Yesterday was opening day of rifle hunting for residents of Maine. It’s a day that I look forward to all year long. It reminds me of when I was a kid looking forward to Christmas. With the same excitement that Christmas brought me in that stage of life, hunting know brings to me in this part of life.

It all starts the night before. Laying out my hunting stuff I could almost feel my heart pounding in excitement. Holding the gun that I would use in my hands brought back memories of deer shot in previous years and hopes that past will replay itself this year. Then it was time to hit the sack early in order to get a good nights sleep. Yeah right!!!! I tossed and turned. Woke up saying to myself “it must be about time for the alarm to go off”. Then look at the clock to discover its 10:05 p.m. That scenario played out about ten times that night. Finally on the last time the clock read 4:50. My alarm was set for 5:15. I figured there’s no way i’m going back to sleep so i’ll just get up. I snuck around the house being as quiet as possible. Apparently that was not as quiet as I thought. I managed to wake my wife up first. Shortly after that I heard my 21 month old son stirring in his room. So I gathered him up and asked for a “good luck” kiss.

Since running across Mr. Buck a few weeks back my wife has kept a picture of him on her bedstand. As I was getting ready to leave she said “I wanna see this buck when you get home”. I chuckled out loud and said “we’ll see what we can do”. After a few more minutes with them it was time to set out to my spot. My buddy, Bruce and I had planned on meeting there at 6 a.m.

I arrived at about 5:50. Six rolled around and still waiting for Bruce. As I was sitting there I began to say “it’s really dark”. So thankfully my buddy showed up about 6:25. This was about perfect timing to start up the mountain. What this mountain hike showed me was that I am out of shape. Once on top of the mountain we split up, one heading right, the other left. Both ways produced lots of signs so it didn’t matter to either of us which we took. Bruce gave me the choice. I said “i’ll go left”.

Our plan was to sit, still hunt, and meet back at this spot at 10a.m. So each of us took off in our set up direction. Off to the left it was real easy to find a clearly visable trail where Mr. Buck had been travelling. I followed close by this trail, although not directly on trail for a short ways. I then came to a spot that looked appealing to me. So I sat down for awhile. To my back was the edge of a clearcut they had done a couple years back. To my front, the area that I was watching was a lot of small fir trees with some thick cover. I sat in hopes he would be travelling the edge of clearcut with the thicket close by for a quick retreat if he needed. After sitting there for about a half hour I decided to continue down to the left to check out more of the area. We had scouted the area one time. We did not however get down to far in fear of spreading our scent in the area. Our fear this would cause this big boy to go completely nocturnal before we had a chance to get in with our guns.

So I moved my way down about two hundred yards. Here off to my right was another incline in the mountain. To my left and straight ahead was an area that was semi open. This area although had lots of trees for cover. This seemed like a great spot to spend some time. I looked around and saw a blow down. I straddled this blow down with the roots behind me in order to break up my image. This area as I looked around really began to get my gears running. What a great opportunity. The deer have close cover to escape. The area just appeared to be an area they would frequently travel. As I sat in this area looking around I saw something orange on a tree about halfway up the incline. This made me file that in my brain and say to myself “after sitting I need to check that out”. So that’s what I did. After sitting there for about an hour I slowly moved my way up the incline. Much to my surprise it was marking for a hiking trail.

Now I say to myself “I climbed up a sheer cliff and there’s a hiking trail”. I walked up the hiking trail which offered some great views on both sides for catching deer moving through the ravines. After a short walk I reached the summit of the mountain. What a beautiful site. I promise next time i’m up there I will bring my camera and take a snapshot of that site. A little further up the trail I found an outhouse. “An outhouse on top of the mountain”, I asked myself. Then I found a road. Well apparently someone knows a much easier way than the rock climbing I did a couple hours ago. Walking down the road I eventually came to a sign that read “private drive”. At this point I stopped and turned around. The second spot I had set at drew me back. This time I sat in a different spot which offered a slightly better view of the area. With rocks from the mountain and fir trees surrounding me breaking up my outline I sat down for another hour or so.

It was now time to go meet Bruce. So I slowly moved my way through the area I had been watching. There were lots of deer sign and a pretty major trail by the looks of it. My buddy and I met and made our way down the mountain. Upon reaching the bottom the rain began to come down.

Neither of us spotted Mr. Buck or any other deer. Both of us very encouraged about the sign in the area however. Talking about our outing over breakfast we both decided that the rain came earlier than what had been predicted. Our belief is that the deer moved during the night knowing a heck of a lot better than us when the storm would arrive. So i’m sure that Mr. Buck was bedded down somewhere in that area. Rest assured this chess game will continue.

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