hunting deer

I saw somebody in the store the other day buying hard apple cider so yesterday at Walmart I bought some. It's along the same lines as hard lemonade, 5% alcohol. It was alright I guess.. not too sweet, which was good. I drank one then got my camera gear together to go for a walk. I had the bag, monopod and big lens. I wanted to use the big lens but was planning on climbing up in a deer stand and wanted everything in it's case. I walked the 1/4 to the stand...thats a lot of crap to lug.
anyway.... I got up in the stand. never did switch lens. I keep my little zoom(55-200) on the camera so thats the one I used. I hung the monopod by it's strap on the top rung of the ladder while the big lens case lay behind me on the platform. I sat there a couple of hours...felt like a couple of hours. Wasn't much room on the platform... I sat with my legs dangling over the side and my camera case in my lap, which worked out pretty well, it gave me something fairly solid to rest my elbows on while I was taking pictures.
I sat for probably 30 minutes before I actually saw any signs of wildlife. A big fat squirrel was climbing around the trees in the ditch below me. In front of me and to my right was standing corn, below me to my left was a ditch and small creek, then tall grass further to the left across the ditch.

I thought the squirrel and birds were going to be the only excitement for the day. There was a combine running to the East(my right). when it shut down I heard gunshots from my neighbors to the East. sounded like target practice. this is when I heard the deer come out of the corn field.

He didn't come as close as I would've liked, but he was close enough to get a shot...and from the pictures it looks to me like he has one short antler. he stood in the same spot at the edge of the cornfield for quite a while, flinching every time a gunshot went off.



I took pictures until he bounced back into the corn. It wasn't long after I decided it was time to go..the deer wasn't the only one nervous about the gunshots in the distance.
I waited until I got back home to crack open the cider I'd been carrying in my pocket.