This past weekend was Thanksgiving weekend which represents many things for me.  Thanksgiving represents time spent with family and friends, upper state championship football games, The Turkey Bowl, & a lot of hunting.  This past weekend encompassed all of that and then some.

I was able to hunt on Wednesday afternoon and I went out to my climbing stand on the ridge, but I did not see anything.  On the way in I noticed that a buck made a scrape right beside a scrape and both were fresh.  I?m not sure if it would be the same deer doing this or some other deer making a scrape beside another just to talk a little junk to the other deer! Lol!  Either way it was a good sign to me.  I sat out on the ridge and just passed time wondering about all kinds of stuff.  One of the things I wondered about was how to integrate more imagery into my blog postings.  I recently upgraded my phone to an IPhone 3Gs and it has video capabilities which are awesome.  I shot my first video using the phone and instantly loaded it to YouTube from the deer stand.  When it was over I shared the link with my mom and she was sitting in the den at our house and saw what I just shot minutes earlier from my stand.  Pretty nerdy yet neat stuff.  So, to give you a visual idea of what I see when I?m sitting on this ridge I have embedded the video below.  The depth of the hill in the video doesn?t do it justice?and no, I don?t get real high in a climbing stand.  I?m scared of heights!

So Wednesday?s hunt was nothing to talk about really other than figuring out a good use for my new IPhone.  I?ll most likely try to include as many videos as possible when I can because I think it will be more interesting for any of you out here reading this stuff.  Thursday morning I went to a different stand

	This is the fog at about 7:45

that is deeper in the woods.  I could hardly see anything on this day because the fog was literally all over the place.  I couldn?t see very far at all.  It seemed to get worse the longer I stayed in the woods.  All in all, I did not see anything on this occasion either, but I did notice that the deer have started coming back to the corn and eating it.  They have left it untouched for a few weeks now and are finally interested again.  So, I?ll be keeping fresh corn out there for future hunts. 

Didn?t hunt Thursday evening due to Thanksgiving and then on Friday morning I went back out to the ridge.  It had gotten colder by Friday.  I think it was like 39 degrees outside and we had a little frost on the ground in Pageland.  Whenever I go out on that ridge I have to leave in plenty of time because of the route I have to take to get there?the truck, the 4-wheeler, the walk, the hike, getting in the safety harness, climbing the tree etc.  So I left really early in the morning and made the journey.  Even though it was cold, I was still sweating by the time I got to the top of that hill!   I took my toboggan off and climbed the tree with the cold air hitting my bald head?.for a few minutes it felt good.  I was up the tree and sitting there.  Along about 7:30 I had something neat come through the woods.  I still don?t believe it myself though, but I saw what I think was an albino fox.  That thing came trotting through and went up and down the ridge and darted right, then darted left, then jumped on a log, then ran along.  It wasn?t a coyote because I?ve seen enough of those to know.  It was smaller and it was a rare color that I don?t see much of.  It wasn?t pure white, but more so a dingy white.  I watched whatever this was for about 10 minutes and I was going to shoot it, but I didn?t want to spook any deer that might be in the area.  I sat and sat and at 8:30 I heard some trotting coming from my left down in the valley.  About 20 seconds later, 3 does were coming up the hill right in the perfect shooting lane for me.  One of the things that I don?t like about the climbing stand is that a deer has to come to certain places of the woods for me to feel like I have a good shot where I can balance and not have to hold some awkward position in order to get a good shot.  I hate having to squirm in the stand trying to turn to see something because I feel like I?m going to fall out, but these deer were coming right down the pipe.  They got in on me so fast that I didn?t even have enough time to turn the video camera on my gun on.  The deer came up the hill and the doe gave me a good broad sided shot and I pulled the trigger.  I knew I had hit her when she took off running because I saw her leg buckle as she was running.  The other two deer scattered and were disoriented.  She ran about 35 yards and I saw her go down.  Success!  I didn?t miss this time.  See, even a web developer gets lucky sometimes!  I sat there for a while and chambered another shell just in case.  About 15 ? 20 minutes later I got down out of the stand.  

I went and started dragging the deer.  I normally hunt with a friend or with my dad and can get help dragging a deer, but on this day everyone was working or out of town + the fact that you would have to have a 4-wheeler to get out where I was.  So, I drug the deer by myself?mistake #1.  Going down the hill wasn?t bad at all?crossing the creek and getting the deer up the hill was another story.  There were moments when I had to stop and just lay on the ground and take a break.  I felt like the deer weighed 200 lbs going up the hill.  During these moments, I took the opportunity to remind myself of why I should only shoot a trophy out on that ridge.  Man was I struggling.  With my whole body now shaking as if I had just go through lifting weights or something, I walked up the hill taking my jacket, toboggan, and bag off.  I went and got the 4-wheeler and rode it as far down the ridge as I could?which proved to only be about 10 yards.  I then unwound all of the winch and got it down the hill.  Of course it wouldn?t reach as far as I needed it to.  So I drug and drug and rested and shook and drug.  Finally I got the deer close enough to the winch and got it pulled up to the 4-wheeler.  That was one battle.  Have you ever tried to load a deer on a 4-wheeler or into the bed of a truck by yourself?  Well if you have then I?m sure you can feel my pain, but you haven?t?avoid having to at all costs.  I finally ended up having to bear hug the deer and got her up there on the rack.  I tied her down and finally thought I would be able to leave.  I turned the 4-wheeler and started up the ridge and the doe fell off.  I didn?t have her tied on well enough because I did a slack job of strapping her down.  Now back to the bear hugging and this time I tied her all kinds of ways so as to not have to continue this miserable cycle.  I finally made it out and drove the 4-wheeler up on the truck and headed to the processor.  It was a very exhausting experience.  All I know to say is ?Thanks God for hunting partners?!  If you?ve got a buddy that goes hunting with you be glad because it could be a lot worse. 
 
So I finally got a doe and it took every ounce of energy I had to get the thing to the truck.  Then Friday night we beat Abbeville for the Upper State Championship.   It was a tight game until the end when we scored a few pretty quickly.  Now we?re heading to the state again to rematch against Dillon.  Nobody ever thought we?d make it this far.
 

Regards,

CBP