Hello all, Ok so here is my story from this weekend. Cold front rolled in and brought rain with it. The forcast was winds 4-5 mph from the north gusting (if that is what you want to call it) to 8, rain in the morning changing to snow in the afternoon. This is the last Saterday of bow season here in VA. I put in one contact lens and the other doesn't want to cooperate, I am new to contacts, put on my cold wet weather hunting clothes and head out. There is a light rain and I figured the deer would be moving. By sunrise the wind and rain picked up, all is good, maybe I will get a deer on its way to bed down. 0800 rolls around, my gloves are soaked, I pull out the phone and check the weather. 35 degrees, wind 10-15 gusting to 25, wind chill of 25. OK, its raining hard and I dont like being in a tree when it is this windy, yeah I know, I'm a chicken. I pack it in and head home to get my fleece cloves and a cup of hot cocoa. I get my other contact in and head back out around 1100. Get in my stand, the wind isn't any better. I look at my bow and realize my sights moved, the whole housing and my Hindsight II, when I bumped it. I tryed to realign it so everything lined up right when at full draw and it looked right. Again I am a chicken and the wind gets to me so I decide to try the walk around method to find the deer. I am walking around in the woods and yup sure enough my sight moved again. I am glad I saw no deer at this point or I would have thrown my bow out of anger when the sights didn't line up properly. Back to my truck, pull the quiver mount off, I thought they where the same screws holding my sights on, they were not. Tighten the sight mounting screws back down with the sights lined up again and back to the deer woods. I walk out through the archery range and fire a few test shots and all is good! Still way to windy for me to go back to my stand I decide to ground hunt off the food plot that I got some good trail cam videos from. After about an hour there, my gortex lined boots are soaked along with my socks, I sent a text to my wife and dad saying I am about to give up. By this point the rain had turned to sleet and there was even a few snow fluries mixed in. Dad replies back, "I would go and walk the pines, you might kick something up". So I did, I found a buck's skull and that was about it. I make it back to the bench on the trail and sit down for a break. While sitting on the bench I look over to the food plot and DEER!!! There is a doe with her twins coming back into the woods. I should have stayed where I was sitting before. I got up and moved the four yards to the closest tree that I could. The doe and fawns come into the woods from the food plot wandering my direction. I come to full draw and they stop, no shot on the doe. I held draw for almost 3 minutes before I could let off with out being seen. Come back to full draw with the doe at 30 +- yards and she turns away, no shot, again. she starts sniffing the air and looking away from me, the wind is blowing across all of us and quite possibly swirling. I line up on one of the fawns at 20 yards. No, don't shoot the fawn, mommy (my wife) will be mad for killing a baby, and I told myself "wait for the doe to give you a shot." She never did before she high tailed (literally) it out and took the twins. Deer are up, the rain died down, I am going back to the stand. As a side note, in the ten minutes I watched those deer, I came to draw 4 times for a total of 6 or so minutes. That was painful. Harness back on, heading to the tree. I get back in my stand and am looking down the hill hoping the doe circled back around and comes back up past my stand. I look back up the hill to see a deer turn off the trail and head away, it saw me moving I bet. I decide to watch up the hill instead. The doe and her fawns did circle around and she stoped 50 yards up hill and waited for the twins to catch up, I was hoping she would come down the trail, it was the same path I got my first bow doe (hey, that rhymes) on back on the tenth. She did not. The wind and rain picked up again, my feet and hands were soaked and cold so I gave it another 45 minutes seeing nothing but a few squirrels and headed out. Long story short: It was a cold, WET, windy day. I saw in the afternoon, 7 of them and didn't take a shot on any of them. This is the first time I ever passed on a deer. All in all, it was a GREAT hunt even with out any meat in the freezer. God Bless, Alex
Good story. I had a similar day with my Saturday hunt in Westmoreland County VA. Also int he wind and cold. I made it from about 3:30 - 6:00 but then I had - had enough. I pulled into the driveway of parallel to the field I was hunting behind (cut corn) and as I am driving in through the rain mist and wind see a buck on the opposite edge of the field moving parallel to the woods with my truck. He is a shooter - can't make out his rack but big enough body. He had his nose to the ground (I am guessing looking for the doe) and looked up at my truck. I kept driving as I pulled own out of site from him. I jump out of the truck and throw my tree stand on my back (Climber) nock and arrow and take off at a quiet but quick pace trying to get ahead of where I think he may cross and into the area I was planing on hunting anyway. Its a flat of oaks at the back end of the field on my side. Good trails all through there. Well it took longer than it should have to get set up - wet trees and a climber make me move slow - I am also getting wet and cold.. But I finally get in and up. I made a few CAN BLEATS and nothing so I waited. Along about 5 a doe came into view and I had one hand down my pants FOR WARMTH and had to move around to grab my bow - then I see a tiny little buck behind here. Didn't want to shoot her but I was going back and fourth in my mind. She eventually presented a quartering away shot at about 20-22 yards. I looked at it and didn't even draw. Opted to let the buck have his mom for the winter. AS they walked away the little buck actually tried to mount her and then I started watching her trail really hard hoping that buck I had seen was on the hunt. I bleated some and go nothing. But by 6 I was frozen solid to the tune of I didn't know if I would be able to climb down! So I packed it in. Sunday I went out and bought better gloves and a fleece head wrap!
