18 October Mid America Staff:
Greetings from northern Indiana, Rex and Deb [last name deleted] checking in with a summary of our first hunting trip with the club this year. You may recognize me alone, however, my wife has recently retired from her school nursing position and is done being a hunting widow. So in the future you should see my wife Deb in the pictures with me as well as her own future trophies. We combined an [location deleted] muzzleloader option with the [location deleted] bow opener, lets get started.
We arrived in [location deleted] to greet the 90 degree temperatures, and needless to say the deer movement was mostly limited to the last few minutes of the evenings. We bumped around to several new locations that looked good on terra server, and as I expected, we saw plenty of deer on every property. We had the mark set high for a Boone and Crocket class buck, and never saw one. However, several good bucks up to the 140 range were in my sights on more that one occasion, and we let all of them pass. We saw lots of turkeys and plenty of beautiful sunsets. We left empty handed, but gained some valuable info that will influence my rifle choice.
Towards the end of September we headed to [location deleted], hoping for some cooler temps which did hold for the next few days. My wife has never been in a tree bow hunting before, and she got some good experience doing so with me right beside her. We got her a bow a month earlier and she was holding a good pattern from 20 yds, so I was going to turn her loose on the first doe within range. On just the second time out we had a nice opportunity, and wouldn't you know it a 4" diameter tree jumped in the way and she stuck the arrow in solidly about 12' up. I had to take my climber over and retrieve the arrow, she was so embarrassed. I told her I have done that several times, so don't feel bad.
As it turned out we had close encounters almost every time out, with no other shot opportunities for her. But on our last evening before we were due to head for home the Lord changed our luck and I had a nice pope and young buck come within range of our double bull blind.
I have never taken a deer with archery equipment from a ground blind. We were setting in a fence row watching a standing bean field, and right before dark a nice 9pt showed up. He gave me a 15 yard shot and with the help of my wife, (calming me down) and my Tenpoint crossbow, we got the job done. He only went about 40 yds after the shot, but we had a 1½ mile drag back to our car. We didn't have a deer cart, so we fashioned a carrying pole and lashed the deer on and away we went with it over our shoulders. We were both exhausted when we got the buck to the road.
We were staying [location deleted], where the park officials said I could hang a deer if I got one. So the next morning we were greeted with several onlookers checking out the deer. One older couple in particular stayed and talked for awhile saying how he used to love to hunt and couldn't get out much any more due to some health problems from a work related illness from asbestos poisoning. So my wife and I decided to take the deer over to their home and help them prepare it for butchering. They were so thankful and it made us feel great to do it. We received this card shortly after we got home.
We both feel that the Mid America hunting club is a great organization and that we can represent the club with integrity. We have donated our deer to local people several times, for as the Bible states in Matthew 10: 8 "...freely you have received, freely give." We have been in the club for 5 years and have taken many animals; it isn't so much the trophy that you harvest, but making memories by meeting new people and sharing the Word, as well as some of His bounty.
In closing, my wife is anxiously waiting for our follow up archery trip to [location deleted] to try her luck again on a nice deer. I will never hear the end of it if she takes a bigger buck than me. I will have the pleasure of witnessing her first club archery kill, and hopefully get it on tape.
God Bless, Rex and Deb
Thank you Rex and Deb. Congratulations on the harvest and good luck to Deb, always good to see a new hunter. |
|
|
|
