We stayed 6 days and hunted 5 for the first round. We left Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving so we could get home and help with the Thanksgiving dinner. We headed back up early Friday morning to beat a "storm" that was supposedly on the way. But you know with the weather guessers, it may or may not come. We figured if it was coming, Friday afternoon would be a great time to be in the woods. It wasn't.
Neither of us saw a deer or even fresh tracks.
A couple of our buddies showed up Friday night and we headed to my parents place for a lasagna dinner. Expecting to see deer at every turn because the "storm was coming." Or was it?
It was and did! Wind was blowing steady 20 MPH with gusts up to 40 MPH.Plenty cold for hunting from a treestand.
I decided for the last weekend of the season, I was going to use my Grandpa's Remington 740, in 30-06 of course, that I inherited last summer. Figured "what the hell, and threw on the plaid red/black wool coat, wool bibs, and wool Kromer too. Hoping Grandpa would nudge something my way.
We decided to swap stands for the morning to see some different scenery. Snow was falling at what seemed like 2 or 3 inches/hr. There was 3 or so on the ground as you can see from the other pics. By 9:00 the wind was really howling, snow was piling up fast and I was starting to wonder if we should maybe hunt closer to a road so we could get out of the woods. A few minutes later I heard a shot that sounded like a muzzle loader. A very strange, ppfffft-poW! and them what I thought was some talking. I was shocked someone else was hunting by us. We've not seen anyone back there before.
A minute or so after that I got a text from the kid saying " got her. watched her fall." now I was more shocked that it was Jack. He was hunting about 200 yards from me to the SW. The shot sounded like it was east. The snow had everything goofed up.
I texted back "that was you?!!" and I heard the Chicken Buck "whooo-looo-looo-looo"
I told him to stay put I'd be on my way.
I guess Grandpa nudged something, but it was to the wrong kid.
On the way to the stand I walked up on this.
He saw me stop and figured I found it. The stand he was in is in the trees in the very background of the picture. There were 3 does and no fawns coming through. He picked the one that gave him a good shot. He said the others hit his wind and stopped with their noses in the air. Shot was 50 yards, slightly 1/4'ing to him. Hit the shoulder, heart, lungs, and didn't come out. She ran 25-30 yards blowing blood out the nose.
I kinda wanted to hunt the rest of the morning until noon. But with the snow coming like it was, we decided to get the deer back to the cabin and 1/4'd up to bring home. Because we planned on leaving that night after supper. I'm glad we went with that route.
There was about 1 foot of snow at the time he shot. We got back about 1hr later and it was snowing harder. The other boys came in at 12:30 or so from the woods for lunch and to start to pack up. My buddy and his son left their blinds in the woods because our plan was to hunt after lunch. The boys wanted to stay in and watch the Badgers beat up on the Gopher football team. So, we headed out to pull 2 blinds and a stand. In the 2 hrs we were at the shack, the blinds collapsed due to the snow. We got them out, pulled a ladder stand down and it was about 4:00. Just in time to have some daylight to get back to the cabin, load up, and head home.
We made it about 2 miles on a logging road, to the main gravel road that is usually plowed because it's the main route through there. Our truck tracks weren't even visible with the snow blowing all over the place. We got to the highway and kept on the road by the rumble strip. It was that bad. I've never seen it snow that hard before, ever. I called my wife and told here we're not driving home in this, but we'd leave early in the morning. We had to get back early Sunday for the 2PM MN Wild Game we had tix for.
All our food was packed and loaded in the truck, so we got back and told the boys that we were going to be forced to walk a block down the road to the bar for pizza and beer for the night. We were all disappointed.
Woke up Sunday morning to this
There ended up being 28" of snow that fell on Saturday.
Awesome, fun hunt. Can't wait to get back!!