Tough 1st week for rifle hunt this year at our camp in WMU 49 (Dunchurch area). The start of the week was hot (dogging in a T-shirt) and then the last part of the week was better as the animals started moving. A couple of the boys got shooting early in the week but had nothing to show for their efforts. We usually have better luck dogging/pushing then we do sitting but not this year as all our deer were taken sitting in ladder stands/climbers. Then on the Wednesday I shot a big doe and got some meat on the pole. The whole week I saw lots of moose and had a real close encounter with a bull at about 10 yards while doing a push . Also saw a decent bear but a good shot never presented itself, so the furry fellow then disappeared over a ridge.
Then on the Saturday I saw a doe approaching my stand coming up from a dry marsh but she was looking over her shoulder periodically. About 30 seconds later I see Mr. Buck appear in some thick stuff about 75 yards from where in sitting in the ladder stand. So I let him have it with the Tikka Whitetail 30/06 right in the boiler room, lights out. The doe took off like a rocket no chance in harvesting her. Not a huge deer like other years, decent size body but a 5 pointer and some more meat for the freezer. Great friendship, food, conversation, stories/lies retold, many beers and rye's and laughs all make me proud to be a hunter.
Now I can concentrate back home here for a trophy with the bow and the controlled hunt in 2 weeks. I was out last week and saw 2 nice bucks I hoping to meet up with now that the snow is here. I have had great success in December locally with bigger quality deer.