Close, but no cigar (so far)...

Well, I got a new toy this hunting season - it's called a "spy cam". The basic idea is that you hang this digital camera on a tree and when a deer, turkey, or even raccoon waddles on by it snaps a picture. Here is a nice 8-point buck I got a few pictures of in late October. I share this with you because it is the closest I have come yet to actually producing a real deer.

And once again, it is not because I have lacked opportunity. In fact, opening day I shot at a buck quite a bit larger than this one - missed clean at about 100 yards through some brush. I see him again a few days later (long story...) and end up very close to him. I wont say exactly how close, but let's put it this way, if I had a good squirt gun I could have doused him. I take the shot - I miss again. (This is the part of the story where I get a little weepy and consider selling my hunting equipment and diving into scrap booking...) I take my muzzle loader to the range the next day - just like I had done a couple of months ago - and discovered that I am 10" high at 100 yards! I don't know what happened to my scope, but my best guess is that some of my under-achieving hunting buddies are at work behind the scenes.

So, here I am with only a week or so left of firearm season (plus 17 days of muzzle loader in December - thank you God!) with an empty freezer, and a stomach full of humble pie. The only good thing that has come out of this season so far is an idea for a new book - "101 Ways How Not to Kill a Deer". It would be sort of like "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" except with guns, tree stands and some doe pee...

I wonder how many hunters out there have ever had such a dry spell? (I'm not talking about not seeing deer, I'm talking about having them walk right up to your stand, putting both hooves in the air, yelling out "I surrender!", and then somehow still blowing the shot.) This sort of thing makes me ponder some of the deeper things of life. Questions like, "Does God really hear the prayer of the deer hunter?" come to mind. Along with the follow up "do deer pray - and if so, which prayer is God more likely to answer?" I realize these are the types of questions philosophers and theologians have debated down through the ages and wont be resolved anytime soon, but I can't help but wonder.

But my most urgent question - will I get one last opportunity this season? And if I do, will my prayer get answered first? I guess we'll find out soon enough...