Now the rest of the story. Eric and I got to the woods Saturday morning on the aforementioned "fogged scope" hunt, and only then did I realize that I had left the bolt for my Mauser back at home! I thought, "No big deal, we'll just hunt with Eric's rifle." Eric's 13, and in Minnesota can't legally sit by himself yet at that age, so we'd be together with his rifle anyway. Then we ran into the fogging issue. Of course, our backup gun, a scoped 12 guage 870 is a half hour away at the cabin, as I hadn't brought it along that morning. We make a mad dash back to the cabin, of course seeing deer all the way back along the trails and roads. We leave the cabin with the shotgun, as a spike buck trots down the side of the road, showing no real interest in getting out of our way. (Our tags are not valid where the cabin is.) I thought I was going to have to pass him up, but he finally trotted across the road and got out of our way. We returned to the woods and of course spooked 2 deer right out from under our stand as we walked back in. Had we been on the stand, we could have spit on them. Lessons learned:
#1) I'll never buy a cheap scope again.
#2) Mauser's tend to work a whole lot better if you PUT A BOLT IN THEM.
#3) A back up gun is a great idea-especially if you bring it along in the morning.
#4) I'LL NEVER BUY A CHEAP SCOPE AGAIN!
