For those of you who hunt.........or did.

Al Launier

Member
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1,683
Location
Bedford, NH
This is a real, true life experience I went through three years back hunting local deer with my bow. The experience was so full of what not to do, what can go wrong, & plain 'ol stupidity that only an old fart could be involved with. My hunting partner suggested I write it up & submit it to a NH hunting/fishing newspaper for their "Day in The Woods" type article. I did & it got printed.


A Bad Day in the Woods


Sometimes things go wrong on unprecedented scales. Today I decided to go out behind the house to see if I could call in a deer & perhaps nail a nice buck with my bow. Things went well until I arrived near the new stand that I wanted to set up on (a small knoll overlooking a swamp). On my way in I applied some doe urine to the scents pads that were attached to the bottom of my boots, figuring I'd lay in a sniff trail for a buck(s) to follow where I would setup. The following sequence of events may not necessarily be in the correct order, as I'm still trying to figure out how so much could go so wrong so quickly. Humor me if you can.

· Upon arrival at the "knoll" I laid down some more doe urine at several locations within bow range with decent shooting lanes. Gotta lay down the scent to draw in the bucks right?
· I then started climbing the knoll to set up my ground blind (adjustable fence type 12’Lx54”H) only to discover I'd forgotten it. Now I ask you, how can anyone forget a blind he's going to hide behind?
· Faced with the decision of whether to go home & get it, or try my luck without it, I figured it would be too late & I would only spook the deer by going out & coming back; it was already 3:45 PM. I'm in camo right, I'm invisible, and who needs a blind anyway???
· I looked at the two trees on the knoll & realized they are lousy trees for attaching a tree seat, plus I can't stand for more than a few minutes because of my damn knee (already starting to swell up-candidate for a knee replacement). At my age comfort has more meaning than it used to.
· I have to find another stand location.
· So I'm walking around on dry leaves, cringing at the noise, trying out several trees, none of which are suitable, all of which are too exposed, none of which have clear shooting lanes.
· One seems to be better than the others however, so I attach the seat & wait 20 minutes for things to quiet down before bleating or grunting. I feel like I'm so obvious and posing for the "Worst Stand of The Year Award". What to do?
· I go back to the knoll & try to set up the tree seat only to find my original decision to leave was the right one. However, it's getting late, so I go for it. The tree is wrapped with vines & the ground is severely steep, not a good place to rest one's feet, especially with my knee acting up.
· By this time I'm soaked with sweat; the deer are probably holding their noses.
· My glasses are fogged up & I can't see a thing, I'm blind as a bat.
· A battery has died in one hearing aid (my good ear), so a deer could tap me on the shoulder before I'd know it was there. My senses are really tuned for this: I stink, can't see, & can't hear - the deer must be laughing their butts off.
· I clear the leaves at the base of the tree in preparation to sit down & notice that the foot pads are still on.
· I remove one pad & try to remove the other, only to find that the string has knotted up & I can't untie it. Bending over is harder these days.
· I use my knife to cut the string & try to place the knife back in the sheath. It's awkward doing this as my jacket is outside the sheath & I can only feel my way to do this.
· Trying to blindly push the knife into sheath results in cutting my forefinger.
· The upside is that the knife is really sharp. The downside is that it cuts well.
· So, I sit on the seat watching the blood drip from my finger. Pinching the cut closed is temporary at best. The coyotes are probably scenting me & closing in.
· I bleat a few times only to hear squeaks coming out. What am I doing wrong? Sounds like a herd of field mice.
· Maybe this whole thing is not such a good idea. I must be alerting every deer within a mile.
· Time to leave quietly & hope I don't spook anything on the way out.
· I arrive home at 4:30 PM, strip the gear off & because I sweated so much I sprayed the inside of the camo jacket with Scent Away.
· Unfortunately, yesterday I emptied the Scent Away into a larger spray bottle & poured the doe pee into the small Scent Away spray bottle for use in the woods. Guess which bottle I used to spray my jacket with? My memory fails me at times.
· Have you recently smelled doe pee, up close? You don't want to do it twice! Hell, once is not so good either, it has a way of staying with you.
· Now I really have to spray the jacket with the real Scent Away, or wash it, otherwise I might be putting myself in jeopardy with a buck if I wear the jacket in the woods untreated.
· I clean & bandage the finger, & take a shower.
· Another day down the tubes!
· It's tough getting older, all because I forgot the damn ground blind! It was always so much easier.
· Can't wait for tomorrow for another day in the woods.

Just read Darren's thread "Murphy stopped by" and I could help but relate his "Murphy" experience with all that went wrong with me above.
 
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He's everywhere.....incidentally, the vines around the tree were poison ivy:rofl:
Oh man, that would have just added to the fun eh?

Great write up, and a good story, thankfully only your pride was really hurt, I hope that knife wound heals quickly and I'm glad you got off with only a small reminder of what can and will go wrong. I've heard/read too many stories of things going MUCH worse than they did for you, things that involved surgery and or stitches to fix, so I'm very happy to hear that none of that was involved.

I miss hunting a lot, being outdoors a lot too, Tokyo is just one big mass of concrete, so even though you had a lousy day hunting, it was a much better day in the woods than I had :D
 
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