Saturday morning was opening morning of second gun season. I was in my blind with bow at first light and experienced my first missed shot ever on a nice doe at about 25 yards. Arrow skimmed right under her. Anyway, I was a little miffed at myself but moved on with the morning. Saw some more does running through the woods in the next hour before an infamous character in our neck of the woods shows up. The guys at the local bait shop call him walking eagle - too full of sh-t to fly. lol.

Anyway, I digress. This guy comes thundering down a dirt road into the woods about 100 yards adjacent to me in a big truck and gets out, slams the door really loud and starts rustling around through the leaves. The land next to our's is land his family owns so he has permission to be there. But what he does next blows me away, he pulls on an orange ski mask and grabs his bow out of the truck and starts slowly walking aroundthe woods doing a stalk, crunching leaves the whole way.

First off, the guy is nowhere nearly wearing the required orange clothing during firearms season - just a ski mask. (Before anyone comments, I am on private land and have strips of orange duck tape on my ground blind during firearms season.) And second, what does he think is going to happen? that he's going to take a running shot at a deer with a bow or just hope one runs out and stops right in front of him? Sure, the latter could happen but odds are worse than him winning the powerball.

So while he's doing his stalk - no loud walk - through the woods, I start blowing on my grunt call. I am safely out of bow range mind you but he freezes and looks around. A few minutes later he starts walking again and I blow on my grunt call. Freezes again and crouches behind a tree. This process was repeated a few times before he finally got back in his truck and left. I'll bet the big buck sighting story came out when he got to the bait shop that day. It must have had 20 points!

BTW, as soon as he was driving away, a doe and her fawns popped out of nowhere and strolled past his stalking route. Made the whole morning and missed shot worth it.