'All Shook Up'

This weekend I went out with my dad, bright and early (5:00 am), to hunt. We found a new spot that a guy in our church is letting us hunt at. There were deer everywhere...it was awesome. We show up around 5:30, it's dark, my dad can't find my tree stand...so we're out traipsing around the woods. He finally tells me to 'stay put' and he goes walking around. As I stood there, I heard a squirrel off to my left and some other movement up to the right. When I started looking there were two deer coming up through the woods. I tell dad, via our walkie talkies, and he tells me to get my back to a tree. So I find a spot and get my bow ready, along with getting my face mask and everything on so I blend a little better with the trees. They eventually flagged and ran off, and dad found the tree stand.

I got up in the tree stand, it was a nice tripod stand with a swivel seat...so I was able to look all around without anything hindering my view. As I enjoyed the nice crisp morning (around 40 degrees), a deer came in on my right hand side. I was all excited, it was walking off, but dad said to sit tight and it would probably feed around me. So I sat and watched it eat up the hill, through some trees, and then down toward my tree stand. I stand up and get my bow ready, then wait for the deer to get with in shooting range. As it gets closer, I see antlers...it's a buck. The adrenaline starts pumping through my body and all my senses kick into overtime including the sinuses...which was a minor draw back. I had snot running down my upper lip and beyond. I would try to take 'calming breaths, but would end up with nastiness coming into my mouth. I couldn't wipe if off, that would be unnatural movement and alert the deer to my stake out. So the deer continues down the hill, I'm giving dad semi play-by-play run down of what's going on. He's telling me to take calming breaths because I'm getting to excited...which I can't because of the afore mentioned sinuses. My whole body is shaking and quaking...my leg was shaking so bad I figured I was about to cause the whole tripod to start shaking. Needless to say, the buck (about an 8 to 10 pointer) kept walking. I never even took a shot. He came within about 25-30 yards of my stand.

My dad has decided that I can be part of a buckitus club. It was awesome getting to him, I'm just sad that I didn't actually take a shot. I did get a good cardio work out though...nothing like a good jump start on the old ticker.