This has been a horrible year for me. I've been hunting for 51 years now (I'm 62) and this has been the worse one ever. Being retired I've been hunting all but a handful of days since our PA opener of archery on Oct 3. I've been after deer in my usual haunts plus a few new locations. I've hunted close to my vehicle to miles into the woods. During all this time I have only seen 2 yearling doe. Now with less than a week to go I am starting to suffer from hunting burnout. This is the first time I've ever experienced this. The only highlight of this hunting season was the chance to take another black bear but I passed on it because in my opinion it was too small. It went about 125 lbs and having already taken 4 bear here I'm not going to shoot another unless it approaches or goes over the 250 lb mark.
Now don't get me wrong. I still enjoy being out there. But getting up at the crack of dawn every morning is getting old and my desire to shoot a deer just for the sake of shooting one isn't like it used to be. I don't know if its because I'm mellowing out in my old age or is it because I still have a freezer full of moose meat from a hunt last fall!