Unit 39 Late Archery - November 12 , 2011 -by Nicholas Muche S Sgt USAF
3:30 am comes pretty early after you have been hunting hard most of the season and today was no different . Once awake , I stumbled down the stairs , tripped over the dog , stubbed my toe on the couch and looked outside . It was a complete whiteout and the wind was howling like no tomorrow ! Immediately I received a text message from my hunting partner Terry and he too seemed a bit leery about heading out for the day . After a few messages it was clear we were going to tough it out .
The weather did not change much at all on the drive up to where we had planned to hunt for the day , in fact , the further up the hill we got , the worse the weather turned . I know we were both second guessing our decision to leave our comfortable beds and our lovely women to go chase deer in a blizzard ! Driving less than 20 mph on a road that we can usually do 60 mph on was not a good sign of things to come either .
As we parked the truck after the long drive , the break of dawn was upon us . We made our way down the first draw after a few minutes of glassing . There were several deer in the area but nothing in a stalk able position . We hiked and glassed off and on for the entire morning .
We reached a nice bowl , filled with thick brush and aspen trees at about noon . I figured there would be some deer in this area and we were right .
Terry was fine with taking a doe and after we spotted one in a good position we moved in for the shot . It was a steep angle downhill , about 30 yards and the arrow hit a branch which sent it flying over her back .
After regrouping and gathering our thoughts we noticed a four doe ' s heading right towards us . Both of us hunkered down near some brush and became invisible . They trotted by us but there were too many trees in the way to take an ethical shot . As they went off in their own direction we spotted a nice buck chasing a doe on the side hill directly behind us about 100 yards . I said to Terry " as soon as they are out of site we have to sprint after them ".
The deer rounded the corner of the hill and both of us took off after them , there was a little snow on the ground so picking up their tracks was rather easy . We followed them for about 150 yards until we saw that there were many more deer in that same area . We both stood there wondering how we were going to get
18