We dodged a couple deer on the way to woods. Then my fun began. When we were 3/4 of the way up the mountain, I noticed that I had left my cell phone in my truck. 
So I dropped all my gear and headed back down as she headed up to her stand. I was quite toasty once I finally got into my stand. I got everything into position, pulled my bow up then the worst realization ever came over me. My quiver...is in my truck. I pondered what to do. Already quite toasty, another trip down and back up was NOT going to happen. So I made the trek over to my daughters stand and borrowed two arrows. Nothing like rocking the pink fletching on opening morning. 
Twenty minutes later, about sunrise, I heard a lot of racket in the leaves about 70 yards behind me. Eventually I was able to tell it was multiple deer. Three small bucks and two doe fed under the oaks between my daughter and I for about a 30 minutes. The closest they got to me was 44 yards, which is way farther than I'd want to shoot an arrow not tuned to my bow. It would be close enough at 30y or under, but 44? Not worth trying.
Eventually the mature doe in the group wandered to within 28y of my daughter and she took a slightly quartering toward shot from a rest. We watched the doe for a few minutes before we both lost track of it. We sat until 9:30 before getting down to track. In the mean time, she had another doe at 30y and was thinking of a double. As it walked behind a tree she started to swing her bow around only to be busted by the other doe that was with it that she hadn't seen. We've all be there.
Once we got down and retrieved her arrow, it was covered in the bad stuff. Plenty of green slimy contents. I really began to question the shot and whether we'd find the deer. The deer stopped and stood about 30y after it was hit and we found blood there. Then blood was very light in the direction of travel. After about 25y it stopped. I pulled out my Leupold Thermal Tracker to look up ahead. After noting a couple warm rocks, I glanced to my left and bingo. There lay the doe not 20 yards away. It didn't go 60y from the point of impact. Once we got to the doe, the quartering too hit was near perfect. It clipped the edge of the front shoulder, and exited in front of the opposite hind leg. The inside of was full of blood. This was my daughters first bow kill in a number of years and her first with my old Micro 335.
Fast forward to mid-afternoon and we're back in the same stands. Sushi may not backpack well, but it tastes great in a treestand.
Just before sunset I caught movement at the edge of the ravine about 60 yards in front of me. I only saw from about the neck back, but could tell it was a good sized deer. It hung out until more than ten minutes after sunset under the oaks more than 50y in front of me. I couldn't see it, but the thermal tracker proved it was still up in that greenery.
About 15 minutes after sunset it was getting quite dim to me. With visibility fading, I pulled out the thermal tracker to see if I could see anything at distance. As I scanned around, I thought I heard a twig snap to my right. I swung that direction and the thermal tracker clearly showed a deer at 25 yards and closing. I put it away and grabbed my bow. With the scope I could clearly see it was a buck. Based on its body size alone, I decided to take it. As it stepped to a spot with a small hole through the tree limbs, I sent the arrow and it struck hard. It hit solidly near the center of the shoulder blade. The deer bolted back toward the thicket with the arrow sticking out breaking it off after about 5 yards when it contacted a tree. Within mere seconds, there was complete silence. The crash sounded rather spectacular.
Once we found the lumenok, blood was evident. The farther we went, the wilder it got. There were multiple bloody spots on trees above head high. I don't know how it got up that high. Then after what looks like must have been a final forward somersault, there he lay not 50 yards up into the thick stuff. Note by that time, it was quite dark.
With him getting up on me so quick, I didn't have time to turn on the Tactacam and didn't have time to look him over good. He ended up being a 4x2 six point. The side closest to me was the four point side.
The TruGlo Titanium-X 4-blade went through the shoulder blade and chest cavity and came to rest just under the skin after breaking the opposite elbow. The deer was a mess in the front end and it was evident why he went down so quickly. We just can believe he made it that far.
Getting him uphill out of the thicket proved to be quite the challenge. Eventually he was home, quartered up and on ice. That brought to an end the most successful, challenging, humbling and at times humorous opening days we've had in a while.
Hopefully we can start seeing more stories and success pictures. It's time for me to slow down and start counting points.
