Monday, October 17: MA Opening Day is here

So much scouting time and preparation, anticipation, planning, excitement, early season in two states to get the rust off, opening day is finally here!  And guess what, as with most years, if it wasn't rain, here came the 70+ degree temps, bringing the October lull effect the only way New England can bring it for the 3rd week of October.  My morning was slow, 55 degree walk in, couldn't avoid sweating despite the easy flat walk, barely any wind but just enough thermals to keep my scent high in the trees.  I chose my hottest stand but no deer, no pictures on the camera since last Thursday when I snuck in to check things out, but I did find fresh tracks and I pushed two deer on the way in, I was near deer and in MA, that's not too bad.  One of my buddies had a young 6pt feed by him, another buddy shot a 4pt at 30 yards around 8:00 am.  Other than that I got reports from 5 other guys reporting a whole lot of NO MOVEMENT this morning.  I left my stand at 1:00 pm to help my buddy trail his buck, but it bled very little and left us very little sign to follow in the dry leaves.  I was only able to help gain another 6-7 drops of blood over another 150 yards and we lost his path.  This situation always leaves us with mixed feelings, the thought of burying an arrow in an animal we respect so much leaves us empty handed and feeling wasteful.  Yet I always want to know if there a chance it will survive, maybe it was a flesh wound, maybe the arrow came out, maybe he was barely hurt.  Sometimes I'm not sure if I'd prefer it survived or died for the animals in the woods to scavenge on, which is possibly better than suffering through a likely infection and months of injury which for a whitetail can mean life or death if not fully healthy to evade predators, not to mention inhumane.  That is bow hunting I guess, we win some we lose some but what's most important is that these situations usually leave us in a better state as hunters.  We've now learned our mistakes, and the next encounter things will slow down, the shot will come easy, things will play out like they should, it'll all come together, and the hunter won't make the same mistake.  The next few days look warm and Septemberish, but that's ok because I have plenty of tree stands to hunt and time to hunt them, and I know I can't get one on the couch so I'll be there.  Maybe tomorrow will be the day of Bullwinkle, but if not, we got some nicer weather coming, that will at least raise my confidence above the current thermostat levels!