Opening Weekend

A chance of rain...a lot of wind...warm temperatures...full moon.  Almost anything you can think of to make for a bad deer hunt, we had this past weekend, on opening day of gun season.  I liked the warm temperature part, but deer move more when it's cold.  And the wind was something fierce, all weekend long.

Keane hunted on some haybales on Sunday morning, but couldn't stay long because Kylie had her last basketball game!  After the game, we hurried home to our first hosting of a midday deer camp, which turned out to be a nice turn out.  Keane's friend, Greg, came by to show us his nice bow kill, a few hunters had a bowl of chili and later left to go back to the stand for the evening, and some stuck around until night time. 

 

A group of kids played basketball, and a few of the men, too.  Our deer camp may have been a little loud, because Keane and Kaden could hear some of the hollering from their deer stand.  "You all okay?  I can hear screaming back here! :)" said a text from Keane.  Keane and Kaden saw two does and two small bucks that headbutted each other, and that was it.

Sunday morning, Keane, both Kaden and Kylie, and I, were all planning on hunting.  Kaden with me, Kylie with Keane.  When we woke up before the sun, the wind was blowing so strongly.  I told Keane I didn't feel like sitting in the wind.  Since he was already up, he asked both the kids if they wanted to go to the woods with him, and Kylie (the other early bird) wanted to go. 

 

The funny thing...she had to take her stuffed bear, Smarty.  I saw her go into her room and get it, and got a kick out of it.  Keane said that when she asked about bring Smarty, he told her the bear could go with them to the woods, but it had to stay in the truck.  Later that day, Keane was showing me the pictures he had taken of the two of them, and lo and behold, Smarty is in the pictures with them.  This made me laugh all weekend long. 

Another funny story.  I woke up to a text from Keane saying that Kylie was watching a raccoon climb into a tree, and while sitting there, she said, "I can't wait for that fat lil bastard to come out."  Keane said that she now knows bastard is a bad word.  Kylie told me later about how the raccoon was so fat it had to squeeze its butt into its hole in the tree. 

To wrap up the weekend, Keane, Kaden, and I went hunting.  Kylie was at a Selena Gomez concert with her friend, Caitlyn, for Caitlyn's birthday!

This kid is nearly as tall as me!

Keane and Kaden sat together in a tripod by the creek, and I sat in Keane's tripod.  The boys saw a doe 30 yards away that Kaden wanted to shoot, but it stayed behind brush the whole time, not allowing him a chance to shoot.

That was it.  There were not a lot of deer, mainly due to the weather, and no kills for us.  Keane took off Monday to hunt, and took Kaden for a little bit in the morning, but again, they only saw a couple deer total.