Day 7 - Same old, same old...with a new partner.

Had a new hunting partner today.

The hunting game changed today.  Daughter Two joined me in the woods for the first time this season.  Very happy to have her, but having a partner really changed my approach to the hunt.  Out an hour later in the morning, changed spots a lot more often, and the noise!  Four feet crunching through leaves might as well have been a herd of elephants draped with sleigh bells.

This morning finally felt like a hunting morning - for the first time the air felt cold; not cool, not chilly, but cold.  We started at the Slaughterhouse, where we promptly chased a deer away as we climbed into the stand.  The trail camera showed us it was probably a doe.  Finding the stand a bit crowded with two of us, I left her up in the tree while I went and stood on the meadow's edge.  A flock of swans flew overhead, heading south.  Half of the meadow was draped in sunshine while the shadowed half was still coated with frost.  No wind.  Another beautiful morning completely uninterrupted by those pesky deer.

After a couple of hours we left the Slaughterhouse and tried a new tactic: we set up a couple of camp chairs at a bend on the main logging road, which gave us a clear view of a long stretch of the road.  A view that was uninterrupted by those pesky deer.  So we moved again.  At noon we set up our chairs at a different spot along the road, a spot I have a trail camera (I TOLD you, I've got them everywhere) hanging over a scrape.  The camera has shown us several bucks that like to visit the scrape in daylight hours; seemed like a good spot to eat lunch and see a deer.

At 1:15 we were discussing our next move when Daughter said she heard something behind us.  I looked over my shoulder to see a deer approaching, not 20 yards away.  It stopped and lifted its head to reveal a solid 6-point rack.  As often happens, when we saw him he saw us.  He was upwind, though, so he could only use his eyes to figure us out.  He had a hard time.  He lifted his head up and dropped it down, turned sideways and around and back again, walked away and walked back.  And no, we didn't shoot.  He always kept an eye on us so we couldn't make a move to turn around, and to be honest I didn't really want to shoot him.  I've seen him on camera and had decided he would be a buck I'd let grow; his rack is really heavy for a young deer, so he seems to have the potential for developing a special set of antlers someday.  However, I whispered and told Daughter that if he came out into the clearing she could take a shot at him.  He didn't.  He finally decided that he needed to leave without figuring us out, so he bolted down the road that led straight away from us.

When we caught our breath we moved on - sat at the Bald Knob for a while and heard a deer but saw nothing.  We finished our day along the hayfield up north, seeing two deer on the eastern horizon followed by one old hunter (my dad) trying to catch up with them.  And that was that.  Yet another day with limited action and no results.  But another day with a beautiful sunrise and a spectacular sunset.  Another day with a spotless blue sky.  And an entire day with my daughter, sharing lessons about hunting and creating some special memories for her.  I have to keep reminding myself that the journey of hunting is more important than the destination; today it was a lot easier to enjoy the journey.

But if we don't get another deer soon I'm probably going to cry.  And starve.

The meadow in front of the Slaughterhouse stand, with Spring Crick running through the middle.