This isn't live, didn't have good enough signal to post earlier. Had the day free so went out around 9am to a piece of public I've been to before that had good sign last year. Was supposed to be mainly north eastern wind according to huntstand and AccuWeather. Windy said southern, I planned for NE since it was two to one. Damned if Windy wasn't right. I was work the edge if a huge lowland area, moving north, and the wind was sout eastern, so it still worked out.
Within the first 30 minutes of walking, and near another lowland I wanted to check out on the way, I bumped a doe and a small buck, they ran about 20 yards, checked me out, and headed into some private land.
Hours of scouting and still hunting later, going up and down elevation changes near this huge lowland, I spot something white floating in the air where the hill I'm on slopes down into the lowlands. Milkweed! I was fresh out, so I collected what remained of a few pods and filled my milkweed pouch. Heading back up the hill I see a fat fox squirrel eating some acorns. I start talking out loud telling him if I had an arrow to spare, or a gun, and he'd be lunch. He runs off and turn north to head back north up the hill and continue on.
As soon as I got to the top, a deer spooks and runs a few paces away. She had been walking directly toward me, and I towards her. I froze in place. 6'3", 315lbs, head to toe in different camp patterns, bow in hand, and standing in the wide open woods. I didn't move at all. She stomps, puts her head down then snaps back up trying to catch me moving. I'm still. She starts to walk to the west (she was heading south when we met) and as soon as her head is behind a tree I nock an arrow and range her at 32 yards. I get in a better shooting stance and wait for her to clear the other side of the tree. If this happens, it'll be my first archery harvest. She finally steps past the tree, but she's quartering away, just slowly grazing and not paying me any attention. I wasn't confident in the shot, so let it go.
Eventually she disappeared down the other side of the hill, and I slowly continued north. Not 30 minutes later another doe and I walk right into each other. This one takes off and doesn't look back. That's two doe on the same trail, and this time right at a creek running from the hills into the lowlands. So I 2tc up a tree with a good shot at the trail, and I hope another doe, or a cruising buck will come down that path. I tickled the rattle bag a time or two, but nothing.
Hour walk out before dark to have dinner with my wife, and I bump two more deer near where I saw those first two earlier. Saw 6 deer, almost had a chance at my first archery kill, and found some promising areas to come back to.
I also ran into a couple walking there dog when I was on a path for a bit, and two teenage small game hunters. They were making a lot of noise and coming my way, and I was still hunting. One says "this is boring let's go home", the other says "I wanna kill something" and I say "well don't kill me!" Took them a sec to see me, we waved at each other, and they changed direction. All in all an interesting day hunting public land.
Already had one buck work through and open them up.
