter. The hunt was on.

   I have eight stands scattered across a variety of properties. The one in the cemetery is a ladder stand, and the most comfortable. It is also the most difficult to move. All the rest are hangers and stick ladders. This is my preferred system. Easily portable, if a spot is dead you can move. This is also the most physical and dangerous part of deer hunting. It's not the gun that will kill you it's the fall while trying to move stands. Thankfully I can still do it. Once I saw that buck I started moving stands, trying to strategize where he would pop up next. As it turned out he showed himself again at the ladder stand.

   On Tuesday at 4pm I caught movement. The big buck was chasing a doe at breakneck speed 100 yards to my right. I pulled the gun up but could not get the scope on him.....until he stopped for a split second 150 yards in front of me. I clicked off the safety and fired. He spun, stopped. The doe stood there. Then he turned back and I fired again. They both disappeared into the thick brush. Had I hit him? I couldn't tell. Daylight rapidly fading I climbed down and went in search of hair or blood. With only patches of snow and my bum eye this was no small task in brown brush and dead leaves. Nothing. I walked in circles looking for a white belly or brown back, praying to see that rack up close. With every step my heart sank deeper. At 5pm, unable to see, I gave up. It didn't look good.

    The next morning (after a sleepless night) I hunted the same stand until 9:30 am and then went back to search for any sign that I had hit that buck. Again nothing. A clean miss. The worst part of hunting is wounding a deer and not finding it. It happens to the best of us. I'll take a clean miss any day. I gave it my best shot and my best search if I had hit him. And I accept my failure. My best wasn't good enough. To be bested by a beautiful, mature, whitetail buck is nothing to be ashamed of. I have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Love to all my faithful readers. I'm back on the blog, at least for the season. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!