Deer Season (2nd week)

Still excited from shooting the bear last weekend, my son and I traveled up to camp on Wednesday, Dec. 7 to hunt the last few days of the season. As we were climbing up the mountain we went from dry leaves, to ice, to snow. There was about 2" of snow on top of the mountain, so we were very excited about the next few days. Temperatures were very cold, so we figured it would stick. My scouting in bear season revealed a huge acorn crop this fall. In fact, they were everywhere. This led me to believe the deer would head to the thick stuff the 2nd week where there was also abundant food. I knew where we wanted to hunt. We started out on Thursday morning around 7:30. My goal this week was to push something out to my son. We hadn't been able to hunt together since he left for college 7-8 years ago. I put on two drives for him and I didn't move anything, but I did see an abundance of tracks. We decided to go up on top a ridge we've often hunted during the second week where the laurel is thick. The higher we climbed, the more tracks we saw. Finally, we arrived to a spot I wanted to try. I put my son up in a tree stand, and did a large circle drive back to him. The most exciting sound I heard the entire year was when I heard his rifle crack as I was just about finishing the drive. It worked perfectly, and 20 minutes later, we were both standing over a beautiful 8-point buck that came right past his tree. I was never more proud! After lots of hand-shaking, hugging, and picture taking, we started the long drag back to camp. The snow made that job much easier. After getting back to camp and shedding some clothing, we drove up on top the mountain where we can get a cell phone signal so that he could tell the rest of the family the exciting news! That night, we enjoyed a nice dinner and relaxing evening at camp. The next morning we got to sleep in and after closing up everything for the winter, we headed home. Another successful season for the guys from Peter's Camp!