Deer Season 2024

    

 

    My 2024 deer season wasn't unsuccessful. It just wasn't the greatest. I filled the freezer with 3 does, well actually two little skippers and a 1.5 year old button buck. I shot one opening day of bow, just because the opportunity presented itself. I shot the second, the little button, later in the archery season. He came into a doe bleat in a can call. Both were good shots and easily recovered.  I built a walk-in cooler in my shed this year using an air conditioner and a gadget called the "coolbot." It works really well.  I also put in a winch in the skinning shed, which works out great.

Her first "deer hunt"

    I also took part in a large group during opening week of shotgun on Nantucket. It was the first time I had ever hunted Nantucket, and it was quite the experience. These deer live in thick underbrush, scrub oak, that requires safety glasses to push through. I had a couple really nice opportunities where I wish I had used my rifled barrel and sabot rounds, but it was frowned upon because it was seen as "unsafe." Many of the others in the group used 3.5 in shells filled with .00 buckshot and did not have the best practice when it came with muzzle control. I saw a lot of deer, more than you could see hunting by yourself, but the tactic was a little crazy at times. It was an interesting experience, nonetheless. I shot a small doe with buck shot, wounding her. I flushed her out from where she was bedded down but was unable to take another safe and ethical shot due to the proximity of other hunters around me. As I was tracking the blood I heard a shot from the direction she ran. Another guy in the group dropped her and allowed me to tag her.  I dragged her out while walking on the beach, a pretty cool experience.

     Overall, it was a lot of fun. I had a couple of close encounters during bow season that did not pan out. One sit I had a very early morning doe walk towards me, but caught be moving in an attempt to take a shot and reversed direction. I saw another group of does the last morning sit before shotgun season. I didn't have any doe tags left, but they winded me at 20 yards and took off anyways. I did not have any big buck encounters except to help process a roadkill buck that was hit by a car opening week of shotgun. Terrible waste, but a co-worker of mine took the meat for his freezer.