Somehow the Feather's hunting party managed to make some lemonade out of a "lemon" deer season. This season far fewer deer were seen than normal, the population was was way down and all hunters were prepared for a slow boring season.
It all started when Pete Thompson went in to put up a new stand one afternoon early in the bow season, after taking the time to cut brush and hang the stand there wasn't enough time to go anywhere else and hunt, so figured the hunt was ruined and he would just climb up into the stand he had just hung and enjoy the nice afternoon. Not long after he climbed up he could here deer coming through the reed grass. At first it looked like there were going to go the wrong way, but at the last minute they turned and walked right through the shooting lane he had just cleared, a well placed arrow had a nice 8 pt laying just a few yards up the trail!
The season only got better when Wade Thompson shot his first deer with a bow, a HUGE doe in the swamp. It only went 30 yards or so before it dropped. Great shooting Wade!
The last weekend of bow season Nate Altfeather had a shot at a nice buck and hit the deer with an arrow, but after 6 hours of tracking with Wade and Pete the deer was nowhere to be found. Nate was so disappointed he made fliers to distribute to neighboring farms in hopes they would find the dead deer the following weekend which was the opener of gun season. Well Nate never had to hand out the fliers because Tim Gorges shot the buck opening morning!! The arrow was still in the deer, but the buck was still chasing does!
The following morning, Tim took video footage of another nice buck from his stand, but being happy with his buck the morning before he was satisfied with video footage and hoped someone else in our group would get a shot. The feathers hardly saw another deer all week and heard the neighbors to the north had shot a 10 pt thought maybe we lost the buck. But the second Saturday of the season Nate moved his climber to a unused spot and was lucky and had the buck sneak out from the brush and give him a chance for a quick shot as the buck turned to go back into the brush. Nate thought for sure he'd missed but Tim and Nate went back later that afternoon to walk the area more carefully and found the buck 60 yards away from where Nate shot!
Alexandra Keberlein took her very FIRST bow deer everyAND first BUCK ever this season! She was hunting on "Bev's" property just across Mountain Lake Rd. Alexandra now bowhunts on the Dusel preoperty with her boyfriend Dave. Thanks for sharing the photo and NICE job!