Well, it's over. Early archery season 2007, that is...

And it's sort of bittersweet. With every passing year, I come to enjoy archery hunting more and more. The mild weather makes time in the woods more pleasant than the regular rifle season, but it's the close encounters with un-knowing game animals that seems to do it for me. Oh yeah, and the challenge. The deer are only un-knowing until you move a finger, or blink an eye. Then, they are on to you. I had a mature doe coming in close to my stand this year, a few times. Every time, it was like she knew I was sitting up there. She peeked around a tree she was feeding behind, and it wasn't like she scanned the landscape in front her and noticed something amiss, no. It was like her eyes were fixed on me before she poked her head out. Guess it was x-ray vision or something. Call it that whitetail sixth sense.
Anyway, with the season over with, I do have one in the freezer, and for that I am extremely grateful. And the freezer gods will be quiet a little longer now that there is a new supply of fresh venison. This season started off pretty slow. I wasn't seeing the deer I was expecting to see. Until Halloween that is. A pair of brothers on the hunting channel I watch, Mark and Terry Drury, of Drury Outdoors swear that October 31 is the day you want to be in the woods. While I only saw 2 deer that day, and it was just minutes after quitting time, that day did seem to make a turning point in deer activity where I was hunting.
In fact, it wasn't until this last week that I even had an opportunity at anything. Tuesday evening 11/6, I messed up an opportunity at a young doe. Really messed it up. Like, she was maybe 5 yards from the bottom of my tree, and I missed. I even took some practice shots rom my treestand before the season, and knew that at 15 yards, I had to hold my sight pin at least 6 inches low for the arrow to impact where I wanted it to. Apparently I didn't do that. There's a list of mistakes.........I rushed the shot. I didn't need to, she didn't know I was there. I don't think I had my anchor points, and I know that's sort or a requirement for making a good shot. Lastly, I didn't hold low like I knew I had to. Why? Not sure....excitement I guess. Anyway, I missed. It's a phenomenon I am used to by now when hunting with my bow. Yet, somehow I keep coming back.....
Thursday evening, 11/8. 4:40 pm. I hear a sound like a person walking in the dry leaves. I locate the sound of the noise, and realize it's not a person. It is a deer, and this deer isn't casually feeding t through the area. It has a nice body size, best I've seen yet. But it seems to be on a mission. After working it's way through some thick bruch to my right, this deer on a mission finally exposes itself. Yes, it was a buck. 6 point. First I've seen this year, and the only one I've ever seen in archery season. He casually makes his way towards my stand, and stops briefly. He went up on his hind legs slightly to rub his forehead on a low hanging branch, and then to my disbelief proceeded to make a brand new scrape not 25 feet from where I was sitting. He cruised onward, and finally was facing away from me enough that I could stand and draw the bow. But...in that process I knocked my arrow off the string. Luckily the type of rest I have captures the arrow (whicker biscuit from Trophy Ridge), so it didn't fall to the ground. In the time it took me to quietly fix that little screw up, he had kept moving, and was now getting to be 25 or so yards away. I finally got everything straightened out, and made the shot. He was quartering away at a pretty hard angle, so my target was smaller than it should have been. End result, I missed. I think I used my 20 yard pin. I also think I hit a tree branch, because when I went to recover my arrow, it was in a very strange position sticking in a pine tree abdout 40 yards or so from my stand. Unfortunately, I didn't have any tags for a pine tree, so I had to let that one go.
Running out of daylight now, I am just standing beside this pine tree for a minute, watching and listening, when I notice some movement in the brush 10 yards or so away from me. To my surprise, it is the yearling doe that I missed on Tuesday. She comes out of the brush and directly to me, until she is probably within 5 yards and gets nervous. She spooks briefly, stands for a minute then comes back to me, though a little further away this time. I was able to get the bo drawn while she passed behind a pile of brush, and she finally stepped into an opening between some trees. The arrow flew. The deer fell. 5:17 pm. Quitting time is 5:24. I think, had I not missed that 6 point, I would not have had an opportunity at this little doe. There just wasn't time for her to make it to my treestand at the her usual pace.
Bittersweet. I should have had the buck. I wanted the buck. Badly. However, had I not shot at and missed the buck, I would probably have nothing right now. But instead, I have another great hunting experience in the books, and a bit of fresh, nutritious venison in the freezer. Can I really ask for much more than that?