More Deerless Hunting Adventures

No deer for me yet.  DH did take a beautiful 9-point that I'd had my eye on the last half of bow season.  But, alas, I'm not a bow hunter (although I'm thinking of getting out the old compound bow and brushing up on my skills, as well as replacing the broken sight on it).  So my first opportunity to go out and stalk the big buck was opening day of firearm season.  And, unfortunately for me, Mr. Big, Buff, and Beautiful walked past DH's stand first.  Waaaaaahhhh!!!  So I don't get to claim the awesome rack for myself.  I do, however, get to enjoy all the meat that came off the deer, which dressed out at 150 pounds.

Here's a trail cam picture of the 9-point just a few days before his demise at the hands of DH.

While I haven't yet had the opportunity to see a deer at close enough range, in the open, to get a shot at it, I did have a little excitement the other day.  I was sitting in the new platform aka the kids' old play set, when something tawny colored, about the size of a large fawn, and very quick, came running through the brush about 10 yards away.  Close enough that had it gone slower and I'd gotten a good look at it at the time, my heart really would have been hammering.  As it was, I just sat there in bewilderment, trying to figure out what I'd just seen.  It had been deer colored, and small deer sized, but very very quick and very quiet on it's feet.

I didn't think it was a fawn out by itself.  Not quietly like that.  Especially not quiet and moving so quickly.  I began to think perhaps it had been a coyote.  We have coyotes, but very rarely see them.  I've never seen one while deer hunting, and DH has only seen one once while hunting--it was chasing a deer at the time.

So I sat and wondered about this for a few hours, while watching for deer that never appeared.  Then I went into the house to warm up, change clothes, get something to eat and get some housework done before the afternoon hunt.

I hadn't been in the house but an hour when I glanced out in the field while carrying a hamper of dirty clothes down to the basement for washing.  I saw a large shape running on the edge of the woods.  For a second I thought about grabbing the binoculars to get a better look at it; then I decided to grab the camera instead.

These pictures are zoomed in, from my back deck, about 200 yards away into the field near the edge of the woods.  I wish they were clearer, but that's about as good as my camera gets at such a distance.

Now I knew without a doubt that what had gone blasting through the brush near my stand that morning was, indeed a coyote.  This one stayed in the field, hunting mice in the soybean trash for about twenty minutes while I took pictures of it.