THIS IS GOING TO BE LONG, SO BEAR W/ME:
My Opening Weekend Fiasco, really started Friday evening when I arrived at my lease... You see being the nice guy that I am, I told a fellow hunter that I would check on his feeders for him... (I did this, INSTEAD of checking my own stuff... ) By the time this was finished it was getting pretty late in the evening, so I gathered up a little wood to throw on the pit for cooking... Back at camp I was as giddy with excitement as a schoolgirl who just received her first kiss... (You see I have only recently begun to get serious about BOWHUNTING, thanks to TBH) Got dinner cooked and got in bed at a decent hour, ready for Saturday morning...

Got in the popup about 6:15 am with my buddy who was going to film my hunt... All was great UNTIL, he commented that I should check to see if I had enough room to draw my bow... (Great idea... Remember this was going to be my FIRST season as a serious bowhunter...) I clicked my release on the "d-loop" and proceeded to draw my bow... Everything was fine UNTIL I started to let down... All of a sudden there was a loud bang, like a 22 long rifle had been shot in my popup... My thumb immediately began to throb as if I had broken it... My buddy shined the led flashlight on my bow and my heart sank to the bottom of my boots... The string jumped off of the cam and everything else was out of alignment... Not wanting to mess up anyone else's hunt we opted to sit there and see what would be visiting the feeder... I slowly began to unzip the windows and that is when I noticed that I didn't trim the brush low enough for me to shoot out of my chair... So we sat and waited on the feeder to go off at 7:15 am... 7:15 came around and nothing, 7:30 comes and still no "dinner bell"... Got out of the blind at 8:15am and noticed that "Smart's" friends have chewed through my wire from my solar panel to my feeder and the battery was dead... (Remember Friday evening now...) We loaded up on the ranger and went to the "phone booth"... (Only place we get cell reception...) Got on the web and searched TBH for bow shops around San Angelo... Bingo, found one and waited until 9:00 am to call them... Made the call and gave them a rundown of my situation and asked if they could help... They told me they could and I was on my way as if my hair was on fire... (220 mile round trip and $20.00 later, I arrived back at camp just in time to change clothes and get to the stand...) Sit in my other popup at my second feeder with HIGH hopes of seeing something worthy of a "carbon injection"... Saw a doe that was being followed by her spotted fawn and her yearling spike from last year... That would be all of the visitors to this feeder for this hunt... (Went back to fix the feeder and top it off at 11:00 pm)

Sunday morning comes and I wake up late 6:20 am... (As if things weren't bad enough...) At 6:35 I leave camp headed for my blind at my first feeder... Dump out about 10 pounds of chum at 6:55... (According to my POS truth cam 60.) Got settled in around 7:00 am and was ready for the parade... At 7:10 a young 10 came in and started on the "breakfast buffet"... The feeder went off at 7:15 and spooked the little 10 off... A few minutes later I could hear some deer coming to the "dinner bell"... Old doe and her 2 kids were first, then another young 8, followed close by the cull that I have seen in quite a few tc pics... (When it was working properly...) They were all getting along nice until the cull decided to push the young 8 out of the "dinning room", when he stopped dead in front of my blind at 9 yards... (I decided that I needed to redeem myself...) Drew my Z7 Extreme and sent a "carbon missile, loaded with a NOCTURNAL and tipped with a G5 MONTEC" his way... The arrow hit about an inch forward of where I intended, but still took out both lungs and made a complete pass through... I could hear him busting through the brush and finally heard him crash... Sat there for an hour (shot him at 7:25 am)trying to regain my composure from "the shakes"... Got out of the blind and retrieved my "bloody" arrow... Started looking for blood for the tracking job only to find very little blood in the beginning... Walked about 25 yards in the direction I last heard him and there he lay...

Sorry for the "LACK" of pics but my buddies camera decided to eat most of them so these are the only 2 I have of him... I guess it is fitting, considering all of the other "MISHAPS" up to this point in the weekend...