Embrace The Suck

This past weekend I made a trip to camp with a few high school buddies for a weekend getaway of great food, deer scouting, hiking and laughs. I arrived at camp Friday evening around 7:30 and had 4 doe in the yard upon my arrival.

After watching them trot off, I got everything unloaded and put away and got camp in order for the guys. I walked out on the back deck to take my obligatory beer picture for the Guy’s Weekend group chat (a tradition that I am not sure who started, but I happily partake in – we take a picture of a beer on the deck overlooking the back yard and naturally get a few jealous responses) and spotted some deer in the back corner of the yard.

I first saw a few does and wrote them off as the same deer in the yard previously. Seconds later, I saw a nice velvet rack walking behind them. They disappeared into the field and I went into spot & stock mode.

I quietly walked out the front door and snuck my way down between the edge of the field and the yard. I got to the back corner and I caught sight of the group of does in one of the trails in the field. I watched and videoed them for 3 minutes but couldn’t see the buck.

Then, out of the corner of my eye I caught movement to my right. I swung the camera over and laid eyes on the rack of a mature buck. He immediately looked up and stared at me for about 30 seconds. I made a slight movement and off he went.

He went trotting through the field, angled at me towards the woods. It was an awesome sight to see his rack bobbing through the field, and even cooler that I caught it on video. I immediately sent it to the Guy’s Weekend group text. I got a few “Agh, give him another year!” texts, but you can bet if he is in my sights this fall, I won’t be hesitating.

The weekend was off to a great start, and the guys were due to arrive soon. Upon their arrival we had a nice fire, grilled up some burgers for dinner, and had a few beverages. After those beverages, the topic was brought up of what we should do in the morning.

I mentioned that I had some trail cameras back in the big woods where we rifle hunt. I had talked to these guys before about where we hunt, but neither had ever gone back in with me. Of course, at this point this seemed like a good idea to them, so we made that our plan for the morning.

After some early morning coffee on the deck, we geared up and headed for the government road. We parked the truck and made the plunge down the hill and toward the meadow. Soon after hiking down we realized just how thick the woods were. This was expected of course, but there was still that “dang, this is thick” thought that naturally arose.

By the time we reached the meadow at the bottom of the hill, Zach mentioned something like, “Dang, we are way back in here.” I thought to myself, “You haven’t seen anything yet” and on we went.

We trudged across the meadow, crossed the surprisingly low creek, and started our way up the First Finger. By the time we reached the top we were all pretty well drenched in sweat. We were headed for the Target where one of the two trail cameras was placed.

I was making sure to periodically tell the guys stories about different locations and deer taken there previously, which they seemed to enjoy. I was also periodically checking to see if they were “still having fun” and they definitely seemed to be.

About halfway along the First Finger, after one of my check ins, Zach said “Embrace the suck” and we all had a chuckle. I liked it, and thought it was fitting for the day.

We were all pretty successful high school athletes, and Zach a former college football player, but pushing through thick brush deep in the mountains still wasn’t easy. Thankfully, we all have a similar mentality and love for the outdoors, adventure, and physical fitness.

We made it to the Target, collected the first camera, and I let the guys know we were about halfway. With the sun quickly heating up, Kyle said, “well then let’s get moving” and that we did.

We headed out the Second Finger to retrieve the second camera. We were on the back side of the ridge about 200 yards from my camera when out of nowhere two huge bucks jumped up out of their beds in some of the thickest brush we saw all day. One ran directly in front of us and one the opposite way to our back.

We were all stoked to see the bucks and it definitely got our adrenaline pumping. “No wonder they got so big, they don’t grow like that being stupid” Kyle and Zach said after taking a look at where they were bedded. We made our way to the second camera, collected it, and headed out.

After an exciting day in the woods, we ended up logging over 6 miles and some 50+ flights climbed, all before 12 PM. It was a great day spent afield hiking, scouting and a day that left us talking about plans for fall hunting for the rest of the weekend. One and a half months out, we are ready to roll!