The 2024 deer gun season is all but in the books. As I pen this, a few days remain but I’ve come in to warm up and honestly, it may take that long to raise my core temperature back to normal. I could handle the temperatures but when the winds kicked up my resolve to bag a big buck seemed to falter. I’m pretty sure it’s a biproduct of age and not wisdom that steered me out of the woods. If it was wisdom, I would have left the woods sooner.

On opening morning, I had action right out of the gate as a yearling doe splashed through a small ditch alerting me that I had company. By the sound I knew it was a deer but funny how my mind’s eye conjured up an image of a big buck, not a tiny doe. The little scruffer walked around my stand and moved to a thicket 100 yards away and then bedded down for most of the day.  

A few minutes later two more antlerless deer scooted by. I’m not in the doe harvesting business yet because I prefer to take care of that business during the muzzleloader or late bow season. The two deer eased by without knowing that I was there and I still had all my tags in my pocket

All that action happened before 8 a.m. and nothing good happened until 3:30 p.m., except for lunch which consisted of a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches with a Baby Ruth candy bar for dessert. It was a tree stand feast for sure but I would have traded it all for just a look at a buck.

With an hour left in the hunt the action picked up. Four more antlerless deer raced across a field in an obvious case of forced movement. As they disappeared, the little doe bedded in the thicket finally got to its feet and eased out into a corn stubble field. It remained there until I spooked it as I walked away from the first day of the hunt.

I hunted full days and saw my share of deer but none of them wore any head gear. As the days passed it seemed to get progressively colder and when the wind became a factor well, that’s when I scaled back my hunting. I can’t complain too much because overall it was a pretty good season. I spent a huge amount of time in the woods. I saw a lot of deer. I even spent some time in some new country.

The gun season is such a game of chance and for the second year in a row, I went buckless in that I didn’t even see one. I guess that’s the hook that keeps us engaged, you just never know when or if it will happen. Maybe this sets me up for a great muzzleloader season? 

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