Deer Hunting Success At Last (Blog One hundred-five)

Wednesday I finally killed my first deer of the season, arrowing a fine mature doe right before the end of shooting light.  The blood trail was bountiful and short, and I had heard the whitetail fall earlier, so it was an easy matter to find her.

I didn't go Thursday and Friday, preferring to take Elaine out to dinner on Friday and spending Thursday cleaning up from the Wednesday hunt.  One of my long time deer hunting goals has been to kill a deer in Virginia and West Virginia on the same day, so I spent the morning in Roanoke County in the former and the afternoon in Monroe County in the  latter.

And struck out in both states, even though I had deer within 20 yards of me in both the Commonwealth and Mountain State.  In both cases, I was preparing to go to full draw when a trailing deer spotted me moving on the whitetail I was preparing to shoot.

The West Virginia trip was particularly upsetting because I had gone to full draw, the lead doe had moved behind a shrub and her head had already appeared around the other side.  I was waiting for her to take one more step when she turned around and bolted away - no doubt because the trailing doe had snorted and danced about at my movement.

In this heat, I am having a terrible time keeping the deer from winding me.  Comments on how to avoid that issue would be welcome.