What A Frustrating Day!
After today's events, I am really frustrated. Woke up this morning, not realizing clocks got set back an hour, and looked outside. It was so foggy I couldn't see 10 yards. Thought, sunrise will be in an hour, maybe it'll clear up. Went to the shop and suited up. Walked to the stand and got in place. Waited and waited. After what seemed like forever, I checked my phone and saw that it had only been 30 minutes. When the sun finally started up, the fog got thicker and I couldn't even see the ground below the stand. I got down and returned to the house. When I walked in, the wife told me to reset all the clocks to reflect daylight savings time. I was in that dang stand at 5:00 in the morning! Spent most of the day helping the neighbor fix fence.When the clock on theATV said it was4:30, I said I'd better go get ready to hunt. I left the neighbors, got suited up, and started walking to the stand. From the house to the stand it's about 1/2 mile. About 1000' South of the house, a buck jumped up from the fenceline. There was a lot of scrub between me and him and I didn't have a shot, so I ducked down to see what he did. He looked back for the longest time and gave me the opportunity to see he was a wide 12 pointer. I have not seen this beast before, and wondered where he came in from. He finally turned and headed North. There was no way to get through the brush to get a shot at him, so I waited a minute and then continued South. I got into the stand and got all set up. After a bit I noticed the sun was still awful high in the sky for it being somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00, so I looked at the phone again. That's right, I didn't reset the clock on the ATV. It was 3:55 and I still had 1:35 to go until darkness. I settled in for another long wait. At 4:40, a button buck went by, walking like he had just woken up. At 5:20, a heavy 8 pointer came out of the woods to the West of me and started working his way towards me. With about 5 minutes of light left, he was 100 yards away. I thought, "he'd better hurry up or it'll be too dark to shoot!" Just then he took off North running. A couple of minutes later I heard him and another buck sparring. I climbed down in the dark and made a big arc around where the two were sparring. Then I walked home. I had two shooters in sight and no chance to get off a shot. I am torqued. All the time I have been sitting in stands, and my first two real chances end up with me coming home empty handed again!