Billy the Martian

deer hunting
Saturday, November 06, 2004
10:13 PM

We drove up together, leaving John’s house at 10:30 or so. John’s new truck made for a very pleasant drive up.

We got up to Bemidji on Friday at about 2:30 in the afternoon. We had time to get to the sporting goods store and get all our various errands done in time to make the cocktail hour and go out for a nice dinner. I drank too much.

Today, we got on the stands a wee bit late, but it was okay. Dad shot a big buck from the Swamp Stand (Stinky Buck stand) at about 8:30. Dragging it out was a lot of work. We got tired. We went back out for the afternoon hunt, and everyone saw some deer except me. John saw a buck that he said was the biggest he’s seen on the land.

The weather was quite warm — in the 50s, and the wind was mild.

I was on the Pine Tree stand. Scott was on the Two Buck stand, and John was on Dad’s Stand in the morning. I was on Dad’s Stand in the afternoon.

11/7/2004, 6:02 PM

I was in the Two Buck stand this morning, and saw little. Scott was in Dad’s Stand, and we both heard a doe snorting (a lot). Uncle John shot a nice little buck from the Chicken Gut stand, and dropped it right in the path. Dad shot the monster buck that John saw yesterday. He got it from the pine stand with a couple of long shots. We decided we didn’t want to drag it, so we went back to Bruce’s and arranged to borrow their four-wheeler. They’re fetching the deer now. Scott and I came back to the hotel.

Weather was cooler than yesterday, but still nice. The wind picked up this afternoon. My face is windburned, even though I didn’t stay in the Swamp Stand all afternoon. I got cold and came back to the cars at 3:30 or so. We saw some deer cross the roads, but I don’t think anyone saw any from stands during the later hunts.

On Monday, Uncle John and Scott left in the morning. We checked out of the motel, swung by the locker plant to drop off the biggest two deer, and made arrangements with a friend of Dad’s to get a used 4 wheeler sometime next year.

John and I gave Dad a lot of abuse about shooting all our deer. We think we might have overdone the guilt trip that we laid on him to get him to come back. Obviously, he’s back with a vengeance!