OK, so I thought that maybe the deer DID go by the trail cam every morning, just not in the same place. After all the trail cam doesn’t have peripheral vision.

So I got up at 6:00 AM, why so early? To get myself ready. I had 3 cups of coffee waiting for my morning constitutional. Then took a shower, and put on my camo that had just been washed and dried with pine needles. Gathered up my possibilities bag, bow, and camera. Drove just 10 minutes (sprayed myself with stink killer) than hiked 2 miles, had to get there from the back. Didn’t want to use the same trail the deer did. I hunkered down on my seat. I was on a knoll overlooking the beaver swamp. The beaver swamp is about 3 acres of swamp grass, willows, and mud. Anybody reading this? Actually the water in the swamp is less than a foot deep, the mud under the water is bottomless. Believe me I’ve been there.. The knoll is about 30 feet over the swamp, I’m about 2/3 up, looking at a point of land that looks out over the swamp. I got there about 8:30 and expected company about 9:30. Plenty of time for things to calm down.

I’m sitting there… I’m sitting there… Well the seat I was on wanted to tip forward, so my leg muscles were getting tired from holding me up. I was a bit chilly around the solders at first, that was OK, as there were no bugs. Then it warmed up, and the skeeters found me. So I’m sitting there, and as you know, doesn’t seem very hard to just sit there not moving until you do it. Remember the three cups of coffee, I really had to pee. Well, I really felt that there were deer around, after all I had photographic evidence. I just imagined there were deer just inside the underbrush watching me trying to figure out if I was a stump or a biped. Oh, and the acorns were falling. A little rustle in the leaves…sounds like a deer…thump. Oh, another acorn. One of those acorns landed just 2 feet to to my left. Ever get hit on the head, dead center with an acorn. I was thinking about it. About 9:20 there was a bug crawling across the right lens of my glasses, and a skeeter drilling just below my left shoulder blade. Didn’t dare move, there just HAD to be a deer watching.

Then a rustle in back of me…another acorn…waiting for the thump….

There was a snort that I swear got deer snot on my back.

I twisted to the right to try to see…

The joints were all stiff, and the chair tipped over…

I just caught a glimpse of a white tail before my face hit the dirt.