Why do deer move around in the morning? Why!?

Deer hunting is pretty much the lazy man's connection to being awesome. All you do is sit around for hours and hope a big meaty deer comes waltzing past. Deer, surprisingly, are amazingly quiet. I always assumed I'd be able to hear a deer coming a mile away, but they are very sneaky animals and very rarely do their feet make any noise. So, you have to keep your eyes open and look for movement. (Which of course makes everything look like a deer whenever it moves, and then you know you're getting way too excited.) But, if you do see one and are able to sneak your gun up to it without it noticing you (in addition to being silent they have great hearing, so you can't make any noise or they'll hear it and run like a bitch), there is pretty much no way you can miss. Compared to duck hunting it's basically cake, if you can sit still that is. But it occured to me today that there is one freaky thing about deer hunting that completely blows duck hunting out of the water.

Walking out to your stand.

Because deer move around the most when it is just getting light out, you want to be sitting in your stand ideally at least a half-hour before it gets light. Yeah, you know what that means; you gotta get up early and walk through the woods. In the dark. Did you know there are wolves and bears up in northern Minnesota? Of course you do. But it really doesn't seem like that big of a deal... until you need to walk blindly through the trees in complete darkness. Suddenly, a place that is usually peaceful becomes a full of hungry, rabid predators. All you have is one measly flashlight, and it bounces off all this brush and trees you didn't even notice in the daylight. It feels like you're boxed in! Boxed in, and only able to see a few feet in front of you, with the possibility of anything creeping around to your sides or behind you or anything. And when you're tramping out there, hoping you're not lost, and you hear those wolves start howling... I'm pretty sure I lose a few pounds in sweat everytime.

Then, of course, are those times you get lost. You have markers, gashes, broken twigs, shiny little tacks, everything, and still you get lost. So you sit there in darkness with your one little flashlight, shining it all over the place trying to look for that one shiny tack that'll lead you farther into the mess of trees around you. It sucks! Today I had to sit for a while on a big rock because I took a right when I was supposed to take a left. I was following my trail and then I started following another path and then I was in a clearing and there was no where to go! And then I was like, "Uhm, where did I come from?" so I poked around and realized I had no idea. Luckily I eventually figured it out once I calmed down and just sat, but still, getting lost in the woods at 4:30am is not how I like to start my day. Luckily, there were no wolves howling this morning. :)

And, of course it was worth it!