My first Week's Report

[bountyhunter]

Well it was a very eventful first week of bow season up at our property to say the least, but not from a hunting standpoint. My wife and I spent many hours getting things ready for our portable building/cabin to be delivered, which mean a lot of trimming of our easiment as well as fixing the big mud hole that was in it. From all this work there were a few morning that I was just too dang sore to even think about trying to draw my bow.

On the other hand due to the high and bright moon and heat most of the deer were visiting the feeders at night or before daylight. There were three morning that the deer were at my feeder when I got to my stand at 5:30 and never returned. The last two morning I got there at 5:00 but only saw a big doe with twins that were still nursing so I let the little family stay in tack. There was a lot of evidence of a buck or bucks chasing the does around the feeder but again it was sometime during the night.

Last May we had a dog go missing up there and after 2 week she was found alive and safe. You would think she would have learned her lesson but nope and on this past Saturday morning she did the same thing as my wife took the dogs for a walk. They jumped some deer and the chase was on. After about 30 minutes the two young dogs returned to her, but the same, now 12 years old, dog was once again no where to be found so the search started at about 11 AM. During the search I took a bad spill off my 4 wheeler but was up and off searching again. My wife was searching off of horse back and she completely wore out her old mare in the process. Her mare is 21 and is not use to that much work but she gave it her all for many hours. It seemed as if the horse knew she needed to work harder than she had in years and never let up. As dark set in for the day the dog was still no where to be found. We alerted all our neighbors once more and called it a day.

There was a good rain Saturday afternoon and the air cooled down nicely which made for a promising good hunt on Sunday morning. When the alarm went off a 4 AM I found out just how bad the spill was off the 4 wheeler as I was unable to raise my left arm without some pretty bad pain. I took some advil and drank some coffee but it didn't look good. I knew I wouldn't make it to the stand a 5 AM as I had hoped and at 4:45 I picked up my bow and tried a test draw. It was a no go as I couldn't get it back even once. This figured the best morning we had all week and I wasn't going to be able to hunt. So I just fixed breakfast and figured we would get a early start searching for the lost dog.

At 8 AM we left camp to look for the dog and as I neared the path that leads to my stand and feeder I creeped along only to be very disappointed when I was within 50 yards. I was welcomed to a snort and the sound of at least three or four deer running off. I knew it would have been the morning. Oh well I pushed on in search for our lost pup. By noon we still had no luck finding the dog and had to give up the search to get ready to head home.

After loading up everything thing, we put the two young dogs in the truck and the horse in the trailer and headed south. Half way between Woodville and Livingston on 190, my wife's cell phone rang and our missing dog had turned up at the very same house as she did the last time she was lost. So we turned around and head back north to get our lost pup. When we got there she was limping a little but other than that she was in good shape and is now home sleeping off the bad night in the woods.

Well no deer in the freezer but I do have a few pictures of the new camp, only I forgot and left the camera in the new cabin. Oh well my son and I will be up this coming weekend for another hunt and I'll get it then, and hopefully be adding some of our first deer of the season. It wasn't the best first week of bow season I ever had, but I would do it all over again if I had the chance. A week in the woods is better than a week in the conrete jungle any day.

Derek