Our quiet little valley has suddenly come alive this last week. Our quaint little roads have become a bustling highway for hunters. The deer hunting season is open and everyone has come to try and pull a big one out of our mountains. We see hunters of all kinds- on horse back, hauling ATVs, old ones. young ones, smart ones, and … ones that think that they are too cool for orange. If you don’t wear orange, you deserve to be shot. Ok, I didn’t say that, but really, why would you NOT be smart and wear something so the other hunter wouldn’t shoot at you?!
Opening morning The Rancher and I decided to join the hunting crowd and head up to our private property in the heart of those mountains. I guess we went up for two reasons- 1, to see if we couldn’t find something big and 2, to keep everyone else off of our property. And I guess a fun morning date is a good third reason for going!
We get a lot of mixed reactions when we post “No Hunting” on our private property. With so many hunters coming in (we can usually count about 15- 20 opening morning!) we try to give the deer a little bit of refuge on our property. Over the last ten years when the hunt opened up from a draw, the area has really picked through and it seems that only the young bucks are all that’s left. So we post our few acres and hope that people will respect our wishes and just move on. There is enough land and game around that it isn’t worth their fight. At least that is what I am going to believe that they are saying, as we haven’t had a problem yet.
On our hunt this year, we didn’t see much at all. Day one there was one little two point that popped up with a few doe… and that was it. We sat for a while and watched them before moving on… kinda fun. On day two we saw the same little buck, but this time in distress- he was being chased by a coyote! Poor bugger to have two different kind of hunters after him that day!
Even though we didn’t see much game, it has still been a fun deer hunt. I definitely deserve the award for the most “shots” taken, although mine are fired from my trusty Nikon instead of The Rancher’s rifle. The morning sunrises were beautliful, the fall leaves were colorful, and the company was great!
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| Can you find the little deer hiding in this photo? |
