Something To Be Thankfull

A trip to the woods this time of year starts with layers. Bundling up is not just about being comfortable it’s about staying alive. The wind blowing 10- 20 mph and raw temps dipping into the single digits, hypothermia can set in in less than 10 minutes. With your focus on the deer and hunting it’s not likely that you would even notice.

My best fried and I took one evening and sat over the patio patch. The setup could not have been better, the wind in our faces, a haystack to stand behind and steady off of and the end of the coldest week yet this year. When it’s this cold the deer were bound to move it was just a matter of time.

I was all out of tags but he had just one doe tag left. I was simply showing him where to sit for maximum opportunity. A phew does scatter in the field, way out of range and stat to feed. Their was no hop of any kind of stalk and daylight was drifting away when the rut helped us out. A beautiful main frame 5point jumped the fence and chased the does all the way across the field to about 170 yds from us and they all stop and get a bite to eat and my fried drops the hammer on the lead doe. Since their was so much snow on the haystack, when he shot I lost sight of the deer due to the cloud of snow hovering around us. Just after the shot this huge KerWaaaap! Comes back to us. This noise is characteristic of a solid bone crushing shot. Then my hopes was confirmed when the snow cleared, he had broke both front shoulders and she had traveled only 30 yds. 3 feet above me, slowwitted against the frosty sky I see the look of pure joy. No hoopin’ and hallerin’ no jumping around but pure joy!

We get out to where the deer had been standing and we see 35 deer on the edge of the field that had come in in the time that it took us to get off the haystack. We get to the scene of the crime and what a scene it is! A perfect red mist cone on the snow on the far side of the tracks where the deer was standing, chunks of jelly lung on the path to the doe, and the icing on the cake, a grape fruit sized hole where the shoulder socket was supposed to be! From the hunt to the kill to seeing him so happy their truly was a lot to be thankful for that Thanks giving night.

Good luck and good hunting.