Hunting Season

November is here, which means hunting season is just around the corner, and thinking about hunting always gets me pumped up. The men in my family have a tradition, every year we all go hunting the first weekend in December down on land that is collectively owned by my whole family. My brother and I usually just tag along, but don't ever get to hunt. Last year was the first year I got to go hunting with the other guys. It was an exciting time for me. Sure I had been hunting before, but always with my dad right there with me. This time it was just going to be me and the wilderness.

The weather was nasty, the forecast called for freezing rain all weekend, not looking good for our hunt. The roads were covered in ice and nearly impassable. But a little weather wasn't going to get in the way of us and our prize.

Saturday morning we all set out towards our respective spots, guns in hand and ready to shoot a deer. When I got to were I would be hunting I broke off from the rest of the group and settled in to watch the sun rise. It was already raining and the blanket of snow on the ground had a thin layer of ice over it. I thought that when the sun rose it would warm up the ground and the ice would just simply melt and stop causing me extreme discomfort in my hind end. No such luck, the sun rose behind a shroud of clouds that morning, it was going to be a long day.

Just a half an hour after the sun rose I was locked in place. The outer layer of clothes I was wearing had totally frozen in place. I could move, but I was in a comfortable position and relatively warm for being a living ice sickle. Over the course of the morning the ice got thicker and thicker until by the time I was ready to walk back to the house I had to hammer through the ice to free myself.

The next day despite the weather man's prediction of more freezing rain, it was a beautiful day for hunting, and even though I didn't shoot a deer I now have a good story to tell my kids someday.