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Deer Season 2010, hard to put into words:

Posted in Uncategorized by Administrator on the November 29th, 2010

However I will do the best job I can. Let me start back a couple of years. Those of you who know me personally know that I love basketball and my oldest son (who is now 13) is somewhat of a basketball junkie and a darn good player if I say so myself. He didn�t get it from me, I was a terrible athlete. Ok back to the story. When my son got to 3rd grade I started coaching him on some teams and stayed at it for 3 years. When he got into 6th grade we moved him to another school that had a good program with a coach, at that point I retired. This year I have a 4th grader and the town was looking for a grade school basketball coach, my wife signed us up. I was a little excited to get back into it, she told me I could coach the older kids and she would take the younger ones. I started pulling out my old stuff whistles, dry erase boards and gym shoes. I was ready, until I got the schedule!!! In my part of South Dakota the deer season starts the first Saturday of November and ends the last Sunday of November. I�m a rancher so I don�t have to hunt on weekends, but my friends have regular jobs and the weekend is their time to get out. I don�t know about you but I enjoy hunting with my friends and so it has to be on a weekend. The schedule comes out and I have Tournaments the first 2 Saturdays of deer season. I called my buddies and told them my predicament. I really wanted to go hunting but I was obligated. To be prepared for the adventure I went out about twice a week and scouted I needed to find out where the big ones were for my friends and of course for myself. There just were not that many deer around. Usually by November I�m shooting does like they are prairie dogs, because they are everywhere. Not this year, the deer were hard to find. I guess that�s why they call it Hunting and not shooting. Finally the first free weekend rolled around and Dave pulled into the ranch on Thursday night. Chief just started a new job so he was not going to make it out until Friday evening. We went at it pretty hard on Friday Morning, just looking, watching, and glassing. Hoping someone would push a buck on our land, because there was nothing grand to be found. Did see a quite a few coyotes so we had to kill one on Friday, then Chief came and we went ahead and did some walking on Saturday early with no luck, but 2 more coyotes got whacked. Later that morning, we spotted a couple of Bucks in the pickup and decided to make a play. They got down in a creek bottom that was wide open and they kept a close eye on the truck, they didn�t mind if we kept a good distance but if it moved they would relocate. We parked on a hill about 800yds away and glassed, the 2 bucks ran into another group of deer that also held 2 bucks and a few does. They were keeping a close eye on the pickup and our movements. Dave really wanted a deer so he fell out of the pickup and crawled around to a wash. He put on a stalk while we played decoy. While those bucks rutted around and kept an eye on us, Dave was walking and crawling closer by the minute. We tried to video but it was too far and to windy so you will just have to take our word for it. Chief and I are watching a couple of bucks way to the right of Dave, he was getting closer and closer, but he was headed left. There was no way for us to signal him but we were sure he was going the wrong way. After what seemed like forever he finally got out of his belly crawl and set up his shooting sticks. We could not see what he was aiming at as the other 2 bucks were off to his right still and he was aiming left. I was keeping a close eye with my binos and finally smoke came out of the barrel. He jacked in another shell and didn�t budge. My first thought was he missed. The 2 bucks to the right jumped out of the bottom but didn�t really know what happened, we were sure he wasn�t shooting at them. Then suddenly Dave leaped up, threw his hands in the air and we knew he knocked one down. The next morning we called coyotes and Dave headed back to Milbank about noon, with his West River Muley. One more coyote died that weekend on the third set of a stand Chief got to knock her out with his new Howa, We gave up on deer hunting, hadn�t seen anything worth working for, and we would rather shoot coyotes anyway. It was a fun weekend, Dave doesn�t get over often enough and I love getting 4 coyotes in a weekend. It�s true, a guy can hunt his whole life for the Trophy of a Lifetime, but the best memories come from hunting trips that don�t go as planned.