Hunting for us is done for the year. We have been fortunate enough to hunt the last 8ish years at a property in Amish country. Really nice cabin and a couple of hundred acres. Unfortunately, the owner is in the process of selling the cabin, a bunch of the land and then the rest is being timbered heavily. Regardless, it was another great chance to hunt with my younger son, who is the one who got me into hunting (he wanted to learn so I had to learn first).
Short summary - lots of beautiful weather made for bad hunting conditions. I don't ever recall being so warm in the stand. He managed to get a button buck and I took a 6-point. His goal was if he couldn't get a good size buck he wanted one that "was tender." We hunt for meat and I was happy to fill the freezer again this year.
This morning was my last day on the property and I had great hopes of a perfect morning. When I fell asleep the weather forecast was rain stopping at 7AM. By the time I woke up it said it would stop by 8AM. Still fine timewise. So I took my climber up a tree in the only spot we had been seeing deer consistently. A few minutes after legal shooting time it was absolutely pouring and still dark. I had my hood up on my jacket, which I hate doing because it restricts my view so much, but the downpour required it (Screw the weather forecasts that said .05 inches. I think it was closer to 1/3 inch that hour).
Anyways, I had to do an exaggerated turn of my head to see to my left due to the hood blocking a lot of my vision (I had monovision LASIK a few years back and my right eye is my distance eye). By the time I turned my head I saw something about 10 yards away take off the other way. No clue, but my guess is a buck heading to a bedding area that was in the woods behind my climber location. It never made a noise and I certainly did not expect to see anything with it raining so hard.
The plan was to stay in the climber until at least 10AM. Around 9AM the rain was still coming down hard. All of a sudden the bottom of my climber dropped an inch or two. This completely freaked me out as I had not moved at all and I was alone at the far end of the property. My son had headed back to college and I stuck around to hunt a few more days.
I took it as a message to get down and be happy with the two deer. What's that old expression about pigs, hogs and getting slaughtered;-) I packed my climber, headed back to the cabin, loaded everything into the car, and headed for home. It finally stopped raining around 1PM.
The sad part is this might be the last time I get to do a hunt like this with my son. Definitely on this property. His studies are only getting more intensive and if he enters the profession he wants it will be another 7-10 years before he is even done with school. He even commented he may not get to hunt again until "I am an adult." All I know is I am glad we made the memories we did and spent so much time together.
