I’m not only talking about fall! I have been bowhunting hard for 7 years and have passed up little bucks, some does, and even taken a crack at a nice buck or two, but still remained skunked with the bow…until opening weekend this year!
Opening day came around and Justin and I were ready as ever to get out in the treestands again. This year feels like my year, but then again when I am in the outdoors I always feel on top of the world. We woke up a couple hours before sunrise, got our scent free showers in, and got out to the stands. We kicked out a couple deer on the way in, which is never a good feeling. We finally got settled into the stand and got to watch the first sunrise of the season from the tree. We anxiously awaited our first sighting, but it never came.
Day 2 was completely opposite. There was no sunrise because it was cloudy and rainy all day long. But, we had to stick it out. We caught our first glimpse of a deer in the morning. A shooter! He was an 11 pointer we had never seen before on camera, but he was a good buck with a lot of potential. He was coming in on a line it seemed like until he slightly altered course and went to the wrong side of the tree. He maybe gave me a half second opportunity at 30 yards but I didn’t want to rush a shot. He just bedded down in front of us and we got to watch him. Exactly how we wanted our day to start!
Later that afternoon, we got out to the stand again just to be greeted by more rain. Luckily, we weren’t up in the stand for more than an hour before our first sightings of the night. It was two does and they were right on the trail we wanted them to be on (pretty rare when things go right for me up in a stand with my bow!). The bigger doe stopped 20 yards out in a clearing and gave me a slightly quartering away angle. Justin was behind me telling me to wait so he could rearrange the camera, so I waited. A couple seconds later I heard him say something else about shooting, so I thought that meant go for it. So, I released. The arrow found its mark perfectly. She ran off in the brush and I stood in shock that something actually went my way finally!
After the shock went away, I turned to Justin. I knew something wasn’t right by the confused look on his face. He said, “I told you not to shoot!” I explained to him what I interpreted from him. At this point we were both confused. We weren’t sure if he was on the wrong deer or maybe he wasn’t on any deer. Luckily, after reviewing the footage we found that he was on the right deer, although my shot caught him off guard.
With decent footage and my first deer ever with a bow down 100 yards away, I couldn’t have been happier! I was very excited that after all the hard work and time I was finally able to put one down. It is a feeling that you can only feel a couple times in your life. I was glad I was able to share the experience with Justin and all of our Huntinglife readers and viewers!
