1st Hunting Day 2011 - Teamwork

This past Saturday was the first day for me to hunt legally in Virginia, so Tony took care of lining up a babysitter, and at 4:00a.m. on Saturday, we were off to the woods!  It ended up being probably one of the most FUN DAYS I'VE EVER HAD!

Hunting is right up my little introverted alley....peaceful, quiet, nature, animals, time alone with the hubby, heart thumping,....for all of you "city" friends of mine, all I can say is...you'll never understand.  :-)

To Tony...all I can say is "we were one with nature as we took down the majestic beast."  :-)

First, I must tell you, that on Friday night, he made me take a shower and wash with "descenting" shampoo, bodywash, and deoderant.  No conditioner, no lotion, no makeup.  As you can imagine, I was looking about the same way I smelled...like dirt!  But oh well....in my old age, I've decided that those things don't really bother me anymore...but don't say I didn't warn you when you see the pictures!

Here is a summary of our FABULOUS day -

1.  4:00 a.m. - Rise and shine.  Get dressed in my pink long johns, sweatshirt, sweatpants, and my new hunting boots.

2.  4:30a.m. - pick up Dad In Law, sleep in the back until we get to the property

3.  5:30a.m. - stop at the store, drink hot chocolate to warm my body up!!  I was freezing at this point which was NOT GOOD.  But the hot chocolate did the trick and I was ready to go.

4.  6:00a.m. - put my camo coveralls on, hair back, my hat/mask, and my gun, of course. :-)

5.  Walk to the stand, climb up, get settled, and wait.  Occasional whispers with Tony (love it!), except when he is telling me to stop moving so much...ha!

6.  7:00a.m. - Tony catches sight of a small buck, tells me "get your gun, get your gun." At this point, my heart starts thumping as I realize A.  that I may actually be shooting at a deer and B. I don't really know if I even know what I'm doing...haha!  But, I was on the wrong side of the stand and couldn't get the little buck in my scope view to get a shot at him.  Honestly, I'm not sure I could've got him in my scope view if I had been on the right sight of the stand...but I'm gonna work on that.  :-)  It is SO MUCH HARDER than it sounds!

7.  From 7:00 until 8:30, we saw deer after deer after deer and one little doe actually spotted us and blew at us...so cool!  Cool that I got to hear that, not cool that she spotted us.  I spotted another doe and an 8 point buck but they were headed in the other direction, so there was no opportunity there.

8.  At 8:30, Tony catches a glimpse of another deer behind me to my left.  Then, I catch sight of it.  And at about the same time, we both said, "That's a buck!"  It is still yet to be determined whether this buck was the same 8 point I had seen earlier, meaning that I had seen it first, but the jury is still out on that one.

9.  Tony gets ready to take a shot, and the buck starts heading back in the opposite direction where we couldn't see him(just like all the other deer we had seen that morning!).  I told Tony, "we need a call to get him to come back."  So, Tony reaches in his backpack, pulls one out, and tries several different calls, to which the buck comes practically running back into view and Tony takes him down!! It was the first time Tony had ever called one in!  So awesome!

10.  We waited a while longer to see if anything else came around, but at about 10:00, we climbed down and went searching for a trail to lead us to Tony's trophy.   I spotted the start of the blood trail and we followed it down until we reached the nice 8 point where he had fallen.

What a fun, fun day!!!  I can't wait to go back and hopefully get my own!