Anticipation...

A faint glimmer of hope illuminates my expectations.  After letting our hunting woods sit unvisited for about two weeks, checking the game cam revealed a couple of visitors.

Pope and Young won't care much about them, but to me they are just fine.  They have been showing up intermittently, probably bedding down under the overgrown holly bushes at the old trailer site.  We only have night photos so far, but that's actually in line with the feeding predictions (however they come up with those).  They've established a scrape line leading to the feeder, and a bit past it, consisting of the most textbook scrapes you'll find.  About 30 yards past the end of the scrape line and off to the side now sits this:

It feels kind of exposed, but that's the nature of the area, 15 year old pines with scattered underbrush isn't ideal.  I had to take a segment off of the ladder because, honestly, I'm afraid of heights and I knew I'd never feel comfortable with my head 17 feet up.  12-13 feet is just fine though, funny how big of a difference a few feet made psychologically.

I'm going out with my bow Thursday evening after work.  I'm still not 100% confident with the broad heads (they tend to waver more than the field points) but this is mostly for the experience, as I've said before I'd need a perfect shot to try to stick an arrow in a deer, and there is a lot of season left, so there is no hurry at all.  Besides, rifles will be legal in just a few weeks.