So this year's buck was a less-than-perfect, non-textbook, kinda ugly episode.
But it was a glorious learning experience for me, and a grand example of what's great about hunting with other guys.
My shot was not a good one, I gut shot this guy. Now l did the right thing - I called JohnROhio to let him know what was up - I'd located the arrow and did NOT go tramping up the area. He showed up with Jesse and Joe and we all commenced to tracking the blood. While the rest of us worked the blood, Joe swung out ahead of us to try and cut the blood trail and was actually successful a couple of times, cutting down the time needed. On one of his sweeps he shone his light out ahead of him and picked up eyes reflecting in the light - it was the deer bedded down. He called us all up and after conferring it was dedided that the best thing to do was back out and come back in the morning. When I did, he was right where I expected him to be - but the yotes had gotten to him first. So I lost the hindquarters. But here's the cool part - I'd never tracked a bedded deer before, so that was a learning experience. And, I was planning on gutting/cutting in the traditional manner to bring out part of the deer, but the boys brought some plastic bags and we just cut out the backstraps and front quarters, and the head. John also showed me how to cut out the tenderloins from the outside - I'd never done that before, and I gotta say I like it.
I'd have never recovered that deer by myself.
When I first started hunting, i was "ate-up" with it. And I learned a lot the hard way, trial and error.
and I hunted a lot. A LOT.
But I gotta say, I'm finding that I enjoy hunting best now when I'm in camp with other guys, sharing the experience, sharing the good times, sharing the work, and learning from other guys and their experience. In the book of Proverbs, God says that "As iron sharpens iron, so does a man sharpen a man." Ben invited me to his camp, and I'm glad I took him up on it, now I'm part of that group. Rich put out a general invitation about bear hunting in NJ - I mean who goes to NJ to bear hunt? Glad I did, along with Big Jon - what a great week! I got a muzzy hunt invite for this year, gonna take that up too. My suggestion is that if you're invited to go to an outing, to someone's camp, or to do something outside your normal zone - don't hesitate to take it up!
Sitting at the campfire at the end of the week at Strouds, I looked around at all the faces and noted that every single person there had either helped me out or offered to help me that week, whether it was unloading/loading, cooking, something I needed, tracking, dragging, whatever...every single person there was a blessing.
Here's that ugly deer, as he lay..