Well this morning was a perfect opening day, zero wind, calm as could be and it was frosty white and cold. Today was for Connie, she only gets to hunt a few days out of the season so whatever came by she had first crack.
Connie could only hunt untill noon because we have a new Black lab Puppy, he just turned 4 months old and she had to be back home for him. The shooting started well befor legal light, heck I heard shots at 6:40 and legal light is around 7:18. A few weeks back I make us a nice 2 person ground blind and surrounded it with cut cedar branches and old stuff in the woods. I also cut each of us 2 shooting sticks with a "Y" at the top and had them pushed way in the ground so they were solid and aimed at the spots where I expected to see deer.
Around 7:30 we had deer running all through the woods by us, but no good shots for connie, we saw a few small bucks and 1 8pt and a bunch of does. We had a few big swamp does in the 130-140lb range that were close but connie wanted a buck, so we waited.
At 7:50 I spied a buck walking our way and told connie to get ready, the buck was around 80yds. She cocked back the hammer and was on him, I told her to wait untill he stoped and was, then BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!! He hit the ground instantly! Connie yealled He's Down! We high fived and I tried to see how big he was through my scope but could'nt as his head was just over a knoll in the woods. Connie wanted to go see her buck but I said let him lay and lets hunt forawhile longer, mabey something else will come through.
We saw a few more good Does come by but it's just opening day and we have the whole season to go she passed on them and we finally went to see her buck at around 9:30
There laid a beautiful 6pt, connie was excited. Her shot was on the right side of the buck high in the lungs. But the bullet must have hit a bone because after it went through the lungs it went upward and exited high by the spine, thus the drop on the sopt.
We hunted till noon and nothing more but small bucks and does so I dragged the buck to what we call the hidden meadow and walked 2 miles back to our vehicles, connie drove her car and me my truck and she went home.
Now the fun began, after all our hunting party talked about what everyone got my one buddy went to get the 4 wheeler and start getting the deer out on the sled attached to the back. My problems started on the walk in, prior to opening day my buddy and I fixed our only access to one part of his property that was washed out by the rain. The creek off the main swamp had once again washed away all our work from Hurricane Sandy, Connies deer was 1 1/2 miles past this point in the wood still, and no snow and no way for me to get it out with the 4 wheeler execpt to drag it out. Now I have dragged many deer from that point, but with no snow this was gonna be hard. My buddy said ni way can he get accross with his 4 wheeler unless somehow I fix it with rocks and logs while he's getting out the other deer.
I began the fix, I found some of the logs I cut that were washed away down stream in the creek, plus some big boulders, I worked for over an hour carrying 100lb rocks and logs and thought I had a good fix. My buddy came by and looked and said that should work, a sigh of relief from me as I knew if he could'nt get connies deer it was going to take me a few hours and the rest of the afternoon to get it out. But the worst part is while I was in the creek getting boulders I slipped into deep water and filled my boots full, the creek water was freezing.
My buddy went and got connies deer and even though I was freezing and boots full of water I decided to stay and finish out the afternoon hunt. AsI sat there fe=reezing with hypothermia setting in here came some deer, big does, I refused to shoot anything back in there unless it was a big buck, none showed, it got dust and I left and could'nt wait to get home and into the shower and dry clothes. But it was all worth it seeing Connie get her buck on opening day 2 years in a row.
Included are some pics, connie and her buck, our ground blind and view, the swamp creek that washed away our path over it and my partial fix.
As Im wrriting this I just finished cleaning connies MLer, she loves me. Oh, her buck weighed in at 143lbs, not bad for a little Northern 1 1/2 year old.
(BP)