I knowww. He’s a stud. Pardon the grainy photo – it’s a screen-shot from the video I have of him sneaking away from the field just after dark. I figured that even if I didn’t see him, I could bag a doe and help fill our freezers. We are all running on empty as far as venison goes, and the upcoming fall and winter months are just begging for some venison chili.

So, I hopped in the stand around 4 PM on Saturday, got settled, and waited. Knowing that dark was over 3 1/2 hours away, I had brought my iPad in anticipation of reading. In actuality, I didn’t even take it out of my backpack. I was so hellbent on seeing any deer at all that big buck, I practically bugged my eyes out of my head scanning the edge of the field and the woods beyond, hoping to catch one sneaking by.

After more than two hours of seeing absolutely nothing, three nice turkeys (1 gobbler & 2 hens) came out to do a little bugging in the field. They were pretty entertaining to watch, and they stayed in the field around 45 minutes. At one point, I accidentally knocked my water bottle into my chair with a loud bang, but they weren’t startled. At all. Barely lifted their heads to see what the noise was. I swear, they absolutely know when it is not turkey season… And when it is…

Alas, around 7:15 a little tiny doe wandered into the field to feed. “Tiny” as in “just lost her spots, like, yesterday” tiny. Too little for me to want to shoot, I watched her until it was just too dark to see. I would have taken a photo of her through the scope, but she kept looking back towards one corner of the field like another deer was going to come out, so I kept as still and as quiet as possible. But nothing ever came out… Boo. Having had no luck Saturday evening, decided I would get to bed early, wake refreshed, and give it a try Sunday morning!

Well. Little did I know that my body would decide that 3:15 AM was the appropriate time to wake up “refreshed”. Wide. Ass. Awake. Oh joy. Even though it made for a pretty sleepy afternoon, it did allow me to get into the stand by 5:45 with no problem. So there I sat. As quiet as a church mouse, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark and for the sun to rise just enough to see across the field. I was convinced that a deer (preferably a big buck) would creep up from the edge of the woods to check out the food, and step forward just enough for me to take a clear & clean shot. CONVINCED.

By 10:30 I had not seen one deer. Not one! My only entertainment came from my three turkey friends who came back to the field for a little breakfast. I hunted hard, again, and made sure nothing was going to sneak by me.

I had one moment of excitement where I was almost positive a deer was coming towards me through the woods to my right, only to discover that a monster fox squirrel had decided to make it his mission to trick me for the next 20 minutes. Thanks.

Bottom line? I came out of the weekend empty-handed. I was 0 for 2 on my weekend of hunting. I gave it my best college try, and plan on doing the same thing as many more times this season as I can. Those turkeys, by the way? Even less scared of me that morning. I had packed up all of my gear, taken off my face mask & gloves, climbed down from the stand, and was walking out of the field before they decided to run waddle off. While they are very fast, and I know turkeys think they’re running, that’s not running. They look too silly to call that running. Do you know what I mean?