Opening day came into East Texas and it was a scorcher.Most areas of Texas saw record high temps in the upper 80’s.These record high temps pretty much put a damper on opening day of the 2017 deer season.
I left my house around 5AM Saturday morning and as I walked to my Jeep I actually broke a sweat. I took to my stand in the lightest clothes I had. I felt more like I was heading out on a September Dove hunt than a November Deer hunt. Usually travel to my lease in my Jeep is a rather cool experience being that I only have a bikini top for it.Well I was quite thankful this year.I pulled up and parked in order to walk the short distance to my stand and was immediately swarmed by what I thought was a squad of low flying enemy aircraft only to discover it was much worse.The swamp mosquitoes were out in force and hungry.I wondered if instead of the max Deet insect repellent I was slathering on maybe I should have been armed with an antiaircraft gun or in some light armored vehicle instead of a deer stand.
Now that I got my jokes aside I had to figure out what to do.No deer were moving, not only was it too hot for it but the acorns were falling in the swamp and every deer wanted the ones NOT around my stand.What do you do? Well I sat there like a stubborn fool and let the mosquitos eat me alive and sweated like I was in a sauna.Then I decided I would gram the popup and head deep into the hardwoods and find where the takeout line was forming.
As I headed into the tall and uncut I found what I was looking for.Trails and ruffled leaves, a sure sign of feeding deer.I parked the popup and limbed it in but good.5AM the next morning I was already in my popup waiting on daylight. 2 full hours of being literally eaten alive only to not see one deer. So at that moment I decided I would not be back until the morning temps were at least around the 50 degree mark.
Well thanks to a low pressure system tomorrow has a high of 56 here in Northeast Texas. I will be once again hitting the stand in hopes of actually not getting attacked by hoards of bloodthirsty mosquitoes and I am willing to bet the deer will actually move.If not it doesn’t really matter. I will enjoy the day.