Deer

We witnessed a lovely sunset on evening while walking along the bike path.

I managed to get a couple bucks on August 1st, the opening of the season. I was on the trail by 4am and by 9am I had seen a couple bucks but didn't realize it because the fog was so thick. I waited a little while and eventually the fog/cloud passed and I continued on. I spotted a few more deer and eventually jumped the smaller of these two deer a little before two pm. By the time I finished boning the first buck out it was after 6pm and I still had a long hike up the mountain before I could go down the other side to the vehicle. At about 9pm I saw another deer on the edge of the trail. Thinking it was a doe I just tried to sneak up on it to see how close I could get. I got to within about 20 yards before it slowly made its way into the woods and at the same time I realized the "doe" had a nice set of antlers. I decided to drop my pack and put a cartridge in the chamber. Of course he heard that and scampered off. However there was another nice buck in the area and I ended up with that one. Unfortunately there was one little problem, it was about 10pm by the time I resumed my hike down to the vehicle a couple miles away and I had another deer on the mountain. Not to worry, being a young energetic type I took the deer down, stuck it in the fridge, ate some food and hiked right back up, boned out the second deer, stumbled down the mountain and crashed into my bed at 5am August 2nd. Whew! That was a hunt.

Another pose. Yup, both of these sets of antlers are in velvet.