Twas the day of Christmas and all thru the swamp
Dan Infalt was searching for a reindeer to mount
Would it be Rudolf, or Donner, or Vixen?
Who would end up in Infalt's kitchen?
Fortunately I did not kill Rudolf today...
But I did have an interesting hunt worthy of a report.
I took a ride around the swamp looking for tracks. Found a few. The biggest ones were coming out thru private land that borders a very remote area on the marsh. (Where we did the drive during gun season)
So, I set out on foot after being very unsuccessful at trying to purchase a new pair of snowshoes.. The snow was deep, I got tired fast and had to take a few breaks. But I ain't one to give up easy. I cut a decent track about a ,mile back and started to follow it. When I saw it circling towards down wind side of a known remote bedding area, I figured if he was in there he hooked in so he could smell his tracker. So I slipped in cross wind in a way that gave me good shooting no matter what way they ran out. With the water frozen, and two feet or more of snow on top of the cattails visibility was great and it would be no problem seeing or getting a shot at anything out in the cattails. As I slipped in a large doe popped up and ran for the swamp. She had to hop and was going real slow cause some of the drifts are deeper than belly deep. I could of easily whacked her with my 30-06. 5 more steps and another big doe. 5 more steps and a fawn ran out. The fawn was tempting because it appeared to be wounded... But I decided to give him a chance to survive the winter.
I should of turned around right there and then because that was the last of deer seen and my right leg was cramping bad from pushing thru all that deep snow. But I had high hopes now after seeing how easy it would of been to whack the does. So I headed waaay back. It was a nightmare to get thru that crap and the long walk back was painful. Both legs are cramped up bad... Moral of the story is, they are very easy to kill right now, but bring snowshoes. I also noticed the majority of the deer were bedding close to the food source, with the exception being that big track, that I am sure is of a big buck thats been haunting me since shining last summer... His track went back farther than I did.Labels: buck, cattails, Christmas, Dan Infalt, doe, marsh, snow
