I want to find the guy that decided to torture Michigan hunters with an early deer season. Then I'm going to kick him. We've been waiting for the better part of a year to be able to hunt again and it's an irresistible temptation to get out in the woods a few weeks early just for a chance at some does.
This time of year the weather is usually pretty mild. Mornings are more often that not a little chilly, sometimes with a bit of frost on the ground. That's the perfect time to be in the woods.
But then, sometimes the weather changes. You wake up and it's raining. Grand. You left your safety harness out on the deck overnight. It's soaked. Guess you'll use your backup harness. It's been sitting in the garage for the last year or so and is most likely saturated with all the wonderful smells associated with garages. (If you're not a deer hunter, you won't understand just how much of an aggravation and handicap this is.)
Anyway, you are determined to spend as much time in the woods as possible. You drive out to the woods and get out of your car. You immediately break out in a sweat even though the temps are in the mid 60s. Being from Michigan, you have appropriately purchased only gear that helps keep you warm during the normal hunting season. Being Dutch, you refuse to purchase light weight gear for the warmer weather of the five day early season. It's only five days after all, you should be able to tough it out.
About the same time that sweat is running into your eyes, you are swarmed by clouds of gallinippers. For those of you not familiar with these. They are basically a mosquito mounted on a Boeing 737 frame. Also, instead of the standard proboscis of normal mosquitoes, they are equipped with the equivalent of an 18 volt Milwaukee drill with carbide bit. These HURT when they bite. Not to be outdone, their diminutive cousins show up to the party at a ratio of ten to one. While not as big, their bite seems to have an itch factor measured in magnitudes of ten in comparison to their larger brethren.
So it's raining, you're sweating, and losing blood at an alarming rate. And you haven't even gotten your bow out of it's case yet. Doing this, you head to your stand as quickly as possible, thankful for the rain for a little while because it makes walking much quieter.
You climb to your stand and are finally able to pull your gloves and mask on. This offers some small protection from the miniature vampires, but they continue to buzz incessantly around you, doing everything in their considerable power to distract you. The more intrepid will even find places where your mask is in direct contact with your skin, through which they can assault your circulatory system.
So you sit, trying to do your best to ward off the vicious fiends without too much movement. You pray for a downpour instead of the intermittent showers, if for nothing else than to knock down the mosquitoes and cool you off for a bit. Alas, nature does not comply so you are sitting in a tree, sweating, slightly damp, and itching like you slept in a patch of poison sumac.
Hard to believe you aren't seeing any deer isn't it?
Related Links
More impressive schnozzes. Here.
Here.
And here.
