....After Chris' memorial, it was back to camp to prepare for the afternoon hunt...our last afternoon of the trip. It was winding down, which always starts to weigh heavy on me...we weren't done yet....but we were getting close, and this had been such an incredible experience.
Michael settling into a tri-pod "death trap"...
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I was set in a stand I'd hunted my first year at Solana('07). It's a great stand, but not for faint of heart at about 25', and you have to be pretty agile to get up in it. Getting down in the dark is even a bit trickier!
First visitor was a doe that skirted the set-up. The next was a nice young buck...
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He skirted the set-up as well. I'm almost positive it was the same buck both Skyler and I had seen a couple days earlier in different spots.
About 45 minutes before it would be too dark to shoot, I heard something approaching. I looked down and slightly to my left just as a nice mature doe was coming out of the thicket in front of me. Then I saw another doe behind her.
The lead doe cautiosly came right in and started to feed, the other wanted no part of the set-up, and moved off.
Now I had in front of me, only the second doe of the trip close enough to shoot. The first one got a free pass on the first morning. As cool as it would have been to "double" with Skyler, and he wanted me to shoot her(we were texting). It was going to be all about him that morning....so I passed.
But now it was the last evening hunt, we only had tomorrow morning and the hunt would be over.
So, I decided that I'd let this ol gal feed around for a while to see what else showed up. I really wanted a buck, so I didn't want to mess things up if something was close, and coming in...so I held off...
Time passed and it was getting darker by the minute. The wind had laid down and it was amazingly quiet. I held still and just watched this doe feed not 12 yds away, dead broadside.
But I still held off...hoping for a nice buck...and fully expecting hogs to show up as well.
But nothing else showed.
Just as I was thinking it was time to shoot this doe that had given me every opportunity to kill her and was about to stand up to shoot....she threw her head up and took off!
I had no idea why! But I was hoping that she heard or saw something that I couldn't that may have been coming in. But nothing...
It was now down to the last morning...
I posted these earlier, but these pix are from Saturday night...STEAK NIGHT!!!!!
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I had sat down next to Larry to eat and hear about his evening hunt. I found myself seeking out Larry a lot on this hunt, he's that kind of guy. The kind of fella that is just enjoyable to be around.
After dinner and peach cobbler dessert, he walked over to me with two old photo albums and asked if I'd like to see some pictures.
They were mostly old pictures of him and Chris hunting together, and some of Chris' military pix.
These pix sure made Larry smile a lot. That was great to see.
But some of them made him shake his head, it was also easy to tell that these were the one's that really hit home.
He was awful proud of all Chris had accomplished both hunting, and in the military.
Larry is a very special man...
Topic: Solana Ranch -What a ride into the New Year (Read 74866 times)
