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| DEER HUNTING STORIES 2000 pg 5 of 5 |
| Muzzle Loader Season Craig and I went down to Art and Nan's in Hocking County on Dec.28-29 for Muzzleloader Season. The hillsides were covered in snow and the temps were in the low 20's. As we pulled in to Art's and parked the van I looked out the side window a nd saw 3 deer feeding their way along the hillside not more than 150-200 yards away. They did not pay us much attention until we got out of the van! Soon we were ready to hunt and the plan was for Craig to set up on a hillside to the West and I was to walk toward him from the East in hopes to push some deer toward him. Craig had not taken a deer so far this year and we were trying to get him one. Well I walked and walked, there were tracks everywhere. When I finally met up with Craig he said that no deer had come his way. So much for plan A. We then decide to walk through the clear cut to see if we could find any fresh tracks in the snow indicating that there were deer traveling in and out of this pine choked area. To our surprise we did not find any sign! We thought for sure that this thick area would hold a lot of deer since the weather had been from 0 to 20 for about 10 days. But noooooo! That evening we stood overlooking well used deer trails but we did not see any movement. The next morning Craig did the driving and Art, Nan and myself position ourselves out ahead of him. I bumped 3 deer while walking to my spot and they ran up the hill and stopped at the head of a ravine. Craig soon came along and pushed the deer ahead of him but the tracks later indicated that they ran off over the ridge away from us. Later on Craig set up on the opposite hillside and I did the walking. I ran across tracks and beds in several locations. When I met up with Craig he said that he did not see any deer but showed me where there were about 6 or 7 beds. We climbed down the hill and decided to call it a day. After we fired our smokepoles to unload them and climbed out of our layered winter gear we said good by to Art and Nan and got in the van and shut the doors. As I reached for my seatbelt I notice movement up on the hill that we had just walked and guess what? Yep, we saw 7 deer walking single file across the hillside heading for the beds that Craig found!!!! I think I heard them laughing at us!!! Steve |
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