Good morning everyone.
So for a change, I spent an entire week at hunting camp, and I'm worn out physically and mentally. From Last Friday, to yesterday evening, I sat in the treestands for 12 hours at a time, holding my gun up the entire time in case a deer ran by. I saw small bucks and several does, heard grunting, bleating, roaring and watched a small buck make a scrape. I hiked sometimes two miles one way to get to some of the stands. I froze my butt off, roasted, and got rained on. More or less from exposure to people than my hunting situation, I didn't sleep for more than 3 hours in a 72 hour period, until I finally just collapsed on my bed without taking any of my gear off. No one could wake me up. But it wasn't all that bad.
I did end up shooting something: a coyote. He was on a dead run 130 yards away, so I gave my best aiming guess and fired. It was a 1/1,000,000 head shot. It was a bit gruesome, so no pics. One dead coyote is reason to celebrate, because they'll attack anything down here. Even people.
I hunted Friday through Monday, and on Monday night I was unexpectedly taken back home. No one knew where I was, or when I was coming back. I was dropped back off the next afternoon. No one was home. So I just got ready to go hunting, by throwing on all my gear and slinging my rifle across my shoulder. Then everyone came back in. I was standing in the doorway of my bedroom, and everyone walked past me, except my buddy Matt. He had his back to me, and never knew I was there. I put my hand on his shoulder and said "Hello Matt". He screamed like a little girl, and flew away, lol! Ahh. Good Times.
John, the organizer of all this, wasn't supposed to be back until way after dark. So while everyone was sitting around, having a beer, I threw on a newly restored SS Helmet that I brought along, my camo suit, ammo belt, knapsack, Mauser, gloves and PAB award. I even blacked my face out. When I walked out of my room, everyone was a bit surprised, and then I told them my plan: I'll wait by the bridge where he comes in to unlock the gate, I'll come out of the bushes and shout out "Halt! Was geht Sie diese Brücke an, Amerikaner?" (Halt! What is your business across this bridge, American?) I don't know a lot of German, but enough to have some fun. Everyone was laughing at the thought, and begged me to do it. As I went out the door, I could see his headlights coming down the road. I quickly yelled out "tell him you don't know where I am!" and ran off behind the house. I heard John ask everybody where I was and "nobody knew". He thought it was very strange. So I lifted my head above the kitchen window. Because of my blacked out face at night, all you could see was the outline of my head and the whites of my eyes. A few minutes went by before Katelyn, a very hot ex-army ginger who brought her husband along...awww... finally freaked out when she saw me, or my head rather in the window. Everyone was laughing until they had tears coming down their faces. I walked in the front door, saying "Was geht Leute? Es ist ein bisschen dunkel. Ich kann nirgendwo Verkehrszeichen sehen. Ist das Berlin?" (What's up everyone? It's a bit dark out. I can't see any road signs anywhere. Is this Berlin?) Everyone was dying.
In all, we had some fun, but I figured out I got some bad people issues. Two bucks were taken, one by a guy on the last day in the last hour of his stay, and another by a disabled vet. I dragged his buck out for him.
