Deer Season - Opening Day - 01 OCT 2014

Kathy, Alex and I went out tonight, Wednesday, 01 OCT 2014, to commemorate the start of deer season 2014 (archery - excluding urban zones & the youth hunt which started earlier).

Yes, it was warm.  74F when we hit the field at 4:30 pm.  Breezy but nice, not a cloud in the sky.

Harold Marshall was cutting beans, as you can see in the first picture - they are almost completely out.  This is nice, for it allows us to drive closer to any deer we happen to take.


Kathy & Alex.  Opening Day of Deer Season 2014

Kathy took her crossbow and Alex his compound.  They walked through the standing corn to the tree stands on Neal.  Kathy sat E and Alex sat W.  I walked down the road to Marshall's bottom ground.

We sat for two hours with nothing much happening but birds and bugs.  The mosquitoes were pretty bad - even after we had utilized Scent Shield's No Stinkin' Bugs (TM) bug spray.  I shiver to think how bad they would have been if we hadn't used the spray.  And, I will add, that although this product is not supposed to have an odor - It Does!  We sprayed on Primo's Control Freak (TM) scent eliminator over the top of the bug spray.  This worked very well - at least to our noses.

I tried to capture a bee on the flowers.  Phone had a hard time getting in focus.

Yes, it's October and the bees are still out.  And you can see how green everything still is.  Some leaves are falling, but overall, we are above normal temperatures and rain fall so everything is green, green, green.  Not complaining mind you, but the yards still need mowing - in October!


Sitting in ambush mode down in the bottom ground on Marshall.


Nothing happened for me - although I thought that maybe the Big Green Deere that was circling the beans might push something my way, that never materialized.

Kathy, on the other hand, had squirrels all around her.  She took a pot shot at one and just missed low.  Arrow indicates where squirrel WAS...and that's her crossbow bolt directly below the stick.

Kathy's Missed Squirrel


I called "No Joy" at 7:30 pm and told the kids to meet me at the truck.  Alex texted back immediately that he had deer approaching from the N and he would wait.  Unfortunately, Alex only sent that text to me.  Thus, Kathy walked from her stand over to Alex - not in a stealthy, quiet sort of way, but more of a regular human walk.  The small buck (4-pt) and doe heard her and returned from whence they came.  Oh well, at least Alex saw deer.  They were never closer than 60 yards - which is awesome for a shotgun, but too far for a bow.  No shots were taken on deer tonight.

Sunset tonight was 7:30, so we could legally hunt until 1/2 hour past sunset, or for tonight, until 8:00 pm.  That's all good and well if you are not in the woods, for it gets darker quicker in the under story.  Plus, if you do stick a deer at say 7:50 pm, you are in for a tracking job with flashlights.  Tracking deer is hard enough during the daylight.  It's a magnitude or four more difficult in the dark.

I returned to the truck and popped the top on a cold Warsteiner that we had previously packed in our Yeti (TM) cooler.

Warnsteiner on top of the Yeti (TM) back at the truck.


Kathy's picture of the moon as she and Alex walked out through the corn


I drove down to the corner of the field and picked up the kids.  We rolled on home, washed our faces and then took Sandy to Robert's Southfork restaurant for dinner - which, BTW, has the best onion rings in 42 counties!

Rain is supposed to set in Thursday, so I suspect our next trip to the woods is Friday night - and then of course, all day Saturday and Sunday.

With apologies to Warner Brother's Pinky & The Brain cartoon:
Pinky:  Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?
Brain:  Same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to get some deer...

*If any of the manufacturers of the products I listed in this post (Scent Shield, Primos, YETI, Warnsteiner, Roberts) would like to throw some support our way or sponsor any of our hunts, please feel free to leave your contact information in the comments and I will get back with you directly....#holdingmybreath

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