I'm got a story similar to yours peakrut. The short version is that it was my first year bowhunting. (Freshman in H.S.) Ground hunting 'cause I couldn't afford a stand. (To this day I'm not sure I prefer one) Sun was going down and I religiously checked my watch back then for a countdown till legal hours were over. It was going to be a close call but I had a group of about 10 deer (does and fawn) making their way down the field edge towards me. I was gonna let an arrow fly if I got a shot, it would've been my first. Suddenly, with about 10 minutes of legal light left they all look up to my left, raise tail, and "C-YA"!!! I sat there confused for a good while. I knew they hadn't seen me, or heard...and was pretty confident they hadn't smelled me...(They were still at about 60yards when they ran and wind was steady and in my face the whole time) Then.......I start looking to my left. Coyote, maybe? A group of dogs out for a romp? Nope. One of the guys 2 or 3 years older than me who's house was about 300 yards to my right!!![:@] Guess he decided to quit early. This was on our land. And while I'm sure he hadn't gotten expressed permission its just kind of the understood code of the farming community around home so it bothered me about a 4 out of 10. Tough cookies I thought. He wasn't seeing anything, decided to go home, likely had a good supper on his mind and hadn't bothered to see if he was spooking MY deer on his way!!! Even if he had he wouldn't known they were mine cause he couldn't have picked my out. I was a stone while I watched those deer make way towards me.
That's not the end. He had to walk RIGHT by me on his way home. I just sat there stunned regretting my poor luck. But do you know what he does when he gets to me. He's all excited with eyes like saucers and says....."Hey, man...did you see those deer!!!! There must've been a dozen of them!!". I don't know what I said back, don't know if I said anything at all. [:@]But I do remember wondering what a muzzy would do to a human calf muscle as he walked off!!!!!!![:@][:@]
Didn't make me want to quit but sure was discouraging!!!
I've had slow years before but everytime I think about quitting I ask what I'm gonna do instead. Watch more TV? I'm not the type who has to be active every waking hour but I watch maybe 5 hours of TV a week and still consider that too much. Work more hours? I get enough of that during the summer months!!! No, there's that saying that a bad day of hunting better than a good day of work. As I get older it gets more true. (As long as I'm not behind or short on money
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I suppose I got 'em back though. That winter was my first shotgun season too and apparently I "stole" his little cousins first deer (ended up as my first deer also.) His uncles were driving them to me (illegal in my state btw) and since I didn't know what a deer drive sounded like I knew something was up but hadn't put two and two together. When I saw a nice spike (who I THOUGHT was a doe making its way about 30 yards to my left I dropped him. Apparently, his cousin was in a treestand about 75 yards behind me and watched the whole thing!!! (I couldn't find my stand that morning in the dark so I just sat under the fattest tree I could find. Plenty wide enough to hide me from him.) Again, this was our land and my dad had told them exactly where we had planned to hunt, so didn't feel tooooo bad about it. For all I know he was in my ladderstand that morning. I was too excited to put all this together until we were gutting the deer.
Yeah, I think I'll keep hunting, even if I don't get to do it much, just for the good stories!!