Deer Hunting 2016

[Aragorn243]

Well, no deer after first weekend. I've been slowly taking my daughter to all the places I used to hunt when I was younger. This weekend ended up being a nice place at the top of a mountain adjacent to a state park and a lake. There is a great view from the mountain down a road that looks over the lake to my boyhood home across the valley which I had to show her. She asked about just keeping on going down the mountain and I was like, well, be real hard getting a deer out of there. Then the famous last words: "It will be an adventure, I like adventures" So who am I to say no to that although I'm not in the best of shape this year and I'm thinking about all the guys about my age I'm reading about having heart attacks in the woods. This continues as the road continues getting steeper than I remember but we end up all the way at the bottom and then proceed to check out the field down there that is isolated by the lake. Rested a bit, ate lunch and started back but decided to venture down this road to see where it went. Not far but to the lake which was low. So I asked her if she wanted to head back up the road or go along the lake. She loves shorelines so that's what we ended up doing. I figured we'd go along the shore until we got to the lowest point of the mountain and head up there. I knew it was steep, just forgot how steep. I was 30 years younger the last time I was on that side of the mountain. I usually lead the way and I was about 20 yards ahead of her when I suggested she go back down and I'd go get the car and be back for her. she'd just have to walk a half mile out to the park. She didn't want to do that so I shifted things a bit and got her ahead of me so I could catch her if she fell. So I ended up bringing up the rear carrying both rifles and watching her struggle up. Took us two and a half hours to climb the side of that mountain. Never doing that again. Saw our first deer, a nice buck in our headlights on the way out.