A bad start to my hunting morning.

Well this morning started well.. arrived on time. I decided to try a new public land spot because I hadn't seen anything where I had been hunting.. so some where I missed my turn and circled around for 15 minutes.. once I got to my predetermined tree I sat down my bow all sweaty and bothered. ( you have to go through q couple of thick small pines to reach the spot ) I noticed all of my arrows had been ripped off my quiver except 1... It had a field point on it.. lucky me. So I began my search for my arrows and located one. I went back to my tree as it was just before sun rise... And here I sit. Hopefully ill get lucky even though at this point I don't feel as if I deserve to get anything. I'll keep yall posted.. on a high note I did locate a rub! It's about 30 yards from my stand!

Anyone who has hunted for very long has experienced frustrations, from time to time. The great thing is, you most likely won't experience these mishaps again.

I once shot a deer, very deep on public land. I recovered it and went to begin field dressing it. Problem was I left my knives in my truck. It was over a mile walk back to the truck, and 1/2 way out it begins to pour the rain . Well I got it done, but needless to say I AWLAYS triple check that I have all my stuff on me.

You may consider using, very sparingly, a bright eye to mark your turns to the stand. I always try to navigate in complete darkness, and rely upon natural landmarks, but bright eyes do help. As for your quiver, do you need a new foam insert? If money is tight the big gap filler, expanding foam spray works great. Just fill the quiver with it, once it dries, trim the excess off even with the bottom of the quiver.

Enjoy being in the woods, plenty of season lies ahead. I hope the next problem you post here is how in the world are you gonna get that big ole deer out by yourself!? That's always a good problem to have. Kepp your head up bro.

Welp, my luck continued. I heard a truck pull up the road and stop near my truck. Soon after, I heard a PA system key up and then a sonar type sound. It wasn't a siren but something else. So, I figured someone wanted my attention.. especially since the noise went on for about 5 minutes and I was pretty sure anything in the area would be light years away. I climbed down the tree, gathered my stuff and went to where I heard the noise. I saw a SUV with two guys inside. I saw on the driver's arm he was a wildlife agent. He attempted to begin with small talk, Get lucky? I replied nope and let me guess you want to see my hunting license. He replied "Yep" with a grin as if he caught me doing something wrong. I said, Hold on one sec, I got my lifetime hunting license. I watched his facial expression because I could tell he was a FNG, he was eaten up with it. Well I immediately saw the excitement drain from his face. I handed it to him and he looked at it for one second and handed it back. I looked at his name plate and it said Serving since 2012. Officer Culbreth. Once he handed it back I asked him about the noise and he stated it was probably the dam releasing water. "They do that."

Anyways, the encounter helped because the way I came out was a lot easier than the way I had been coming in. Also with the extra time I had stolen from me, I scouted and located the last two of my arrows with the expensive broadheads on them. I decided to go further into the woods and located two scrapes and one of them had 3 fresh piles of buck poop under the same tree. I got to noticing there were tracks all over that area. So it was a win for me. Now, I just have to decide when to hunt it.. morning or evening.

I say hunt it the next chance you get. Sound like this spot has strong potential.

Few years ago where I hunt was covered up in game wardens we were getting checked 3-4 times everyday! They'd even pull up to our camp at night when we were sitting around the campfire lighting us up with their bright, bright light bars. I'll give them this though, they never interupted us while we were hunting.

I hope those scrapes produce for you!

I'll let you know, I am hunting them tonight and tomorrow morning..

You may want to invest some few dollars in a GPS and maybe a topo map. Then google earth your location and look at it from above.

This will better equate you with the area, taking special note to the rivers creeks and gulleys in the area and help in reading the map.

The gps can be set to 'track' and then you can download it to google earth and retrace your steps, even 'mark' those rubs and scrapes.

If the area seems promising, next year you won't waste much time scouting the area - you will already know where to go and start from there...

Hope this helps....