We came back to camp and had a good breakfast. Laura (my wife) had asked if we could try to take the kids to get Christmas Card pictures somewhere with a nice backdrop. I obliged so we loaded up and headed to do so. The first stop found a beautiful backdrop and as we headed over Hayes got within a couple feet of this nasty moccasin. My 2 year old daughter was right behind him. Guys, I let my guard down thinking the snakes would not be out with the temps. The good Lord was watching over us and protected my little ones despite my neglect. Of course I had nothing with me to kill him with so we backed away and took a couple of photos.
We saw yet another moccasin at our next stop but we finally got the Christmas card photos we needed.
That afternoon the boys and I set up on a 4 way where I had several good buck pictures. At 4:50 while watching a couple more deer, a really nice, mature buck stepped out and made a scrape at 180 yards. There was a 6 point feeding between him and us at about 100 yards and I felt confident he would come join him or push him off. Unfortunately he did neither and went right back into the WRP. We set up the direction he was headed as we knew he would likely cross another lane, which he did, but he crossed at 200 yards and there was no shot opportunity. We had a great hunt and planned to be back in the same stand Saturday morning.
We snuck in early on Saturday with high anticipation of seeing the buck again. Right at daylight 7 hogs showed up at 80 yards. We decided to burn some powder. :D Two shots later and we had some bacon. We saw a half dozen deer and spent the next couple of hours just being silly and enjoying our time in the stand. These two fight like brothers non-stop but they truly love each other more than anything.
After showing off the hogs to everyone back at camp, we had a big pancake/sausage breakfast. With yesterday's snake encounters still fresh on everyone's mind, we decided we'd go snake hunting after breakfast. So I loaded the family up and off we went. This time I was sure we had plenty of firepower. Our first snake was nowhere to be found, but we were fortunate to find moccasin number 2 still in the same area. Hayes took great pride in getting a little sweet revenge.
That afternoon we decided to split up. A new buck had shown up Saturday morning just before daylight at another stand, so Grayson went with his Pop-Pop there and I took Hayes and Laura with me. The buck we were hoping to get Grayson on is below in the black/white photo. Laura, Hayes and myself headed back to the same sit as the previous two still hoping to catch a glimpse of the buck that gave us the slip on Friday afternoon. We snapped this quick group shot before taking off. Unfortunately neither buck showed up but we saw plenty of deer and another hog that had to be 300lbs+. He crossed too far and too quickly for Hayes to get a shot. Laura snapped this picture of a lone doe feeding before sunset.
We all slept well after a big dinner and two hard days of hunting. We had one more hunt on Sunday before heading home and I was going to let them shoot pretty much whatever they wanted. I guess the deer read the script because we saw not hide, nor hair. We did get to witness one of the most beautiful sunrises I've seen in a while. God painted a pretty one for us Sunday morning.
We called it a wrap pretty early as we had the 5 hour drive back home. Packed up, hugged mom and dad and thanked them for a great weekend packed with memories. Closed the chapter on another year of the youth hunt and soaked up every moment we could. As we drove off I thanked the Lord for his blessings, protection and allowing us to enjoy all that He has created.