So, a little more background. Morgan (and her older sister) are both excellent bow shots. Her older sister is running cross country for her high school team six days a week, so Morgan has been my hunting buddy this fall. This is Morgan pointing out how she beat dear old dad on the long shot (42 yards for me, 28 for her)this summer on the local 3D course(sorry, cell phone quality picture)
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Saturday was a bust for hunting. The Mrs. was away on her girls weekend and I had to take older daughter to the team bus at 8 am for a cross country meet. Morgan and I then traveled to the meet at which she helped cheered her sister on---- 31st out of over 100 at the 15 team meet and she's only a freshman on the varsity team!!! Then her older sister had a dance that night and had to be at her friends house at 6:15. Morgan and I had a late dinner together, visited my Shrewhaven hunting camp buddy who had just got back from a week long trip to hunt birds at Shrewhaven and then finally pick up her older sister at 10 pm at the dance. In bed by 10:45 and then up at 5:30 to get ready to travel out to the farm. Morgan likes her sleep, so she was VERY tired. We slip in to the blind at first light. Usually I don't see deer until about 9:00 to 9:30 in this area and mentioned that to her on the way in. Since I had built this for me alone to hunt, the seating was a little crowed. We had to swap positions because my legs were in the way of her canted bow on the dry run draw. Finally we are settled in. The squirrels are now chasing each other around and a flight of geese got up off the bay and flew at tree top level right over us an you could hear the wing beats and see their eyes. All cool stuff. Morgan leaned her head against my chest, I put my arm around her and in 10 minutes there was heavy breathing and a little snore. I was a happy papa. After a hour or so of nap time for Morgan I see a deer about twenty five yards down the hill. It's a younger deer, and I squeeze Morgan's arm and whispered 'deer to the right, don't move'. I could feel her lift her head just a smidge in the direction of the deer. As it slowly picked along angling down the hill in front of us it stood broadside at about 15 yards with no cover in between us (this is our entrance in the blind and a shooting lane). At this point, we can see two little points on one side and a spike on the other. Not a legal deer in our zone which requires 3 or more points on one side. Her head is now up next to mine, and I whispered 'not legal' to remind her of the rule. After about 15-20 seconds he looks back. I knew what was going on and said 'something else is coming'. Sure enough, here comes a nice 120-125 inch eight point. He's walking along, picking up an acorn from time to time. The little guy moves behind some trees in the middle of our view (but still at 20 yards) and now the big boy is broadside at 18. As the deer were moving I told Morgan to get her hand on the bow and get set. She was a champ at moving slowly and leaning forward imperceptibly. Morgan starts her draw but I stop her mid draw because I'm right behind looking down the arrow and there a branch from the blind right in the way (the only thing in the verticle plane). The buck keeps moving towards the scent rope about 7 yards to the left and Morgan moves with him (using the trees to screen her movement). He's now reaching to the ground and Morgan starts drawing for the second time.......and he turns quartering to us a little. She was at half draw, but let's down again. Still, undetected. Now for that experience factor, after about 10-15 seconds he turns again broadside/slight quarter and before she can get drawn he's stepped out of the lane. Both deer move off up the ridge undisturbed. As they had just started to move off, Morgan started shaking. I think she knew her chance was up and they weren't coming back. I looked at the time....9:30.
When we left I went to add some orbital scent to the scent rope (which he had rubbed). That's when we found 4 scrapes. One under the rope and three within 10 yards.
Morgan has two homes, so she has limited chances to hunt with me. I know she's going to get it done, it's just a matter of when, but she's learning a ton and she got to be in a situation a lot of guys don't get (on the ground in sparse natural blind and two deer at less than 20 yards unaware you're even there). We ended the morning making another ground blind on a different section of the farm. It's an area where apples are harvested all October long, but they will be done picking on Tuesday, about one week early and the deer will move back into their normal patterns in that area when the daily all day long people presence is gone. Here's another shot of my little trooper late last December after a cold evening hunt.
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Watch out Cade Cabrera, Morgan is coming along right behind you!!
Topic: The little lady was oh so close!!! (Read 1382 times)
