Opening Day , September 27th in Tennessee

Opening day finally made it here and I was up at 3:00 a.m. this morning checking over everything to make sure I had it all together and ready for the hunt. I started the morning off by hunting over a small half acre field ( yard actually ) at my parents place where they have been watching the deer play around their pond. After 4 hours of sitting in the stand and seeing nothing but birds and squirrels I decided to go in and visit with my folks and have a cup of coffee. Evening came around and at 2:00 p.m. I decided to hunt a stand in the woods hoping for better luck. There again birds and squirrels but still no deer. I found out that on Friday afternoon there was a buck and four does playing at the pond at my parents place so I'm hoping for their return Sunday morning as that is where I'll be trying again. The weather today was a little windy and cloudy most the day with a 40% chance of rain but the rain held off and Sunday is just supposed to be cloudy without rain. I really hoping the deer will move better Sunday morning and it's supposed to be a new moon Sunday night. Anyway I'll be hunting as much as possible this year as it could be my last year due to my parents health failing. I'm also going to try hunting feral hogs this year and if anyone knows how to salt cure hams please let me know. A black bear is also on my agenda but will have to wait till next year for that as I'm going to Maine to hunt with my father-in-law. I'll try to keep updates regularly on my hunting progress for everyone.

Getting Closer

Saturday (October 13 ) I helped my dad remove some brush from his lake bed acreage and he told me he had been seeing deer almost everyday two and three times a day. I found trails from the brush that looked like cow paths so I picked a tree out for a stand site within bow range and cleared it out for a stand ( which I'll have to pull one from the woods to put up now.). Sunday morning I decided to give it a try but knew I had to sit on the ground in the brush (which I had already found a spot for.). I got up Sunday morning and checked the weather-- barometric pressure and wind direction, to figure if the spot I'd picked out would work out and it would. I adorned my camouflage clothing and grabbed my bow then away I went. Now my parents only live 800 yards around the corner from me so I walked down to the field and into the brush,sat down and waited very patiently. my dog showed up from out of the brush then back into the brush three times within a hour of daylight. I thought that was it there's no way deer would be anywhere around me after my dog had searched the brush for whatever.Boy was I ever wrong, a deer came to the edge of the brush and I haven't figured out if the deer winded me or perhaps winded where we had cleaned up the brush from Saturday but it snorted three or four times then stomped it's foot and bound off back into the thick brush. I sat still for another 30 minutes or so waiting to see if possibly it might come back on a different trail but no such luck. It's now Monday morning and I don't have to work today so I figure I'll give it another try especially since the barometric pressure is rising due to a front moving in and the temperature is only 51 degrees. This should have the deer moving pretty good today and with any luck at all I,ll finally get my long awaited shot. I'm in bad need of putting something in the freezer and at this point squirrels are looking pretty good to me since I can't find any deer.