This will be a short one. Same story, different day. Too warm, too windy, not too many deer. None, in fact. Wait - one deer. At dawn, as I rode by the Sanctuary, one of the two yearlings we always see around the place was feeding among the pines. Other than that we saw a few grouse, one weasel, some geese heading south, and a whole lotta nothin' else. Didn't even take a picture of anything today. Walked out of the woods about as down as I've ever been as a hunter. Even having my daughter hunt with me wasn't enough to overcome just how badly this week has gone.
So, just like that I've gone from writing with excitement on the eve of the opener to barely mustering a couple of paragraphs on the eve of my final day of this week-long hunt. In a nutshell, this has been (so far) the worst hunting season ever. I've already written about how quickly the fortunes of a hunter can turn - but tomorrow is forecast to be more of the same weather-wise. And since tomorrow is leaving day I won't be hunting for more than five or six hours. It's hard to believe my fortunes are going to change at all.
The needed weather change is coming, though. On Thursday. When I'll be 200 miles away. Thursday the rain starts, Friday the snow starts, and on Saturday the fun starts. I'm putting it in writing, right here today, that Saturday, on the back end of that weather system, in new snow, the deer will be stampeding in all directions. And that, my readers, is the most commas you'll ever see in a sentence. The lovely October weather we've had this first week of November has been horrible for hunting. But the November weather system that's coming later this week will trigger some incredible deer activity. Probably.
I'll put in half of one more lousy day of hunting in lousy beautiful weather, return to the town that isn't home, and count the hours until I can get back up here to experience at least one day of exciting hunting.
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