Wish Me Luck

“Not even the postman has the dedication of this Delaware deer hunter.

It was ironic that I had just finished reading a Buckmasters article titled ”Bow Bucks in the Deep Freeze.”

I wasn’t planning to hunt with my bow the next day since it was the end of Delaware’s late muzzleloader season, but it got me pumped, anyway. It was the last day of deer season for the year, and I was going to be out there.

Then, I watched the news, and weatherman predicted a major snowstorm with high winds – a real nor’easter.

It’s easy to plan how a hunt will go while sitting in a La-Z-Boy in front of a big fire. It’s like being a Monday morning quarterback; it all looks easy until you try it yourself. Still, I know reading about hunting or watching it on TV doesn’t actually put anything on the wall, so I firmed my resolve to go. I figured the combination of falling temperatures and dropping barometric pressure would surely make deer move.

Around here, by the time the season is winding down, the deer have been pushed hard – since September, in fact. In January, they’re either at the meat processor or hiding in secret spots nobody ever finds.

I think that worried me more than the weather.

We have a saying in Delaware that ”if you don’t like the weather, just wait an hour and it will change.” Hunters are used to going out in snow and ice with temperatures below freezing, and also during bluebird days in the 50s. Sometimes you get both in the same day.

I’ve been a hunter since I was a kid. I harvested a large Maryland Eastern Shore doe the first day I sat in a treestand, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Whitetails amaze me. No book has ever covered everything I wanted to know, and many of the well known truths I was told about their habits turned out to be just plain wrong.

Even with all we know and continue to learn about deer, I’m convinced anyone claiming to be an expert is a puffed-up fool.

With all the years I’ve been afield and all the tags I’ve used along the way, I still get that same kid-at-Christmas feeling on the first crisp fall day in my stand. It’s what so many hunters write and talk about: that first-day smell of fall.

I’ll confess I didn’t have quite that same enthusiasm heading out the door on Jan. 30, 2010, but I felt like the weather would get the deer on their feet. It was going to be 17 degrees with a wind chill of minus 5. I reasoned it would be best to have a deer on the ground before the snowstorm hit.”

The full article can be found here. 

Photo Credit: Original Author

---