The Hunt

I spent last weekend, Friday evening the 7th-Sunday evening the 9th at deer camp not too far from Preston MN. It was a fairly blustery and chilly weekend with lows in the 20's and highs in the 30's. The pictures in the blog are from last year, this year it wasn't quite as green and I kept my camera in my backpack too long and the cold sapped the batteries. I also managed to leverage the flex time from work to shoot down for an evening hunt on Wed the 12th plus Thursday AM. The bottom line this year for me ... no shots at deer.

Opening weekend however I did get to see 5-10 deer each day and was a little too selective. I had deer in range that I certainly would have shot at had they come by Wed-Thur. We would like to get bigger does and at least "decent" bucks on my friends deer land, so we need to be selective -- no "shoot and release" in the deer hunting game!

The fun of deer camp and the hunt is undiminished for me by not shooting however -- I can punch holes in paper all I want, and while having been raised on a farm with a detailed understanding of "where meat comes from" (including my "pet" calf "Jingles" when I was like 9), there isn't a lot in the killing part that I particularly crave. I'd like to get a big buck someday, and I'd sooner get deer than not get deer, but getting "skunked" on deer is way more palatable than getting skunked on walleye!

A lot of the fun is enjoying the hunt from "The Stump" stand that makes the cold wind not much of a problem. I do think though that post season this year I need to sneak over to Gander and pick myself up some sort of a "2nd stand", harness, etc. The Stump is maybe a bit TOO "genteel" for days other than the really nasty ones. Nice to have the option of being a little closer to the deer. However, I DID get to be very close to watch "the chase" of a year old buck after a year old doe.

About 4 in the PM on Saturday they showed up coming up the draw below me toward the pond that is right below the stand (right to left in the picture that shows the stand and the pond). For the next 20-30 min she led that buck on a merry chase that included SIX extended swims in that freezing cold pond! I don't mean splashes either -- the pond is mostly 10'+ deep and she swam round and round like 3-4 "center laps" on most of the dips. Mr Buck never lost interest and stayed pretty close. Most of the time she would get out of the pond right below the stand, so like '15 yards", shake like a dog, then take off on land -- they were both very tired, but instinct isn't a very forgiving master. Round and round they went and eventually they headed off. It was nice that other hunters in the party were able to see the show from a greater distance and hear the splashes as they went in, so I didn't have to defend my sanity or accusations of falling asleep in the stand and dreaming.

Another good year of hunting, hopefully there will be many more. While the general outlook for '09 politically and economically from our deer camp could be summarized as "dismal", things like deer hunting are comforting along with religion, family and friends to "cling to bitterly" in these times. Now, I don't really see myself as being "bitter" about those things at all, but the nation has spoken, I must be. It is time for me to get my head right, BO just can't be wrong!