Deer Hunting the Fall of 2012

It has been a year since I have been able to post. Many interruptions and conflicts have kept me from it. I do plan to continue on regular basis at this time. I apologize for the silence. This past fall was an excellent hunting season as many others also found it to be. I was able to spend a few more hours than usual in the deer woods. It seems to have paid off. First, I was called on to help a couple of young friends find deer that they shot at. One we were successful in trailing and tagging. The other must not have been hit as hard or well as first thought because it was never found. I was also with my son in Pennsylvania when he tagged a deer with one of his antlerless tags.

Second, my own hunting was exciting and productive. I saw more deer during this past season than in the previous three seasons combined. I got some nice photographs of deer on my trail cameras as well. To my knowledge the one eight point was never taken this year, so hopefully he is still out there. During muzzleloader season I saw a couple of young bucks but they offered no shot. I did try filling one of my antlerless tags but failed miserably in that. I missed not once but twice! Then with my rifle during regular season, I missed again using my scoped .30-06. Unfortunately this miss was while shooting at a big Pennsylvania buck with wide rack and tall tines! Earlier during the season I had slipped and fell, landing on my rifle in some rocks. I wasn’t hurt by the fall, but I can’t say the same for my scope and rifle. I re-sighted the rifle but apparently something is still off in either the scope or somewhere in the stock alignment. I know what you are thinking that it was just a case of buck fever. It wasn’t. Two days later, using my other rifle with open sights, I took a nice big seven pointer that looked every bit as big as the one I missed. I think my biggest problem is that I just lost confidence in my main rifle.

With only twenty minutes of shooting time left on my last day of hunting for the year, I was able to tag a nice mature seven point buck. This broke a long dry spell for me. I had not tagged a buck in the past three years. Last year I did not even tag a doe on an antlerless permit. So this was an excellent end to the season.