Patience

Patience is difficult for most everyone.  As I have aged it has come somewhat easier and I have grown to understand it's importance, especially pertaining to hunting.  However spending long hours on stand watching mature deer pass out of bow range can drive a hunter crazy!  My season started out slow and I wasn't seeing near the number of deer that I have in years past.  I have heard this from several bowhunters that I talked with.  However once the temperatures dropped and we eased into November things changed.  The fall crops were harvested and deer were on the move.  I spent over 20 hours on stand this past weekend and saw lots of deer movement.  I had a tremendous buck follow a doe into 10 yards of my stand but it just didn't work out. All I needed was a few more seconds!  It's hard not to get frustrated, especially when you see posts of big deer being harvested. You start to think, "what am I doing wrong?" 
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Most of the movement has been either in the morning before 10:00 or in the evening after 4:00 which is on par with what my camera data from last year shows (see blog post from 10/24/16).  The good news is that if things hold true, the end of November and early into December deer tend to move more all day. The moon will go into a waning phase and this bright spotlight of a super-moon that we have going on right now will fade away.  I expect the next 3-4 weeks to be spectacular and if I am patient and play the wind, I have high hopes that a deer (or two) will fall to my Swift Fox longbow.  If I am patient.

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