" The First on the Last " By: Austin Atkinson of Rexburg, Idaho
Growing up my father always taught me that the prepared will become the successful. I have tried to apply this principle in all of my hunting endeavors. In the fall of last year, I found myself studying as a business management student in Eastern Idaho. Having been unsuccessful in drawing a controlled hunt, I knew I had to turn to a general deer hunt. The problem was that I had almost no experience with the elusive whitetails that roamed the golf courses and river bottoms near my home. I met up with a local friend in my first aid class that said he would show me what to look for as far as buck sign and good areas to start. After an intense study session of Google Earth and the IDF & G Online Map Center, I learned quickly that most low-lying areas were composed entirely private land. Almost feeling that I should give up, I came across a small piece of BLM land accessible from the main road, near a popular river location. I thought maybe, just maybe there would be a buck moving through the area as the rut got started in late November. With the help of Mountain Archery in Rexburg, I was able to get a small lightweight tree stand and a simple trail camera ready for my hunt. On a cold day in late November, I placed my Covert camera on a large tree overlooking a junction of buck scrapes and trails. With only one location selected, one camera, and one tree stand, I felt as if I was placing all of my eggs in one basket. My wife, Chelsie, wondered how I was going to kill a deer so close to town and with so much hunting pressure. I assured her I had felt that I did my homework and that I would get lucky. A few weeks later and being busy with school, I was left with little time to actually hunt. I checked the camera on December 12th, and to my amazement I had caught the tail end of four different bucks and many does crusin ' the trails in my " lucky " spot. There was hope for my whitetail hunt!
The weather turned warm the second week of December and I never had a chance to sit in my lonely tree stand until the last day of the season, December 19th, but I was bound and determined to kill a deer! My wife also helped me decide that we needed the meat more than I needed a trophy, so she instructed me the night before to kill any legal deer and fill the freezer. At 5am on the closing day of the season, I carefully made my way under the cover of darkness to my stand and climbed the tree. I strapped myself in, knowing it would be a long day. As the sun rose, so did my hunger and thirst levels. I am not experienced
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