This is quite honestly my most important Outdoor Intention at the moment.  I want to know what it feels like to tag a deer again. I know that this would require me to actually shoot a deer, and for some reason that has been hard to come by the last few years.

I started to be real serious about hunting about 10 years ago.  In that first year, I picked up a bow, practiced continually for about 5 months, and ending up shooting my first deer-an 8pt.  From that day on I shot deer consistently every year until about 4 years ago.  I went that season without shooting a deer.  The next season I made my comeback by shooting a 7pt and life was back to normal.

Then came the start of the drought.  3 years ago the property we had hunted for 5 years, through some circumstances beyond our control, went away.  We started looking into new property to hunt and ended up signing a lease for some property that was close to my home and had produced for some friends in the past.  Of course the year we lease there were no crops present on the property at all.  Early season was decent and then the property went cold.  I have never been so frustrated in my life.  No matter what I did, or what tactics I used, the deer sightings were few and far between.

I took that season as a learning experience and then our hunting group decided to try and change it up and find a new piece of property to lease for the next year.  I can’t get into the details, but what I can tell you is that this was the first year these particular landowners had leased this property, and it was horrible.  They ran a business on the property and needless to say about half-way through the season clear cut about every piece of cover the deer had without notifying of this beforehand.  I was shocked and extremely angry all at the same time, and so went my deer hunting for that year.

Fast forward to the present.  We have excellent property this year that a friend of ours, who we recently met, was nice enough to let us hunt.  Finally!  It is excellent hunting ground, and a better piece of property then I could ever dreamed of hunting, but I just can’t seem to catch a break.  I can’t lie and say that the frustration levels haven’t been very high at certain points, and I just long for the day I get a clear shot.

So I would love to fulfill this Outdoor Intention this year.  Hopefully it will be fulfilled sooner rather than later.  I do have a question for you readers out there as well.  Have you ever had a hunting slump? And what helped you get through it?  Please leave me a comment and let me know.

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