Arnold called me last night to tell me where he had seen several bucks that evening.  His tip was enough to cause my to change my plans on where I would hunt.  Rather than go to the ladder stand near the front of our lease, I went to #25, deep in the woods. 

I hunted up until about 11:00 this morning, then decided to head over to the Riverdeck to get a quick bit of lunch before going back to the stand.  I went and got my truck, then drove it back to where I had been hunting and spread out the corn that I had bought earlier in the day.  Finishing that task quickly and quietly, I got my lunch, then came right back to the woods, parking a long way from the stand just to be sure that I wouldn't alert any deer to my presence.

I was back in the stand pretty early, and having forgotten to bring along a book to read to pass the time, I knew I was in for a long afternoon.  This time of year, it would be right before dark before anything showed up, so I made myself as comfortable as I could and began my long wait. 

About 30 minutes before dark, a big doe showed up at the corn pile.  She fed for quite some time, and I kept thinking I'm not going to shoot this deer.  I'll wait to see if those bucks that Arnold saw show up.  After about a half hour, I saw movement in the woods behind the doe, and my binoculars revealed a small buck.  He looked like an 8 pointer, but I never got a good enough look to be sure.  He didn't stay long.  As it got darker and darker, I made out another deer behind the big doe.  This one was another, slightly smaller doe. 

I finally decided that this first doe was really a good sized deer, and I might not get another chance, so with only minutes left in legal shooting hours I slipped the safety off of my rifle and centered the crosshairs on the deer's heart.  The doe was facing slightly away from me and had her head down when I took a breath, let it halfway out and squeezed the trigger.  In the dim light I could see that I had dropped the deer where she stood. 

I racked another cartridge into the chamber and watched the deer for several minutes to make sure she stayed down.  When I was sure that she wasn't going anywhere, I climbed down from the stand and went to get my truck.  The deer was down in a pretty deep hole, and I tried several times to get a good picture, but there just wasn't room to snap a good shot off, so what I ended up with is what you see below.