Rain, rain, rain

It has rained all day.  Not a little rain…serious rain.  The kind of rain that when you drive down the road you think you are crossing creeks and not driving on city streets.  There are only so many hours you can spend walking around the outdoor stores before you want to go.  Even though I had the evening off, I opted to stay home.  I think it was the flooded garage that made me think twice.

Thinking back, rain hunts have typically been good hunts.  Not necessarily during the rain, but immediately after seems good.  I remember as a child being told stories of the guys that stuck through the hurricanes, just knowing how good the hunting was going to be the next few days.  That might be a little extreme, but who doesn’t like extreme?  Last year, I raced out to get up a tree before an early fall front came through.  I picked a good tree and started up it with the climber stand.  I was set and ready when it hit.  Wow did I regret this decision!  25 feet up a tree with lightning, rain, and the wind swinging the tree had me holding on tight.  I would have lowered the rifle to the ground if I was willing to let go of the tree, but as it turned out I had become a tree hugger.  After 45 minutes of questioning my sanity (which happens often during hunting season), the storm let up.  Now was why I was up there.  The sun began to shine through the trees and the temperatures were dropping.  The woods began to have a strange glow.  Somehow the mixture of rain and late evening sunlight, was illuminating the woods.  As the time passed, here came the deer.  They were moving from the bedding area to my left and working their way off to the hardwood stand to feed.  The first doe knew something wasn’t right.  She was being overly cautious and keeping plenty of brush between the two of us.  The second deer had no clue.  I decided to try to take her.  She was working through the brush, but I saw what appeared to be an opening.  When she stepped into it, I pulled the trigger.  Unfortunately, I did not get the reaction I expected.  There was a branch that had gone unnoticed between the rifle and the deer.  It came crashing to the ground.  Deer scattered around me.  Dark was approaching quickly as I watched the first doe try to sneak back past me at 75 yards.  I wasn’t interested in shooting again.  The third deer that had stayed out of sight before the shot came walking up from behind the stand.  It was a spike buck.  He decided to come up and sniff the rope that was hanging from my stand.  After 10 seconds of smelling the rope, he reversed his way down the trail.  I waited until after dark to come down the tree.  Just in case, I took my flashlight over and checked the spot where I had shot.  No such luck- clean miss.  Some hunts go this way.  If I had stayed at home in the rain, I would have missed the strange glow of the woods that night and seeing several deer acting very odd.  Don’t miss going or you may miss out.