Well so much for that ideal. I left my house at 0430 for the hour drive to Letterkenny. There was only hunter in the deer management area and guess where he was at? Yelp, the very stand I wanted to hunt. It's all good though. He checked in at 0400 so I'm guessing he wanted it pretty darn bad. :smiley_coolpeace:
So I go to another area and that's when the real problems started. I was half way up the tree when my climbing aid BROKE!!!! The aluminum tubing was cracked and started stretching outwards! I managed to tie off the aid so that it would spread anymore and climbed the last two feet I needed. My stand is jacked up, but I figure I'm already up and I may as well hunt. Then I drop my hat and one of my hand warmers. Then as I'm pulling my bow up, the tow rope gets caught in a sticker bush and I end up with a thorn in my thumb!
OK, not that I'm settled and I think I'm ready to hunt, my back starts aching. I've been dealing with some back issues lately and climbing that tree with a broken tree stand didn't help....
60 minutes later I said screw it and left. The snow was REALLY coming down and I just didn't have the desire to be there (dang I'm going soft). So, that's probably gonna be it for the rest of the season because I can't afford a new climber. It's cool though. I need to focus on school and ski season opened today.