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A Positive Attitude provides September Success The last Saturday of September started off like any other hunting day. I woke and went through my ritual of preparations with no idea of the follies that would ensue. Excited and ready for the day, I am walking into the woods an hour before sunrise with my climbing treestand on my back. I am not 15 feet into the woods when my treestand gets caught on a vine. I tried to untangle the vine from my stand as quietly as possible, but to of no avail. I end up pulling 10 feet of this vine down from the tree, and I still have 10 feet of vine stuck to my treestand. Frustrated with my noisy entrance I pause for a few minutes imagining that I made the same amount of noise as driving my truck to my hunting spot. After allowing the woods to go silent for a few minutes I proceed to the hunting spot and locate a suitable tree to stand in. My last step of preparation before I ascend the tree is to kneel down and tie one end of a rope to my treestand and the other end to my bow. I tie a second rope to my stand for my backpack. As my series of mishaps continues, I chose a tree with very loud crackly bark and I made a tremendous racket as I ascend. After reaching a suitable height I reach for the rope to pull up my back pack and much to my surprise there was nothing attached. Now, I am within a few minutes of shooting time, so I decide to pull up my bow. I reach for the rope to pull up my bow up it gets stuck on a branch, and I can not free it. My frustration builds as I can’t imagine what else can go wrong. I am forced to climb back down the noisy tree and free my bow from captivity. As I descend the tree, the foot rest on my climbing stand gets caught on the branch and I quickly learn what else can go wrong. I fight the branch to free my stand and continue my descent to free my bow and retrieve my backpack. I begin my second noisy climb up the tree aware that legal shooting time has arrived and I am not set. I am finally all set in my treestand and it is nearing 6:45 AM. At 7:15 AM I see a large bodied buck with 5 visible points walks a trail parallel to my stand. I stand and draw my bow to take aim at the buck and the arrow come un-nocked and slides down the bowstring. Gently, I let down on the bowstring and this action causes the arrow to rattle against the riser and create enough noise to make the buck to stop and look. I also noticed that my pep didn't rotate fully around when I was at full draw. With this buck safely out of range I slide the loop on my bowstring around to get my pep to rotate properly at full draw. This requires me to draw my bow five or six times to get it right. It only seemed fitting that I add a little serving of extra motion to accompany the large portion of noise I served up to announce my arrival. Much to my surprise, the buck that walked past me 15 minutes earlier returned walking the same trail. He was within shooting range when I heard his approach. With only a few seconds to prepare, slowly I stood and readying my bow. When he stepped behind some brush I drew my bow, took aim and waited for him to step out. At this point it seemed the frustration of the day would continue when the buck paused before stepping out from behind the brush to survey the area. I couldn't hold the bow at full draw any longer, I had to let down. After a few a minute wait the buck steps out and is almost thru my shooting window before I draw and take aim. He was walking directly away from me and I was about to let down when he turned and provided me a quartering shot. I made a bleating sound with my mouth and the buck stopped. There are a few tree branches in the way, so I leaned out over the edge of my treestand to get a clear shot. Based on the elevation of my stand I placed my 30 yard pin high on his chest. The arrow struck the buck in the center of his vitals, but didn't pass through the deer. The white cresting on the arrow worked wonderfully and I could see my shot placement as the buck ran off. He went about 40 yards before dropping. I used the new Carbon Express F-15 Dual Blade Fixed Broadheads with my new Gold Tip "Ted Nugent" arrows and achieved excellent results from both. After all the noise, frustration and comedic follies I maintained a positive attitude. Even though the hunt deifies all logic not giving into the frustration lead to success and the recovery of my buck gives the story a happy ending. I am forwarding a picture of my September success. Photograph provided courtesy of Thomas Albin. A 38 yard quartering away shot at 7:30 AM. I am posing with my new Gold Tip "Ted Nugent" hunting arrow in the fore ground. Live weight on the buck is 210 pounds and he has 5 points, with no brow tines. His antlers make him look young, but his elongated body gives him the look of a mature buck.