Sorry for such a long delay in between diary entries I make no excuses, just I have not posted anything. I am going to try to catch up on the end of my 09 deer season, and attempt to keep the hunts in the order they happened. If ya have been reading any of the past diary entries, nothing goes anything like it is planned, even after the fact. So here is my next entry, it wasn’t the next hunt of my year, but its the one on my mind.
Deer season is winding down. The weather is staying rather moderate considering some of the late season we have had in the recent past. Life is keeping me busy and largely out of the woods. Alas Mud comes over to baseops and you know something will be brewed up.
About five days before Mud arrived I was loading a few things up in the Nimrod sled when Murph jumped out from behind Grey Beards pick ’em up and pushed me into the sled. I twisted and bruised my knee and have been limping like a three leg dog since.
Mud came over looking to fill one of his tags and I hadn’t been hunting in over a week so anyone should have known what was gonna happen.
We met up at baseops, dropped off Yoop, Monkey and Munda; picked up Mud and off we went. I had a new to me ladder stand strapped to the roof of the sled. With a bum knee I talked Mud into helping me erect the stand to catch the waning portion of the season.
I had scouted the swale a few times for the perfect stand location and have come up empty. On the fly I found a nice tree with in shooting distance of a few normally well used trails. Mud and I put it together and up the tree. Mud played squirrel and got her all strapped up and ready. Bingo.
I told Mud I would go park the sled and he could just make his way over to his stand. I gimped my way out of the woods and parked the sled back up by the road. I loaded up the front loader and gimped my way back to the stand. Not seeing any sign of recent deer activity, or activity in the last few weeks, my hopes were sky high. and having my knee throb the whole time I felt it was a good time to throw in the towel. Not wanting to ruin Muds hunt I stuck it out.
I nestled into my new penthouse view and tried to enjoy the night. I scanned the woods with the binos and found no fresh tracks. Not one to get down about anything I started to think about the snow fall we had received and made a mental note that we hadn’t received any fresh snow in about 10 days nor had we any temperatures above the freezing mark. So based on my advanced education in meteorology and wildlife biology I determined there had been no deer around in the past 10 days or so.
While I enthusiasm for a fun filled night of hunting was at a fevered peak… my willingness to freeze the ol’ can off while listening to my knee throb wasn’t. About 50 minutes after climbing into the penthouse, I gave Mud a ring on the phone and told him I was going to head back to baseops. I explained to him why and told him I would be glad to come back for him in a few hours at dusk.
Surprisingly Mud said I will just go with you. I found it odd cause he had come over not to see the family, but to hunt deer. He said he didn’t see one deer track on his way to his stand but figured he would give it a shot since we won’t be shooting any from in front fo the TV at baseops, yet I didn’t care, I just wanted to get a heating pad on the throbbing joint that holds most my weight every other step.
I slowly gimped my way out to the field. I took the curviest, hilliest, most unforgiving path tot he field line. Why take it easy when your gimped up? Pains is only temporary… the embarrassment of crying from the pain in public lasts forever.
While I waited for Mud to emerge from the woods, I stood around unfortunately taking him the winter evening. Some rustling in the thick brush next to me broke my self pity party. This thicket is where early last season both Mud and I had a nice 7 point walk by our stands (we were in two separate stands by the way). This thicket was between us and the deer cut right on through it.
I positioned myself as best as I could that if I deer came out, I should be able to take a safe shot. I knew where Mud’s stand was, I knew where the road an houses were… as long as this deer gave me a shot that was not inline with the majority of obstacles around me I was going to be all set.
I knelt down on my gimp’d knee; waiting and listening. The critter had been running through the thick stuff and now was slowly moving to the edge. I think Mud had bumped the deer from its bed and it was working its way away from where he was moving.
As I sat very impatiently and the brown one never showed, the pity party started back in full swing. After another few minutes Mud emerged from where I had heard the brown one coming. I asked him if he had kicked up a deer and was trying to find it and he looked at me like I asked him if he was going to paint the Mud Machine Pink. I explained what I had heard and he said it was him.
Turns out while I was parking the sled, he and Murph were making their way to Muds stand. As mud crossed the creek, Murph pushed him. Mud crashed into the other bank, fall into knee deep water, filling his boots. He also landed his front loader on a perfectly placed rock, breaking off the tip of his front loaders loading rod. The water from the creek filled Muds boots and his feet were a wee bit chilled by the time I called him. Mud never helped explaining the noise I thought was a brown one. I think it was Mud chasing Murph for dumping him in the creek.
Once back at the sled we loaded out stuff and made way back to baseops. We arrived home earlier than everyone expected us too and turns out our normally cold dinner was still served cold. Baseops had eaten early and we didn’t give them time to warm it up for it to cool down for us.
Nimrod Diaries 