Tomorrow is "MY" opening day...story, pix,and videos added..finished up

[Guru]

I'll finish this one up tonight

[Talondale]

When you said "tonight" which tonight did you mean?  

[Arraflinger]

I think guys who start this type thread watch too much TV. TOO MANY STINKIN' COMMERCIALS!!!!      

[Guru]

Sorry guys...

.....So I get back to the spot I left, where the string entered the woodline.  It was gone! I couldn't believe he'd moved while I was gone! I thought for sure I would walk up to him and he would be stone dead. But I have a pretty good bloodtrail to follow so I do. But it ends after forty 40yds where it was obvious he'd sat for while. Beyong that not a pinhead of blood on the ground! So now I have to find the string. I go about 30 yds further and there it is and it was banjo string tight. So I cut it figuring if by chance he is still alive he could still drag the string. But before I could even start following it again,it's moving! Dang!!!!!  It only moved about 10 yds.,but that meant he was still alive....uuhhhgggg!

So I sit down and wait another hour. And it was a long hour too!  So I start following again and I don't go 20yds and it starts going away from me again!  Now I'm thinking..."this bird can see me",but I can't see him down the hill where the string tells me he headed.Everytime I move he moves. It stops....

It's 10:10 now, and I decide to leave for a few hrs and come back to a bird that will for sure be dead by then......

I'm back at 1:30pm now....the string is gone again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    So now I have to find it again and start off in the direction the string was haeded when I left. I criss cross figuring I'd have to run into the 100yds of string he's dragin'....But I go 300yds or so and find nothing. I stop and really think about what's going on here.....they bird could see me when I was there before...then it hits me.....even though the string that I could see was headed down the hill along the creek,he must have doubled back or crossed the creek...I was looking the wrong way!

So I head back the opposite way along the creek and bingo! I see the string across the creek,and bino's confirm the fact. Now I'm thinking I got him now.I get to the tail end of the string and follow as stealthy as possible.Searching/following the string with my bino's as far as I could with out moving.Then I would move ahead some more. I did so and the string was headed directly to the creek again and right to where he had been roosted in the morning.

He'd been using this tree pretty steady.....





Then with bino's I see up ahead what I dreaded would happen all along.....a frayed tangle of broken string....my heart sinks again......


No it becomes a long blind search that turns up not a single clue......

This one hurt guys......


For some reason on the way out I couldn't help but take a pic of this beautiful little flower...maybe a sign of better things to come.....