Today was opening day of the muzzle-loader season. I went to the club to sit for the day. I got there and saw that there was a truck there. As Greg had predicted, Gary was at the club. I checked the board and there were pins in two places, the River Stand and the Cadillac Stand. Not knowing which was his, I decided to head over to the dip stand. I started out at the edge of the field and sat until it got light. It was a beautiful morning, a little chilly, but clear. I didn't see anything by 7:00 and decided to sneak over to the dip. I got on the hill and sat. I didn't see anything. I made my way out around 10am and met up with Gary. He told me a a few nice bucks that are running around. We talked for a bit and I decided to take a nap.
At around 12:30 I woke up from my siesta and got dressed to go back into the woods. I couldn't decide if I wanted to go to the dip stand (I had seen two scrapes there) or to the Swamp. I'd been wanting to get back to the swamp since the last time I went with my bow. I went to the swamp and cuddled up next to a log. I had the field to my right and the woods (toward the road) to my left. I hadn't seen anything all afternoon. At just before dark, say almost 5, in a flash a deer came running into the swamp. I raised my gun instinctively and aimed. He was only a 4 pointer but had a nice body. In the 3 seconds that it took him to walk in, I had a conversation in my mind on weather to take him because I hadn't gotten a deer or opportunity for a deer all season and I'm not sure what else would present itself this season or let him walk because it's the first day of the season, there are bigger bucks around and I don't like shooting smaller bucks. Well, by the time this argument got in my head I squeezed the trigger...the deer ran 20 yards and fell down dead. Not a drop of blood and no tracking necessary.
It was a bittersweet ending. I was happy that I had a deer finally but I had wished that I didn't shoot a small buck like that.
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