Deer Hunting - Opening Weekend 2023

A strange Opener.   We made elaborate plans....only to have them go out the window.  One hunter had to bow out due to family obligations.  Another, although feeling ok, had been recently ill and had a positive Covid test.  This was a deal breaker for yet another hunter with a new baby at home.

Also, the weather was weird and warm.  And....deer numbers are down due to a late winter storm in April.  Do these sound like excuses?  Perhaps offered by someone who had not even seen a deer?*

Yes.

There are more hunters in our little patch of the woods.  On Opening Morning a kid had a stand set up just up the deer trail from my favorite spot.  Not a problem really, its public land.  But he shot two deer (this is legal, one buck one doe) that should have been strolling down the path to my stand.  Various other minor set backs cropped up later in the weekend.  A glitchy gps.  A solitary hunter who for some reason decided to park himself directly in the shooting lane from my favorite stand.  (I let him have the area, public land again, but when I went past hours later I noted he had moved again.  He just seems to be wandering around scaring the deer to no purpose).

Ah well.  My oldest son got a deer.  We will have another go at them tomorrow.  But definitely a sub par hunting year for us.

View from a tree stand number one.  The shadows make it look like I was thirty feet up!

View from a tree stand number two.  One morning I had a stand where, in theory, I would shoot across this river at unsuspecting deer on the other bank.  In theory.

A positive Covid test poses a few challenges for a host.  The young couple had their dinner and beverage out on the screen porch.  They seemed pretty happy.

We'll see what Monday has for us.  As the pictures show the weather has been ridiculously nice.  This has been pleasant but deer actually prefer gloomy weather.  This bright sunshine has not been helpful.

Guess that sounds like another excuse.

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* Technically I have seen deer.  But either outside of legal hours or in places I can't shoot 'em. They are out there....my grand daughter noticed four of them loitering outside the cabin and banged on the window to get them to move along.  Sigh.