Opening Weekend Score - Deer 3, Semisane 0
 

Well guys, I made three hunts this weekend; Saturday morning, Saturday evening, and this morning (Sunday).

Saturday morning I had a doe and yearling enter the food plot around 7:20 a.m. I was sitting in a box stand and watched them feed for fifteen minutes or so at 80 yards out. I was trying to decide if the doe was over or under the 100 lb. mark. Club rules limit us to two does so I try to make sure they give me a good meat yield.

I finally decided to take a shot. As I very slowly eased the Omega X7 out of the window both the doe and yearling took off for the tree line at a brisk pace. I'm thinking "there's no way they caught my movement". Just then a 10" spike buck strutted stiff legged onto to plot. He acted like he was "THE MAN". He was lucky we don't shoot young bucks, or he would have been "THE MEAT". At least I know it wasn't me that spooked the doe and yearling. The buck hung around for ten minutes or so, then disappeared in the same direction as the others.

It had been pretty chilly that morning, but started edging toward seventy degrees around 9:30 a.m. About that time I felt movement on my left arm. Looked down and saw one of these bad boys crawling along my shirt sleeve, still a little numb from the morning chill.



I used my binoculars to brush him off my arm onto the floor, then stomped him flat. A few minutes later I felt movement on the back of my left shoulder. DANG, another giant red wasp. And this one was a little livelier than the first one. As I was maneuvering around in the cramped box attempting to brush off and dispatch the second intruder I spotted another one crawling up the wall. Then another one, and another one. It turns out there was a nest with about twenty of those suckers hanging from the bottom the the chair I was sitting on. They had been dormant from the cold, but the warming weather sure "activated" them.



Anyway, I spent quite a bit of time cautiously squishing those inch-and-a-half long devils - one by one - before they got too lively. Didn't see another deer. Deer 1, Semisane 0.

Three hours Saturday evening overlooking the same little food plot kept me entertained. A smallish doe and little "devil horn" spike entered the plot and had a game of tag before dinner. Then that same 10" spike from the morning came out. But this time he must have been in a better mood because he went to munching clover and completely ignored to other two feeding twenty yards away. Didn't see a shooter. Deer 2, Semisane 0.

This morning it was already above sixty degrees when dawn broke, with an intermittent (and damp) S.E. wind and heading toward 80+ degrees. That was bad news. Our deer sightings go way down when the wind switches to S.E. and they don't move much during daylight hours when it's that warm. I sat in the stand to 10:30 and didn't see anything except a couple of squirrels and crows. Deer 3, Semisane 0.

Anyway, it was a most enjoyable weekend. It's a long season and I know there are two big does out there with my name on them. Maybe even a nice buck.

I Feel for ya Semi....one of the Best Tree Stands I put up this year was one that had a Nest of Grey Squirrel's in it. Just about Deer Time the Grey Squirrels thought it was time to go to sleep and found Me in there Tree. Have you ever wished that you could just reach out and Strangle a Squrirrel or Blow His Butt into Squirrel Heaven. Wasp are Long Gone from us here, but they sure do PYO when your sitting by the Bon Fire and you go to move your lawn Chair only to find there's a Nest of them under the Lawn Chairs Arm and you go Running Screaming as there Biting You while everyone's Laughing.

One of the guys in our club has a box stand on the West side of our lease. Sometime during the summer a thunder storms must have blown one of the windows open. When he went to check the stand last month he saw the open window as he approached, and lots of white streaks down the outside below the window.

As he climbed the ladder to enter the box an American Black Vulture jumped up to the window sill and took off. That stinky old bird had a nest on the seat of the office chair in the stand.

Talk about a mess. There must have been two inches of poop on the floor. The chair was not salvageable. It smelled so bad he just hauled it away. He scraped up the poop with a 6" putty knife and sprayed the whole interior of the box with a Clorox solution in a garden sprayer. We now call that one the "Buzzard Sh!t" stand.

I am glad you got to see deer and had a good time, even though the bees were trying to mess you up.

Every time I think of bees, I think of the time I was out in the yard with my black labrador. He was kind of young and full of "snoopy everything." I saw him sniffing along the ground near the garage and never thought anything of it to be honest, until he stuffed his nose into a hole in the ground under an old spruce plank. That dog backed out about 100 miles an hour with bumble bees in hot pursuit. All I could see were little yellow spots all over that dog. And being the wonderful pet he was, he headed straight to me and went between my pants legs, brushing them bumble bees off.

After that I was jumping around like some monkey, and took off on a dead run towards the house with the dog hot on my heals. I never got stung somehow. Later that night I went out and shot that nest real hood with Raid Wasp and Hornet spray. That stuff kills all critters.

Boy Cayugad, I can just see you and that black Lab racing each other to the door.

Well at least you had a nice relaxing weekend Semi. Cayugad, that bee story was funny, Some day I will have to relate mine. Maybe this winter when we are looking for things to talk about.

Glad you had a nice hunt! My story is about black wasps.

Could you send me a couple in a alcohol vial for my collection?

Ya I got an insect collection - I worked with insects and helped make Raid for many years!

JW

Will do JW. I'll try to collect a few next weekend. Send me a mailing address in a PM.

Before I retired I worked with quite a few insects also. They were disguised as bureaucrats and i'm pretty sure some were already preserved in alcohol.

I HATE bees! Luckily for you they hadn't thawed out yet.

Don't feel bad Semi, I hunted 6 days last week and came home with only 2 turkeys. Completely skunked on big deer. Seen lots of small ones though. The season is still young for you my friend. Plenty of time!