By the time the gun seasons open in MD, I've logged many hours in a stand. I always take off the last week of Oct and the first two weeks of Nov to hunt the rut and I spend many of those days on dark-to-dark vigils in my stand. This year was even tougher because it was very warm for the entire 3 weeks I took off and the big bucks only moved at night. I still saw deer and took 4 of them, but the big bruisers I know live ther never showed themselves and daytime sightings were WAY down.

It got very tough. Very hard to drag yourself from bed each morning knowing that you'll sit all day in a stand and likely only see early morning and late afternoon sightings of smaller deer. Now that guns seasons have arrived, the sightings will cease altogether for the next 7 or 8 weeks while guns go off all over the woods -- I'm still toting just my bow. . . and YES, I'm tired.