But I digress. Where was I going? Ah, yes. So it was super hot. And I just had a bee in my bonnet about deer hunting. With the season having recently opened, I was itching to at least go sit in the woods. Given that Georgetown is in Game Zone 5, a rifle hunt wasn’t an option. As luck would have it, John just so happened to have a crossbow handy (thanks, Allsty!). Hey! I’m in business. Now I just needed to figure out if it was ok to wear a bathing suit under my bug suit so I wouldn’t have a heat stroke. Because a bug suit is 100% an essential for hunting this time of year in South Carolina, particularly on the coast. I ultimately decided that saving my skin from 10,000 mosquitoes was more important than getting more than a little sweaty while sitting perfectly still in the woods. Ahh, South Carolina in August.

On to the hunt! I woke up extra early to layer up, lace up my snake boots, make sure I could actually cock the crossbow (hello, zero upper body strength), and get to my spot well before dawn. As it turns out, I wasn’t quite early enough. I was about 100 yards away from my spot when I heard a bit of commotion, and I could barely make out 2 silhouettes hop back and forth for a second before scampering back into the woods. I think it’s so funny how wildlife will freak out for a minute before running off:

“Someone’s coming! Which way should we go?” [moves 2 feet] “I don’t know man. Let’s go this way.” [moves 5 feet] “Wait, what about this way?” “Oh, yea that looks better.” [moves 4 feet] “Just kidding, let’s go your way.” [finally runs off].

Long story short, I scared away 2 deer but it was much too dark to see whether they were bucks or does. Boo. So, I sat down at the edge of some thick woods, turned on my ThermaCell, got comfortable, loaded an arrow into the crossbow, and waited. Just little ol’ me, and 7,582 of my new closest friends – mosquitoes. I swear, It sounded like a cross between an active bee hive and an interstate around me, there were so many. My bug suit really saved me, but those little s.o.b.’s were biting me through my gloves, even with the ThermaCell right beside me. Not to mention the fact that it was 85* at 5:45 am, and only getting hotter. But, I figured that since I’d already gotten up early, got dressed and geared up and trekked all the way out, I might as well just power through it. So, that’s what I did.

My only concern was that I was moving too much every time a skeeter would make it through my glove. Apparently, I wasn’t moving as much as I thought. The jacket of my bug suit has a pull over “hood” that actually covers your entire face and can tuck into the front when the jacket it zipped up all the way. It’s nice a loose, so you don’t feel like you have a bag over your head, and you can turn your head inside of it a little more easily without the hood/jacket itself moving. Does that make sense? Anyways, just when I thought I might be moving too much, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Flying DIRECTLY at my face was a big cardinal, and I happened to see him when he was about 1 inch from landing on the top of the crossbow. Now, I am in no way scared of birds, but when you’re hyper-alert looking for any sign of movement around you and also trying to be as still as possible, movement that close to your face will most definitely startle you. True to my nature, I jumped about 6 inches in the air with a good, loud, “Aaahhh!” Thank you, Mr. Cardinal, for helping me scare away any other potential wildlife within earshot. {Disclaimer: I apparently startle more easily than others. It’s a running joke with John, as well as the guys I work with. Never gets old with them.} I am not sure who scared who more, because he took off like a rocket. With that, I knew my morning hunt was shot.

Honestly, I was ok with calling it. It was super hot, super super buggy, and coffee/ breakfast/ the boat were calling my name. Rough weekend, huh? Before heading in, though, I did a little exploring and found the tracks of the deer I scared away early that morning, including where they did their little which-way-should-we-run dance before taking off down the road.

It looked to me like neither deer was that big. In fact, I could tell that one of the deer was fairly small, so I am guessing this was a momma doe and her little one. I did also find a super well-traveled game trail close by (to the left of those drainage pipes). I ended up going back by there Sunday afternoon to put up a trail cam and see what, exactly, keeps using this little highway.