Well our trip started off well. On the way up we see a spike in the shade around 5:00pm, not sure what he was thinking because it was freakin HOT out. Get closer to our camp and my brother catches a glimpse of a cat as it runs over the hill. At camp we find a doe bedded down and watch a big old black bear runs across the road in front of us. Lots of critters seen before the opening morning, but nothing legal. Got up around 5:15am, got the coffee and bear claws out and stood around in our shorts because it was freakin HOT!!... I didn"™t even want to put on my long sleeve shirt, but did it anyways. Got the face paint on and it was a good thing I did!! Drove out to the spot we wanted to get to. Parked and started to walk down the mountain to a water hole that usually holds some deer. Well the wind decided to tell us that this was a bad idea. So instead we had to walk down and around the mountain and come to the water from the western side. As we are walking there is a little breeze, but it is very quiet and still. Hot and Crunchy I realized that I had forgotten our bear"™s feet, Oh well at this point. So my brother and I are slowly, and I mean slowly in order to keep the noise down, making our way around the mountain to get to the west side. Don"™t see anything going around the mountain and we get in place on a couple good deer trails and start making our way back up to the top of the mountain. Slight breeze in our face we are still hunting along and come across a big group of mountain quail. It being very hard to hold out putting a judo through them, we did and waited seeing as how it was opening morning and all. My brother takes a deer trail going to my left that parallels me at about 30 yards or so and we are slowly making our way up the mountain. I am stopped after seeing 4 empty deer beds and just happen to look up and see the back of a deer standing on the trail I have been walking on, and then I see RACK!! Well my heart starts beaten out of my chest and I get the shacks. Standing there taking deep breathes I range him at 32 yards and he is tall and wide and appears to be a 3x4. I have no shot as he eats towards me and behind a bush. Then I hear a deer come running right at me from behind that same. It is another deer with a smaller rack and comes bouncing out towards me. I can see he is not as tall or wide and appeared to be a 2x3. The 2x3 comes to my right and goes behind a few small pine trees at about 25 yards. Then the big boy decides to bounce towards the 2x3 and I come to full draw. Heart pounding, blurred vision, shacking like a willow tree"¦..you gotta love it!!! I hold the draw with no shot a the big boy as he goes behind the same group of small trees and the little guy 2x3 comes out and starts walking right to me. I wait and wait and know that he is going to end up walking right over me. He gets to about 10 yards and I standing between two small pine trees and guess my camo really works because he was lookin right at me. He takes a turn to the right and is now between 8 and 6 yards from me and walks between two small shrubs and I let an arrow go. Thump and off he trots to my right at about 5 yards and goes back down the trail I came up on. It appeared I hit him right behind the right front leg. Well the big boy is still standing there, then he snorts and hop"™s off out in the open and turns to look at me. I look down the mountain and see my brother giving me the thumbs up and I motion for him to let him know there is one more. He comes up the hill and we sneak around the small pines and he has one small opening at the bigger buck at 30 yards between a dead tree and a small pine. He shoots and it goes right over the bucks back. The big guy trots off up the hill some and my brother goes after him and I start the process of the recovery of my deer!!!
So how do you cope with the heat while hunting? I'm hunting NH this year which starts the second week of September and it is going to be warm out. Any suggestions how to hunt the heat?
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Mathews Outback
TRU Glo XTREME 5 pin
QAD Ultra-Rest
Soft Loc 5 Arrow Quiver
T.R.U. Ball Rackmaster Pro
Carbon Express 250 with Thunderhead 100's
Congrats on a great buck. Thats the way to start the season off. Is your season done now or do you have more tags? Are you going to get the buck mounted in velvet?
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"Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure."
CA B-Zone Success
