Rifle Season - Day 1 (Sit #23 & 24)

The 2011 Rifle Season is underway and it began, for me, at a snails pace. I got up to the cabin on Saturday morning and mom and dad talked about how there were two decent 8 points in the yard at 1:30 int the morning chasing a doe around, along with a few other deer close by. So they had front row seats to a little rut teaser show. This little episode changed their thoughts on killing the first does they saw and instead had them back in the old thought of "maybe she's in heat". Understandable. However by opening evening, dad had a doe and a fawn laying on the ground. He shot them both at about 15 yards.
I sat opening morning in the stand I'm going to refer to as the Crazy 8 stand. I originally stumbled upon this little area in 2006 when I was just going for a walk and marking rubs on my GPS. I heard a buck coming towards me and I crouched and shot it. It was a decent two year old. Opening day of 2007 I sat in a ladder stand I put in that same little area and at 5 minutes to 7am I hit the can call and few soft grunts and about 1 minute later I heard the unmistakable sound of a 1/2" dead stick snap under the hoof of a big deer. Long story short, it was a buck we had nicknamed Tank and he jumped into a shooting lane and I fired a shot and found not hair and no blood. I figured that I missed him - even though I felt like it would be really hard to miss him at only 75-100 yards. Oh well. The neighbor found him later that winter and the european mount looks great on his television. He scored 125. I had a close encounter in 2008 and I shot Crazy 8 in 2009 all in this same area. This is where I began my 2011 season. At about 9:30 or so I had a deer skirt to the north west of me until it was dead downwind at about 50 yards, but I could never see the deer. It never blew, it never ran - it either snuk away or bedded down. I came in around noon and waited for Steph and we watched an episode or two of Friends and then got ready and headed out. I brought a trail camera down to the same stand I sat in that morning as well as a drag line with buck and doe urine. I sat til dark - no deer.
Stephanie sat in my permanent stand and had a lone deer, probably a fawn, meander around on the strip until it got within about 20 yards. Steph didn't know what to do, but she did the right thing by not doing anything - just letting it walk away. There will be more deer down there and if times get tough with the bow, it's a great spot for a rifle or even a muzzleloader if dad doesn't use up his rifle tag. There are plenty of does in that area. I think that stand should get a little more attention. Hopefully Steph can see some more deer from there.