With the hopes of seeing a couple of deer for Kaitlyn we hiked to one of my 2 man stands and fit the three of us in the stand. Kaitlyn has been hog hunting with my a few times but this was to be her first deer hunt. Up until now she just couldn’t sit still long enough. I was hoping to get an hour in before they got too fidgety. After 20 minutes of more movement than I would have cared for, Kaitlyn stated she was bored. I was prepared for this and I pulled out books for each of them. Of course within two minutes she dropped the book and it made a loud noise as it hit the ground . Added to the two sneezes I had already made I didn’t think anything would come in but nevertheless we enjoyed the woods. Just prior to leaving we did have one doe come in and Kaitlyn got to watch her for about 4 minutes. After which we got down and hit the truck, all of us looking forward to our traditional summer sausage & root beer soda celebration (every time we do an outdoor adventure together we do this).
A 2 child & 1 man tree stand
Sunday: With the 5 a.m. offshore forecast slated for 15 knots we weren’t gonna go offshore today so I decided to hit the tree stand for an hour for my last chance at a black powder buck (last day of the season). Thirty minutes after taking the stand a single doe came in but with nothing else. After watching her for about 15 minutes the mosquitoes were getting terrible (I didn’t put on my bug suit-duh and I hunt in a swamp) so I slowly reached over to pop my Thermo-cell, which I keep on the outside of my daypack. About 10 seconds after that movement from my far right caught my attention and wouldn’t you know it a doe was about 12 meters away looking in my direction. I couldn’t believe she didn’t see or hear me pop the Thermo-cell! When she stepped forward only then did I notice the nice buck about one length behind her. I couldn’t swing my rifle to the right without him seeing me. Especially after he stopped and stared right at me when I did slowly try bringing it to the right. After a few seconds he followed the doe and all I had was a poor walking away shot which I didn’t want to take. They entered the tall dog fennels and all I could think about was that I blew it.
Trying to see through the fennels I kept watching for about 15 minutes when I detected the doe’s white ear outline and could see an eye & ear of the doe looking around. Hoping that the buck was near I caught a single glimpse of the antlers but could see nothing else. About five minutes later the doe crossed into the more open woods about 55 meters away and 30 seconds later the buck stepped out. I was ready and with the report of the 50 caliber I ducked down below all the black powder smoke to see where the buck went but couldn’t see anything except white smoke. I did hear crashing to my right with two big crashes and then silence.
Meanwhile one of the does took off but the other stayed nearby as if it didn’t bother her (interestingly). Waiting 30 minutes I got down and walked to the spot where I shot him and saw a great blood trail.
Point of impact
Good blood trail
As I found him. A nice Florida 8 point
Self taken photo
The buck only ran about 30 yards which is impressive when you consider the bottom third of his heart was obliterated. What a hunt!
Hoo Yah!!
Brian.
I put up a stand in a "new" sweet spot location for opening day in the central. Them deers are gonna be in trouble 
If they survive Saturday morning, we'll have to go target the fishies 
I'm not seeing any entrance or exit, though the blood trail is solid.