My wife Trisha took her rookie deer hunting campaign to Iowa's early muzzleloader season this year. With two little ones at home, we had to pick our times to hunt carefully and line up some help to watch the boys as I went along to help introduce her to the sport. Trish's parents came over for the last weekend of the season to take care of their favorite grandsons! A big THANKS to them and also our friends, the Hockenson's, who watched the boys Friday night before the grandparents got here.
Friday night, October 18th was our first sit, and proved to be the best hunt of the weekend. The deer started moving early and often. Trish had 2 tags, one for an antlerless deer and one for any sex. She was looking to fill the antlerless one right away and then spend the rest of the weekend hunting for a nice buck. She had some decent chances Friday afternoon, and finally a big doe presented a shot at about 75 yards. Unfortunately the shot was a miss, but at least we were seeing deer.
We had 2 deer walk by within 15 yards of our stand Friday night, but unfortunately one was a button buck and the other was a little spike buck. She wisely let them walk to gain more years, more meat, and more inches of antler! The video is a clip of the button buck walking by at close range.
Sunday we hit the morning hunt early and were skunked! After some naps during the day, and grandparents hitting the road shortly after lunch, Trish decided to give it a go by herself that evening. It was a first in the Bartlett household, Mom went hunting while dad stayed home to watch the boys. We knew the wind was going to be strong that afternoon, so after our morning hunt we constructed a quick & dirty ground blind out of some fallen limbs. It provided good cover and excellent shots in the directions we'd seen deer moving earlier in the weekend. The make-shift ground blind looked great and served its purpose as the wind was strong all evening, but the deer didn't cooperate and nothing showed up before it got dark.
All in all I am proud of my wife for sticking it out for about 13 hours on-stand during the weekend. Even though we didn't see many deer after Friday night, I think the addiction has begun to take hold. She made a comment to me Sunday night that deer hunting was like gambling...if she could just go one more time, maybe she'd hit the jackpot and something would show up! She has tasted the world of the whitetail and as I've known for years, it's an addiction with no cure. For Trish, there's no turning back.
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