This is how I started my second week of deer hunting. 

I have never been so quiet in the woods.  I was painstakingly slow and keeping my eyes peeled for deer.  The week before, I had jumped two deer under my stand and I was determined not to have that happen again.

I walked out and around our normal route into my stand.  I was at a snail’s pace. I would walk, stop and look.  I would look again and take a couple of steps before doing it all over again.  I watched for any movement near my stand.

The leaves had fallen off the trees from the wind storm the weekend prior so I had a better view of the area.  I could not see any movement near my stand so I paused next to our trail camera to look around and relax a little bit.  The minute that I stopped, three loud blows jumped me off to my left.  I had made a huge error; I was so concerned about looking near my stand, that I never figured that the deer would be on the opposite side of the path.

I watched their flags wave as the bound into the thick woods and I picked up my pace and headed to my stand.  I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t see another deer for the rest of the day.  I was right.  But, at least I knew that there were plenty of does around that stand. If only I had a doe permit!