Opening Weekend

First, let me start off by saying Happy Birthday to my Amazing Mother!

Before I get into hunting, I would just like to say MICHIGAN IS 5-0, THE TEXANS JUST CRUSHED THE STEELERS, DALLAS SUCKS AND THE REDSKINS ARE 3-1.  Now that that stuff is outta the way... 

Last Saturday was the first day of Archery Season in Texas.  On Friday after school, we jumped in the truck and headed to the lease.  It was a very exciting drive.  We were anticipating big things from opening weekend.  That said, we couldn't stay in the cabin because it was full.  No worries, we would sleep under the pavilion on air mattresses.  That plan was spoiled when one of the air mattresses didn't have a cap on it, therefore it would not hold air.  No worries, I will sleep on the air mattress and my buddy would sleep in the truck.  I only had my snuggie as my blanket which was not a big deal seeing how it was 92 degrees that day.  At 4:00 am, I woke up FREEZING.  The temperature was in the low 50's.  It gets chilly when ya get outside of the city I guess.  I stayed up and waited till it was time to go.  We rolled out of camp at about 5:00 and headed to our stands.  I was up in the air by 5:15 and then I realized, it wasn't going to be light for a while.  At around 6:00 the sun started to break though the trees and it was BEAUTIFUL.  I was sitting on a trail that looked as though every 5 minutes something walked down it.  I was wrong.  At about 7:00, I heard something that startled me.  Being from the northeast, I had never heard it before.  It was a (wait for it...) COYOTE.  There were about 6 of them and they howled for an hour.  It was a pretty awesome sound.  Other highlights from the morning included seeing a HUGE hawk and a vulture circling me for approximately an hour.  I'm not going to lie, I was literally waving to him as if to say, "Hey, I'm alive down here!"  At around 11:30 we got down and headed to get some lunch.  While talking at the cabin, a doe walked about 20 yards from us.  Cool...  We were back in our stands by 1:30 for the evening hunt.  At around 2:15, I saw something coming up the trail.  I thought to myself, "This is your chance buddy.  Don't mess up."  It thought it could have been a hog.  I was more than OK with that because after the destruction that they have caused this summer, I wanted to take one out.  When it started moving again I realized what it was, it was a coyote.  Still OK, coyotes eat baby deer.  Time to make this coyote pay for that.  It got about 50 yards from me and turned and went into the thicket and I never saw it again.  BOO.  Let's back up...  As I was climbing my tree in the afternoon, I got all the way to the top and dropped my water bottle!  That's OK I thought, I'll be fine.  Wrong again.  At around 4:00, I was so dehydrated that I was trying to spit and nothing was happening.  From 4 till dark I was leaning over my treestand just trying to survive.  I also proceeded to get sunburned on the left side of my body.  It was HOT!  I don't know why, but deer were not moving.  At dark we got down and headed to the truck and back to Houston, 0 for 1 on the year.  Still, it was so great to be able to get after it again and go hunting.  Next time, you better watch out deer/hogs/coyotes/hawks/vultures.  No more Mr. Nice Guy...

Final Hunting Stats:

Dates Hunting:  October 1, 2011
Animals Seen: 1 woodpecker, 1 jackrabbit, 1 hawk, 1 vulture, 1 coyote, 6,035 butterflies and a mosquito as big as my head.
Shots Taken: 0
Game Fatally Injured: 0
Overall Rating of the Weekend (scale 1-10):  10 +.  Hunting season is back and I'm doing it in Texas...  can't complain!