Well, being without internet access for 2 - 1/2 days sure sucks! My drought of not seeing a deer on opening day has officially ended.
As my hunting partner and I were walking up a logging road on the county property to do a little mid-day scouting, we came up on a bedded fawn along the edge of the mature pines and an oak ridge, little bugger was bedded on the ridge about 50' from the edge of the mature pine plantation. The deer jumped up and took off right across the logging road in front of us.
No antlerless tags for us in that zone, so no shots fired. Shots fired in the area were down, WAYYYYY down. Heard about 50 to 75 shots between the first 2 days, usually you hear 50 the first 2 hours or less. Population still seems very low.
Haven't even seen many deer on the backs of vehicles in the area. Most frustrating thing all weekend was that we got to "our" area very early on Sat morning, pulled over and parked next to the logging road we were accessing the county land from, got our things together and proceeded up the road to our hunting spots. Got about 150 yards in on the log road and I'll be Fudded if there weren't 3 trucks that had driven back in there on opening morning!
Lazy Fudd's wouldn't even walk in on a road, no brush busting, nothing, very nice log road, quiet to walk on and everything, but no, lazy a$$ho!e$ had to drive back in a public area surrounded by QDM signs that had likely not seen a vehicle for the whole summer. As if that wasn't bad enough, we got back in there about 500 yards and 3 more Fudding trucks!!!
Not happy at that point, but headed west to the area we would be hunting anyway, no sightings that morning. Saw the fawn early that afternoon while looking into the land farther west. My buddy did see another small doe the second morning, but again no doe tags. He ended up going home after the Packer game last evening empty handed and won't likely get back out due to work obligations. I will head back over Wednesday afternoon(working until then) for the Turkey Day festivities at the in-laws. I hope to hunt Thursday morning, and then Friday, but I may just say screw it and head back to LaCrosse to hunt the second weekend. I can hunt on any public ground and see nothing, I don't have to drive 85 miles to do that. Label me frustrated.......................