The Boys and Me: November 2012

This year was a really good year for hunting. Maegan, Jessica, Melissa, John and Myself drew a Arizona deer tag!! I usually just put in for points and this year was lucky enough to draw a tag..which meant that I would finally get to shoot something bigger than a pot gut. The hunt was a little different than I had expected. We had about ten days to hunt. Halloween landed right in the middle of the hunt so we decided that we would try and get my tag filled first so that I could take the boys home for all the Halloween fun. The hunt was particularly hard with the boys because it meant that we mostly had to road hunt. Opening morning we were only a couple miles away from camp and someone had already got their deer; I was so excited and I knew that I had a good chance at killing something decent. It was nice to get on so many deer, get my scope on it and practice a bit. However we still had not seen anything worth taking a shot on, so we decided to hike a little and sit some water holes while Ry entertained the boys. Well some odd handful of two points passed and we are into the hunt a couple days. At this point everyone had made it out for the hunt but I was running out of time and my deer was getting smaller by the day because I wanted the experience and I was not going home empty handed! I was able to go after an ok four point but did not get a shot. Time drew ne'er for me to head out and nothing to show for the hunt. Honestly the hunt was stressful and I really was not having fun nor did i like the fact that now we were not even seeing two points for me to take. I packed the boys and loaded up..after eating at Jacobs Lake I decided that I would make the trip back out after Halloween for the remainder of the hunt. The boys and I had a lot of fun and I am so glad we made to all the fun parties. When returning to camp I found that no one else had killed and with Maegan going home we still had four tags to fill in just a few short days but I decided that I was going to have fun and kill whatever I could get on...That next night we dropped Jessica off to sit a water hole and the boys and I went road hunting. I saw some really little bucks and just could not bring myself to kill. We were hunting in a pretty thick area and seeing lots of deer. I was getting anxious and off the road a little we spotted an ok two point..I got ready in position really slow. I had to wait for a doe to move out from in front of the deer and Ryan was having a hard time keeping the boys quiet (they were so excited to see mommy shoot her deer) Once the deer was in the clear I took the shoot. He jumped up and took off. We waited a little bit and started looking for a blood trail. I was not seeing anything and I was sick that I might have missed or made a bad shot. The boys wondered off a little bit and out of no where I hear Ry whistling at me...I meander over to him looking for blood and he says go claim your prise. I see the deer laying off in the distance not to far from where I shot it. We had just enough light to take a few crappy photos with the boys and head out. It was exhilarating and really fun to have the boys there to experience it all with me. We returned to camp in a hurry because we still needed to go pick Jessica only to find that john had also killed a nice four point; all in all it was good night and i was able to spend some fun time at camp and enjoy.