Home from 5 weeks, give or take a day or two at Thanksgiving, from deer camp.

Every year lately I say it, but this is getting insane. I hunted over 43 days, and I saw a total of 19 deer! I used to see that many in a day, sometimes many more than that. In 2010 they were cutting....DURING deer season.........and we cried cause we 'only' killed 28 that whole year. Last year bigger bucks than usual, but only killed 23. Both years we shot about everything we saw. This year? We're at 18........total. Every single day, every hunter would come in from every far flung part of the lease and say "Saw nothing". One guy killed a very nice deer.........huge body for our parts, by far......173 lbs, 8 point. But he musta been lost, because he had brow tines.

I gave up and finally shot a small buck......just to ensure my grandson in SC has some red meat (it's the only red meat he can eat).......and last Saturday I went to take down a hanging feeder, and decided to just sit and hunt it till dark. I parked the wheely right next to stand, had no thoughts of seeing a deer. At 4:40 two does come running at me as fast as deer can run. Right at me. Startled me, over my right shoulder. One got in middle of the lane (about 4 feet in the air) and my brain told me it was small and "Mama" was behind........so I concentrated on the back one (heck, I had more time on here, since she was second anyway) and went "BRRAAAAAPPPP" and she hit the brakes, wham. Of course, she stopped behind a red oak tree and I could only see tail and about 2 inches of butt. I still had no positive proof it was a doe (I had 5 doe tags in my pocket), so I just held the scope on her as long as I could and waited. It was 6 minutes.......before she moved a muscle. She finally stuck her nose in front of tree, I could see it was a mature doe......and finally she stepped out to my right slightly, and was broadside, and forty nine nanoseconds after that she was dead. She went into the low-crawling, knee-walking, super fast, 15 yard, death crawl.......and stopped. I could see her. So I concentrated on whatever was pushing her towards me (Buck???) but nothing ever showed. My buddy killed a doe 20 minutes later, so we had two deer to mess with and butcher/grind on Sunday, which wore us out (the grinder is missing one part, I called and yep, it's 'critical'......shipping it today), and Monday we got up and loaded up, closed down camp, and came home.

Kids will be here the week after Christmas, which is our last gun season....so I'm done, unless I lose my boat and have to go cross bow hunting in Jan or Feb..... If so, I still have one buck and two doe, or three doe tags left.

Lots of drama in the camp this year too, but wasn't me. Two guys have a problem that they need to work out. Didn't need that.

Never got to hunt the farm. Lots of reasons, but that won't ever happen again. I'm done having surgeries that keep me from living.....so I'll get the farm ready to hunt in 2013. Seeing nothing there is no worse than seeing nothing in "deer rich south Arkansas".......!!!!!

That's it. Haven't seen the state or county totals but I heard the harvest is actually up some...........statewide. Hard to imagine. Ours left the world. No tracks, not eating foodplots (the most beautiful they've ever been, the most lush), no tracks, no sign, nothing. Just weird. We have coyotes, but they can't eat that many deer. A few pigs (One shot), but they aren't numerous enough to reduce the habitat and deer herd. So we have no clue.

Hope the crappie aren't as scarce.

The End.