September 1, opening day, found us rolling out of bed at 4:30 a.m., putting on our sweet camouflage pants, finding our compasses, knives, bows, and walkie-talkies, and bundling into the car to head up to the mountains in order to get up there before sunrise. Fun. Stuff.
Clari and I, 4:45 a.m. Opening Day. Ready to conquer the world...Or, I guess, the deer.
The first part of the morning was extremely slow, but, by 10:30 a.m., Dad, Pollywog (18), and Gubby (11) all had deer. They had shot the deer within five minutes of each other...Needless to say, that rarely happens.
Dad helping Gubby fill out his first deer tag. This was Gubby's first year hunting. <3
Dad's deer! Of course, he didn't want to be in the shot alone, so we all, fresh off the blood trail, video camera and all, got in the photo.
Pollywog's big doe!
We kept hunting, and just as it was about to get dark, I was stalking through a clear-cut, peered into the edge brush, did a double-take into some trees 20 yards away, drew back, released my first arrow of the day, and before I had time to register my shock had hit nice buck.
Dad and I with my buck. It was almost 11:30 p.m. by the time we had blood-trailed the deer and cleaned it out. It was also pouring rain...I was super stoked, though! My first buck (there are horns, they just aren't humongous)!
After our incredibly fruitful opening day, I did not join any more of the hunts due to my catching a cold during our seemingly endless trek back to the car in the freezing, pouring rain with a large buck behind us.
However, within a few days, Sweet Pea (14) landed a nice buck (her first deer) and Mozzarella (16) landed a nice doe. Six out of the seven hunters were blessed with deer this year. God is so, so good. Here are some more pictures of our adventures.
Sometimes we see baby deer and shoot them with the camera instead of our bows.
Gubby's sisters love him very, very much. <3
Clari and I trying to look cool and failing rather miserably.
So thankful for my hilarious Daddy.
Early mornings.
Group picture! So thankful for family!
Gubby looking fully legit. <3
Sweet Pea and Mozzarella looking fully legit. <3
Something smelled really bad, so, naturally, Mozzarella had to smell Sweet Pea's feet.
<3
This is what we do while we wait for the trail to cool...
In short, this year's hunting season was extremely blessed, a bit chaotic, and fully awesome.
