Jake's Hunt Day Three

The last day of our trip to Ohio was upon us and it was time to get up and at'em. I woke the boys up at 5:45am and we were dressed and out the door by 6:30am. The wind was HOWLING like mad! It had to be every bit of 20 mph and gusting at over 30 at times! I almost turned around and headed back in, but I though this would be a good opportunity to teach the boys how to tough it out a little.

Mikey headed to the treestand and I was a little worried that he wouldn't make it since the temp was only 20 degrees plus the wind chill. He assured me he would be ok, but I gave up my fleece balaclava. I knew he would need it. Jake and I headed back to the popup blind and as we arrived I could see something shiny in the distance. This wasn't good, the shiny spot is where the popup blind was supposed to be! As we arrived to the spot we could see all our stuff we left in the blind, but the blind was GONE! We found it blown back into the brush in the fence row! Lucky break for us to find it. I knew that this wind was going to cause us trouble, so I staked down the blind hoping it would stay.

I immediately lit the heater hoping it would stay on with the whipping wind. Jake was cold so he sat down next to the heater and I just waited for daylight. About 20 minutes went by and I knew I should call Mikey on the cellphone to see how he was making it. He was freezing pretty bad, so I told him to get down and come over to the blind and set with us. He got there just before daybreak and spent the rest of the morning with us

Mikey's Treestand Location

The wind was terrible and lifting the blind pulling some of the stakes loose. I kept reanchoring it every little while. Finally around 8:00am I noticed something off in the distance down the fence row. I asked Mikey if that was deer, since he had my binoculars. He checked it out and sure enough it was two deer. I looked through the binoculars and then saw two more pop out of the fence row. They were about 700 yards away! No chance to get a shot at them, but the boys liked seeing something. That kept it interesting for a while.

Jake Looking In The Direction Of The Does

By 8:30am, it was getting worse out, the wind was blowing harder and it was snowing by know. I knew they had enough of it, so I asked them what they wanted to do. They looked at each other and turned to me saying, "lets go in!"

I took down the blind and packed everything back in, knowing that this was probably going to be the last hunt of our trip. The weather was just too bad. Later that afternoon we loaded the truck up to leave and it was around 3:30pm, I told them we could still get a quick evening hunt in if they wanted to. Nothing doing they were ready to leave. I kept telling them that the deer like to move when it is snowing and they might get a good chance at seeing some deer. The wind had died down quite a bit, but they didn't want to try it. I didn't want to force the issue, fearing it might do more harm then good. We left around 4pm and about 10 minutes after we left my brother in law called me telling us that three does just walked past the spot we were sitting at! The boys just looked at me and each other not knowing what to say. All I said was, "You should listen to your dad, I do know a little about deer hunting." Jake looked at me and said, "I just learned a good lesson, don't ever give up."

So if nothing else, he saw deer, had a great time, and learned a good lesson. It was an awesome trip for all three of us, but especially him! One other thing we got to do was shoot a crossbow for the first time. I will post our experience about that on the Hooks and Bullets Blog later this week.

Me Trying Out A Crossbow For The First Time!