Let me tell you about this one time, I was out in the woods of northern Michigan in my hunting blind back in a swamp, deer hunting. It was the first weekend of bow season in Michigan my best friend and I skipped class and headed up north to participate in the statewide event. I was staying at my buddies cabin and hunting a couple miles away on stateland. The weather wasn’t the best for deer activity because it was warm and a steady hard rain lasted almost the whole weekend.

We arrived Friday at noon set up and began to hunt. Friday night the woods were dead, not one of us out of about a dozen hunters seen a single deer. Saturday morning the woods were the same, except for the rain was coming down it five gallon buckets, it was extremely humid and warm for a fall weekend in northern Michigan. I didn’t stay in my blind long that saturday morning as I was lacking sleep from the evening before and my mind was telling me I was not going to have many sightings of deer if I had stayed and waited in the rain any longer. So I made the executive decision that I was going to abandon my blind for the morning and go back to the cabin a grab a couple hours of sleep and rest up before going into town to grabbing some forgotten hunting necessities at the local woods and waters shop, then going out for the hopefully less miserable evening hunt.

When I woke up from my nap at about noon that day I felt like a new man, a man that needed venison. I was on a mission. I had my mind dead set on harvesting a deer that evening. My friend josh who I was staying with and I both decided we would take my truck in to town and get our supplies that we thought would help us in our search for a whitetail. When we arrived to the local outdoors shop I made up my mind quickly on what would help me with our weather conditions and the new found spot I was hunting. I picked out some Code Blue apple rage, a spray bottle filled with fluid smelling like apples to cover up my scent in the woods and to bring in the hungry deer. We decide not much else could help us as we had full camo, good broadheads, and well tuned bows. I decided it would be a nice thing to buy a shirt from the store to because it is some what unique to have and when I to the counter he said “a young guy like you can have the shirt for free to support my store.” I felt honored. So then we went back to the cabin and gathered some apples from under the trees to spread out around our blinds.

That afternoon at 3 o’clock I geared up. Made a sandwich put on my camo grabbed my bow and backpack full of my gear and things to keep me occupied and headed out for the woods. I jumped in my truck  and drove a couple miles down rust road to carter road, went down rust rd. a few more miles. Then on the right was the the two track I was hunting down, so I pulled on to it, drove down and parked my truck on the side. At this point I sat and thought this is my time everything was coming together I have the perfect spot in the swamp with many deer runs and many signs of deer traffic, the weather had come together and cleared up and also cooled down a little but it was still cloudy but the deer would be on the move now that it had cleared for the first time in a couple days. I then realized it is my time to make myself successful, it was my time my evening to hopefully bag a deer and “put some meat in the freezer”. So I gathered my things and headed on my short, lonely, somewhat scary track into the woods, into the swamp. I sprayed the Code Blue as i walked down the deer run into my opening. I then dump the apples out of the canvas sack and entered my blind.

I became tired sitting there in the blind after an hour or so and I fell asleep for a couple hours. I woke up startled feeling like something was in my presence, I kept my eyes peeled searching for a deer or some type of animal that I could have heard to wake me up, I needed to make some meaning of why I woke up. I continued to look out the windows of my blind for about fifteen minutes and began to doze off again, as I was half asleep I got the feeling that something was around me once again. I woke myself up enough to look out the front window of my blind to view my bait pile. I seen a deer! It was a small buck just a spike horn, although it was meat and I didn’t have much else to choose from and I decided I should take the shot at it, because I needed the venison. So while I was shaking with buck fever I some how slowly grabbed my bow raised it up pulled back and made the most awkward shot I’ve ever taken before. I heard it make a thumping sound I also seen the deer jump like it was hit. I texted my friend to let him know I took a shot and was going to give it a minute then go track it.

I waited for about 15 minutes before I stepped out of my blind. I went to where the deer was when I shot, found the arrow and lots of blood, I began to follow the blood into the extremely dark and dense cedars on the edge of the swamp. It was basically dark now and I was hoping I would find it soon.

I walked along the blood trail and found the buck about 15 yards from my bait pile. I had done it. I had successfully shot and killed a deer. I had harvested a 5 point and a 7 point before, but this was the first time I had harvested a deer by myself. It all hit me when I first seen the deer down, this time I had done it all by myself I figured it all out the spot, the deer signs, baiting, covering my scent.I had taught myself how to be a deer hunter. How to be a successful deer hunter.