well boys...i hate to say it...but its tag soup for captian Mauser. this late season has not been good to me...getting up and hunting every area i see deer sign with the bow..then doing drives with the flintlock from lunch time till dark or if we stop early i climb back in a stand with the bow...havent seen ANYTHING from the stand...not even a tail or a snort...the deer are simply living in backyards and walking to the farmland to eat at night.

i almost killed a buck with the flintlock. it was coming out of the drive 70yds away..my buddy was up on the next hillside about 100yds from me and about 75+yds from the deer. it was between us but running directly down the deer trail i was standing on. cracked back the hammer and got ready to drop him when we got close...well my idiot buddy decided to shoot at it. he cant hit a barn 5yds infront of him and we all know it...but he shot anyway...bye bye buck.

i thought the kid was my best friend..i would called him my best friend..but now after that i dont think so. friends dont do stuff like that to friends. if it was running towards him i would never shot. i would helped him gut and drag it and congradulated him.

this season taught me alot. i love bowhunting and hate gunhunting. and i now hate doing deer drives. i learned i dont need guys to drive deer and other guys in the group as "competition" all of us trying to tag a deer. this year i seen more deer and more bigger bucks on stand then i did when we were driving them. what do i need to waste time with them for?? simply put i dont. im better off alone..worrying about myself and tagging my own deer. i just always thought my chances were better hunting with them guys..but this season taught me im better off climbing a tree..next year im going to be much more serious in bowhunting. i didnt realize id get to hunt as much as i did this year with college and work and everything so i ended up overhunting all of my stands. not next year. im going to start VERY soon for next year...beating on doors and getting permission around here and up at school. going to scout them all hard and also refine my spots everywhere else. i much rather bag a buck with the bow than have to rifle hunt again.

sorry to let you guys down.....i feel lucky to got a shot at a respectable buck my first year of bowhunting and im glad i was on a good team. i learned alot this year and gave it my all. the important thing is that i learned..cant get any better unless you learn. wish i would have killed that buck...but thats the way things go sometimes.

another thing that chapped my arse today when i was leaving the farm the farmer friend of mine said "when schools out in May you just better start shooting that bow so you kill yours next year" i said it wasnt my shooting the shooting was fine the deer ducked. then chimes in my "buddys" cousin that "bowhunts" and he says no it wasnt the deers fault! coming from a guy that shoots his bow a couple times a year and i was shooting circles around him my first week ever shooting. gut shot every deer he ever killed with a bow. think he got 2 bucks to his name..one was found by luck the next day and the other was found weeks later by a rabbit hunter. errrrr im definently done hanging around them guys........