Opening morning’s deer hunt was as good as it can get around my food plot ground blind.

Last night I didn’t click the On switch on my alarm. Fortunately I woke up two minutes later and got up, made coffee, ate oatmail, checked Facebook, camoed up, bowed up and walked to my food plot ground blind in the dark. On the way I walked through a spider web. One step before that happened I still felt kinda groggy. Now I was wide awake, trying to get the web off my head and arms, and wondering where the spider was.

Daylight. There were already deer spread around in the area. It took a while before there was enough light to take pictures or video.  Here are some of the deer this morning.

This buck was the first one I could get a picture of. A nice looking young 8-point.

A different buck stops at the edge of the woods looking around.

A mature buck walking around in the weeds adjacent to the food plot.

Scratching an itch. Grooming itself too.

The buck I call Number 9 walks right past my shooting window, only 14 yards away. I shoot him with my Sony and video camera.

Number 9 walks up to the grooming buck. Notice the size difference. Number 9 walked on by. He had fighting the buck JR on his mind.

Fathers and Sons. JR and Number 9 lock horns. (Look for more pics of the fight. And a video.)

Meanwhile a buck near the woods edge works a ceder limb and then makes a scrape under it.

When I noticed that the buck below was raking the branches to the left with its antlers I got the camera on him, but he stopped an instant before I took the pic.

Everybody says this buck only has one antler but a close look shows a dinky spike.

Four does hung up in the shade of some trees and watched the area.

This is a close up of half of the this morning’s skirmish, I call him JR. He’s a 2 1/2 year old with a narrow but nice rack. He got so close I could have thrown my arrow at him and hit him. He’s already a 10 point by the hang a ring count, and an excellent buck in our area real world area. In 2 years he will be a bomber, in 4 he could be the biggest buck we’ve  ever had on our deer lease.

When JR walked into the woods I waited another hour. There was occasional activity in the trees to the south.

What a totally great Opening Morning bowhunt. Indeed, life is good in the deer woods on October 2.

If you were deer hunting I hope you had good luck too.