Deer Hunting 2012- Still Waiting

I finally saw a deer from one of my stands yesterday, which was day 11 for me.  Trail cam photos like this keep me going.  I know the bigger deer are out there, just not moving during the day.  The deer that I saw yesterday was a doe, and I waited for about an hour and a half after she came through hoping that the buck would follow, which it didn't.  I went in for lunch and on my walk back I came within 25 feet of a little fork.  As I was walking "my" trail, which is actually a game trail, I had just thought about how well I had been doing at sneaking in and that anything in the field near my stand probably wouldn't have heard me.  The next second, a loud "snap" from a stick that I didn't see, and I figured I put anything nearby on alert.  Just then, I looked up and saw a tiny forkhorn walking toward me, on the same trail, not 50 feet away.  I froze and waited to see how close it would get.  Since he had his head down and I saw him first, all that he know when he stopped 25 feet away and looked up at me was that there was something in his way, so he stepped off the trail.  He went around me on the downwind side, passing at about 20 feet to my left.  I waited for him to catch my scent, and when he did, he scurried back about 30 yards and stared back at me.  I stayed frozen and he slowly walked away.  Hopefully that deer will live to be the size of the one in this picture.  The first shot from my camera was fuzzy because he was moving, so I couldn't really see the rack.  Based on the wide body and thick neck in this photo, I'm thinking that this is a pretty good deer, hopefully I'll run into him this weekend or during muzzleloader season.

Deer Hunting 2012- Week One

Our opening day party consisted of me, my cousin Tom, his daughter Katrina, my dad, and my brother Tom.  

I've spent the better part of the past 6 days in the woods and I still haven't seen a deer from my stand.  A scrape that showed up by my primary stand several days ago has not been checked.  There hasn't been a single track on normally busy runway and I could count the shots I've heard since Monday on one hand.  I'm home today, Saturday looks cold, wet, and windy, Sunday doesn't look much better.  Looks like it will be another year of waiting for the rut to kick in and combine with better conditions late in the season.

Minnesota Deer Opener 2012

This is the first time that I've posted anything without a picture- unfortunately, the only one taken was of our hunting party without any deer, and that's only on my brother's camera for now.  Our party of five had only one opportunity in 2 full days of hunting.  Being a little more selective, a fork was given a pass on Sunday, the only deer seen while sitting on stands.  A few others were jumped while walking to/from stands or during drives.  It's been a slow start for most this year throughout St. Louis and Itasca Counties.  The weather was cloudy and mostly calm with a temperature of around 32-35 for daytime highs and not too cold at night.  A neighboring party did take a decent 8-pointer on Saturday, but it's been slow.  I'm not discouraged yet, still 13 days to go, and I'll be in the woods for most of them.