Saturday we were up bright and early for the opening of deer hunt. This whole week Ive been 'sick' but not sick. I have this horrible lung congestion thing going on. Its miserable. I have to use my inhaler several times a day just to breathe and not cough so bad. I haven't felt run down or sick at all. Just get winded really easy. Each lung honestly feels like 10 lbs. I even drank coffee for breakfast just to help me breathe. I DONT DRINK COFFEE so that should tell you something. We headed out to see if we could find any deer.
We were at one part of the edge of the property waiting for sun to come up. We spotted a deer on the sidehill. Chris was pretty sure it had antlers but got out the spotting scope just to make sure. We walked up to where we were semi close to get a shot. I let Hunter take it. He shot once and missed. It ran a ways and he took another shot as it was running and hit it. It went into some trees and had to go searching for it. As we were looking some deer came running down the edge of some other trees. I was moving Chris's truck and stopped to walk out. I left Kennedy in the truck where it was nice and warm and walked down to where the deer were going to come out of the trees at. They were all doe and I headed back to the truck. Kennedy couldnt see me where I was standing because I was just around a bend. She was all fired up when I got back to the truck. She holds up one of the radios "MOM! I saw 3 deer and I was trying to call you on the radio so you could see what they were and you never answered me!!!!" Then I took her radio and said "Honey thats because youre radio isnt turned on... but good job on watching for deer ha!" We went back and found Hunters deer. He shot a spike.
The whole day was spent hiking and hiking and hiking and looking for deer. We saw a bunch of doe. Heard a lot of shooting but no bucks at all. Kennedy and I hiked up to the top of the hill above the cabin. That big white spot is the cabin.
We made our way to a bush at the edge of an opening where the boys were pushing to. Of course you have to hike with your chocolate raspberry filled donut! Our favorites!
Kennedy laid down while I watched for deer.
Only doe came out. No bucks. We tried every trick. Every spot. Every hole. Nothing.
Hunter went home after he shot his deer and we had breakfast. We went to pretty much the last spot to check for deer. I'll give you a little back story before we go any further lol! This year has sucked for hunting big game. We haven't had much luck. We ended this elk season with 4 tags UNFILLED. 3 of those tags were cow tags which should have been easy. One elk and two deer will roughly fill our freezer for a year with some room to spare. Our big game hunts are roughly 95% of the meat we eat. We dont buy meat from the store (unless its chicken or sandwich meat) This is our yearly grocery shopping. All our steaks, roasts and burger come from what we shoot during the year and having none of the 4 tags filled has hurt us! We have one deer in the freezer (Chris's) We pretty much decided if it has antlers shoot it. I am not a huge horn hunter. Dont get me wrong a good rack is awesome! But we hunt for food. I dont like taking little (bodied) deer. Two deer in the freezer is better than passing up one because its not 'big enough.' So we were really hoping to see a deer on this next brush. We could stay til Sunday if we needed to. Kennedy was on and off sick. Im hacking a lung. Our freezer is bare lol! This is what we are looking at Saturday afternoon. Kennedy and I walked out to the rocks to sit and wait. We saw this big bear track on the way out there. I tried to get a good picture but you can see its twice the size in length of my chapstick!
We didnt know at the time but Todd was close to us on the other side of the rocks and Chris was brushing. We thought Todd was down brushing with Chris and didnt know any different until he talked on the radio and we heard him over the hill from us. Chris was walking around this hillside through the trees and up the canyon so that hopefully anything would run uphill towards us. We are talking back and forth on the radio because I saw two deer go into a draw way out there. All of a sudden two deer bust out of the trees (where the arrow is) and I can see they are doe and there is one more deer hanging in the edge of the trees so I pull my gun up just in case. I see a buck come out and all I see is it has antlers so I shoot it. It drops. Stands up. Takes one step and falls down. Ive racked another shell in just in case I needed to shoot him again.
Todd comes walking over to us and asks what I shot at. I told him the three deer that came out of the trees and were running towards him. I thought he was just giving me a hard time. He says "bullshit! There were no deer there. Did you shoot at one clear out there and miss?" Im laughing and tell him I just shot a deer and its laying there dead on the hillside right below us right next to a rock. He calls bullshit again. He honestly thinks Im teasing him. I am laughing pretty hard at this point. He says I didnt see any deer. I heard you shoot and saw you rack another round in there but I didnt see any deer at all. I think youre full of it. I told him I shot a deer and dropped it. Its laying right there by that little rock with the green bush on it. The hill is steep enough that you cant see it from where we are standing. Its a pretty good downhill grade. By this time Chris is on the radio asking about the shot. I told Todd watch and see. Kennedy stayed with him and I hiked down the hill to where the deer was.. I lifted up his head and said see!!! He's laughing in disbelief as him and Kennedy hike down to me. I was a little disappointed to see it was a 1x2 (almost lol! its probably really a spike but Im holding onto that tiny bit of nub and counting it as a 2!)but it had a really good size body. I just normally dont like to take younger bucks. This is the smallest one Ive ever shot.. but it filled the freezer! You cant eat the antlers!
Even though she doesnt really look like it she was so excited we got a deer. She told me she is shooting one next year and wasnt too happy I told her she cant til shes 12. She told me this being a little kid stuff is over. She wants to hunt.
Now that the deer is down we have to take it up this hill... Its a pretty steep grade and it keeps wanting to slide downhill. Todd hiked back to the cabin and got the 4 wheeler and rope. We pulled it up to the top. We had two tags filled that morning by 1pm. Not a bad opener! Those were the ONLY two bucks we saw.
We spent all the rest of the day hunting try to find one for Todd.
We ended that night empty handed for him. We let him decide if we were staying or going home. He was the one left to hunt but was feeling a little homesick.. you know missing his wife and all.. its not like hes been home at all the last 4 weekends. Its been spent at the cabin. So he called it and we packed up everything and headed home late Saturday night.
Kennedy crashed in the truck. We dropped off Todd. Picked up Hunters deer he left at his dads house (Hutner lives with his mom and they wont eat the deer meat there so we got it) and headed home to unload everything and hang deer. We decided to just hang the deer at our house since the weather is staying cool enough instead of going to the shop.
We let Kennedy sleep in the truck for a good hour and a half while we unloaded the trailer, truck and hung the deer.
Mines the one in the front.
Chris skinned them down, we washed the meat and took care of the rest of the stuff (cutting legs off, necks etc)
I woke up Kennedy and sent her to bed as we were finishing up for the night. About 10 minutes later I go into check on her.. she comes walking down the stairs and the smell hits me.. She threw up ALL OVER her bed.. both sides of it on the carpet.. She has dresser drawers on the bottom of her bed and one side was partially open so there was throw up in her dresser drawer on her clean clothes.. and then she made it to the top of the stairs on the carpet before she threw up again. Sigh. So she went downstairs to lay on the bathroom floor while mom scrubbed carpet and dad put bedding in the washer.. again!!! She slept on the couch again and was just fine. No fever. No throwing up for the rest of the night.
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