I feel that it started in 2016, I remember last year sitting three consecutive sits in 2016 without seeing a single deer from the stand, this was unprecedented in my experience, and I took note. This year during the gun season I didn't see any deer from the stand for three days (6 sits) straight. I saw one deer while walking in to my stand during those three days. During the 25 years prior to 2016, I could count the total number of no-deer sits on one hand, they were very rare.
In any case there were still deer taken in 2017, here are the pictures and stories that were shared with me.
The first buck encountered this season was a nice 8 pointer taken by Steve, who hunts with his family in the thicket just south of the Feather's farm on Hwy O. Steve shot the buck opening weekend and said the deer came across Hwy O from the East and ran to the thicket.
The next deer was from the Feather's farm, taken by our trusty deer-slayer who gets a deer every year, Cameron Gorges. If the year comes where Cameron doesn't shoot a buck, you can bet the Whitetail deer is near extinct! Cameron had the deer come in from behind his ground blind, (which resembles a 3 ft tall log cabin with no door or roof!). The good old Browning A5 fired true and the grand kids helped drag it out. It is a unique rack, if I remember the kids counted 11 points including a strong ticker off the left G2, the deer had an old healed injury in the left rear leg, causing the right antler to grow differently so from the front he isn't symmetrical making for a neat heavy rack!
The next buck of the season came on Saturday of the second weekend. I have a tradition the Saturday morning of the second weekend of sitting in a particular tree stand in the marsh grass that my Uncle Pete put up many years ago. I once shot a nice 10 point from that stand on the 2nd Saturday in 2005, so now and try to sit there any 2nd Saturday that the wind is right. I like to believe that the deer that are moved around opening weekend sometimes bed out in that marsh grass during the middle of the week to wait out the season. This time I thought I'd try to put a little doe urine on the stand and on the ground to see if anything came out of the grass. I poured out the doe pee at first light, and before I could sit down a deer came crashing out of the marsh grass, running right under my stand and stopped quartering steeply away from me about 40 yards. The only thing I could tell about the rack when it ran under me was that it was wide enough to shoot. The morning light was too dim for me to make out much else of the rack. At the time I thought I had spooked the deer so I assumed, although it had sopped, that it was about to run, so I took a rushed shot which I immediately regretted.
To make a long story short, there was good blood, but it dried up after 50 yards in the marsh grass and I lost the deer. Luckily, my cousin Tim saw the buck hobbling across the plowed field towards our woods. We almost quit many times (grandma was waiting for us to come back for Thanksgiving lunch) but my cousin Tim and his son Tyler eventually jumped the injured buck in our woods and dropped it! Luckily Dussel's gave us permission to drive up under the high-lines to retrieve the buck and my uncle Pete drove his jeep up to pack out the buck. It was a beauty, I feel badly about my bad shooting, but feel elated that through the efforts of our entire party we got it!
