Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024

  Unfortunately, my trip to the Midwest was what you could call a train wreck. While we were supposed to have a cabin to stay in and power, we ended up staying in a little teepee with no power and no way to escape the monsoon-like rains we encountered. Therefore, I was never able to log onto my computer to give any type of updates. 

  While I'd like to sit here and pound keys to tell you about my trip, I'll make it short and sweet. I've never seen so much pressure in my life. However, I was still able to see bucks almost every sit. Unfortunately, I never took my bow off the hook to shoot at one. I passed about 30 bucks and never saw one I wanted to take. 

  When taking a step back and looking at it from that perspective, I'd say I had a good trip. The weather was absolutely atrocious. The coolest it got was 42 degrees one morning. The temps stayed around 67-75 the entire time, and we encountered rain almost daily. 

  This evening, I'm sitting on the couch at my camp. My mind is all over the place, and I actually feel a little lost this year. In all aspects of my life, I've struggled this year. While the season hasn't been a struggle, it's been a struggle to get anything in from of me that I want to shoot. I won't lie; frustration is building. 

  I came home from Illinois last Wednesday. I've been in the woods every day from sunup to sundown and have not seen a deer in that time frame. The weather has been a challenge to say the least. The rain and wind have been out of control. Although I can't prove it, I'd say the overall deer population in the areas I'm hunting have probably not been too terribly active. 

  I'm going to keep at it and see what I can find. I'm hoping I get a look at brown furry deer before long. I've gone as many as 16 days without seeing a deer, so I still have a ways to go to catch up to that. However, with each day that passes, I'm getting closer and closer. Tomorrow should be another good one. The forecast is calling for 35 mph winds once again in the area I'm hunting. I'll be playing the Dodge a Tree game once again when they start falling due to the ground being saturated in water after today's massive amounts of rain we received. I'm still not sure why I stayed out in it all day, but I find some type of peace in doing so. We will see what tomorrow brings. I think I'm hunting with Dad tomorrow. I always look forward to that. 

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