Day one of 2006 nuisance deer slaying season

Tonight I began my efforts as a deer sharpshooter on a New York state nuisance deer permit. I saw one doe driving into the vineyard that my neighbor owns; by the time I had parked and walked back uphill to where she had been, she was gone. I spent the rest of the hour or two walking through the vineyard and trying to piece together a summer strategy for hunting these deer. Although I previously had thought of these nuisance permits as "not hunting," it occurred to me tonight that, well, you still have to hunt them even if it is July and on a nuisance permit.

It was dark by 9:20 or so, and on the way home I drove through the public forest near my home. An odd thing happened: at one point in the middle of the dirt road there was a white chicken just lying there. Mind you this is 10:15 or so at night. When I got out of the truck to see if it was hurt, sick, or dead, it took off in the liveliest of manners . . . so I'm pretty sure it wasn't dead.

Anyway. First light is at 5:00 am, legal shooting time on the permit (half hour before sunrise). I'm in the Finger Lakes region of New York, and my neighbor the vineyard owner has three tags to fill between now and October. This is my log of the attempt to fill those tags.