Got some meat for the ice!!

2:46 PM on Saturday (more on the exact time in a second).......only deer i saw all day.

I was sitting in a treestand in serious back pain from 5 hours of  driving then 10+- hours in a stand on Friday and Saturday......so i was stretching / sitting funny and i see a deer walking...there is only one small lane where i can shoot about 5 feet in front of him so i had all of 10 seconds to decide whether to shoot.......decided i was gonna take a whack, spotted him in the scope and pulled the trigger. He did a double leg kick and bolted off....sounded like he crashed but who knows.

Waited 5 minutes, got down and went to look for blood......and couldn't find any so i am thinkin i friggin missed...my buddy walks up and says "i heard a crash" and i agreed.....went back to my stand and had him walk to the spot where the deer was when i shot and we found blood within 10 feet... followed it to the next drop then looked up and 25 feet away was my deer.

It was missing one side of its' antlers so was only a 2 point but i was a 1.5 year old and decent sized (compared to the yearling another guy shot it was HUGE).

I took about 15 years off from hunting and just got back into it about 4 or 5 years ago and spend 95% of my hunting time with the bow which is a ton of fun but not necessarily the most productive hunting method.........so for me this is the first deer in well over 20 years!

Now i am down to a doe permit in 4J (bow only in Delmar) and then my bow tag for the extended season when gun is over........hoping to get one more!!

 
Oh yeah....the time thing.....we had $130 in a pool (13 guys) with half for the first deer and half for the biggest buck.......there were 3 doe shot late in the day and only my buck so my scrappy little 2 pointer earned me $130 and then i won money playing cards both friday and saturday night......came home with more $ in my pocket than i left with!!

ORIGINAL: Dropshot

Congrats !  Your $130 closer to that Vex  - Man some venison stew warmed on the ice sounds awesome on a cold day ice fishing ! We got to get Jimmy up to Ft. Ann this year - I been watching some videos on "youtube" and they caught a lot of Lakers around that area we fished. Until ice good luck with the hunting !

Forgot I'm logged in on my back up account - Reel Force here ....

 
 
Thanks Jeff........and you know the vex was the first thing that crossed my mind!!........although i did have to pony up and buy ther first round Saturday night for 13 adults and 3 kids so the $130 dwindled down quite a bit.
 
But....i won $200 on the world series....started out at $50 with 2 to 1 odds that the Yankees would win 100 regular season games....that won me $100 which turned into double or nothing that they would win the Series.
 
So between that $200 and this weekend i am close enough and i am gonna pony up and get a Vex FL18 or else a Marcum LX 5 or a Lowrance X67 ice machine.....the vex is great and i have read good things about the Marcum and Lowrance but that debate is for another post!
 
 
 

nice going what a weekend in the woods. To me it was the best opening gun season ever.. Nice temps and ZERO wind in Oneonta. The deer were sure moving around well and not spooked at all. Sat I seen 24 deer only 1 was a buck and in brush.. Sunday I seen 13 deer , 1 was a spike and I took a doe so the grill will be fired up on the ice.

3 of us hunted : over 50 deer seen but only bucks were , spikes & a 4 pt so no males killed.. I'll be back at it friday......

ORIGINAL: bassinbrian

Always nice to see lots of deer RJ, keeps the whole day interesting,

 
Its also nice to see a big slab of venison in butcher paper sitting in Tuna's sled at around 6am when we're setting out for a day of ice fishing!
 
Keeps the whole day delicious.

sounds like you had a blast!