First deer of the year.

Bobcat hunting mice on the corn.


Eight point on the cam after Sneed and I had left the top of the hill.


Buck on the scrape.


Uneven little buck.


Coyote leaving a message for Lucie.

Dr. Sneed and I spent opening weekend hunting the lake. I put my plastic buck decoy out for the first time and rattled from my tree while Sneed sat in the corner. I rattled up something early but it spooked when I edged around the tree. We came in for lunch, carried batteries and corn and rattled across the creek then retired back to our morning spots. Sneed had coons behind him intermittently and then texted that there was a deer below him in the woods. Two minutes later he shot a nice little eight point. His 270 went through the shoulder blowing up the bone and ended up under the skin on the far waist side. He ran about 60 yards and fell. We sled-dogged him out and field dressed him in the carport of the lakehouse. Sneeds first buck.

I got to use a couple of my vintage knives. We took the head in to boil and left the body hanging with the skin on in the 40 degree weather. This morning we skipped hunting and hit Cafe Tazza with the redhead. About 10 we loaded up Lucie and skinned it out with a Queen City WWII fighting knife and quartered it. Lucie very excited to see the deer. I rolled up the skin with lots of lethargic deer ticks inside. The pup got to go for a long cam walk- her first real experience off grass and concrete. She picked up a stickerburr for a moment but she gets those behind Brady's coffee. She's a natural hunting dog.

I hunted this evening and had the four does snorting at my decoy right at sundown. Hope to be out again in the morning.