Thankshunting

It’s my first holidays being married and so for Thanksgiving I decided to do it the Reynolds way (you know, since I am one now)...HUNTING! I went with Cameron, his dad Ted, and sister Caitlin to a cabin in East Texas near Henderson for 4 days (Caleb and Ron, Caleb's father in law, were there the first day as well). This was to be my first hunting trip. It was great! The first few days started out pretty warm with high’s in the 70’s and then we got our expected cold front which brought the temp down to the 30-40’s. I got to experience hunting in the warm and cold weather, I think I preferred the cold. I went on 2 morning hunts, 2 evening hunts, and one spotlighting hunt at night. The first morning we woke up at 4:30am (madness), we got dressed, ate something quick for breakfast and started walking to the blind. We had a full moon that night which was so bright we didn’t even need to turn our headlamps on. We walked for about 20 minutes until we got to the blind. I was pretty excited. This blind was a single blind so it fits 1 person comfortably, not two. I was pretty loud getting in there, my gun hit the metal blind a few times making quite a lot of noise. Oops. We opened all the windows to the blind, put an extra chair in it, got our guns situated, and sat and watched. Since it was still dark outside we had to wait a good 45 minutes or so before the beginning of daylight to start so we could actually make out what we were looking at. I quickly discovered that shifting in my chair certain ways caused a rattling noise of the blind. So now I was trying to be even more still than I had to be so the rattling noise wouldn’t occur. I had wind blowing in my face through the window that kept making my eyes water (and hence the visual field blurry). I would close my eyes to only find sleepiness summoning me. This hunting stuff is a lot harder than I realized. Sitting in an uncomfortable chair, for an uncomfortable amount of time (this morning we were there for 4-5 hours), wind blowing in my face, feeling cramped, staring into the land, and not seeing anything. But then I see something. Far in the distance. But as soon as I saw it it was gone. I asked Cameron if he saw anything but he hadn’t. “Maybe it was just a bird” he said. But I knew I had seen something walking. So I watched (with my binoculars of coarse) the other side of the brush to see if anything would come out. Sure enough it did. A bobcat. I didn’t really care that it wasn’t a deer. I was excited to see something. My heart started racing just to see an animal walk by. I think I would have gotten really nervous if it had been a deer. I still don’t know if I want to watch one be killed (much less kill one myself). That morning the bobcat was all we saw. I was ready to get out of the blind and move around. My body was achy from trying so hard to be still. The rest of the day we hung out at the cabin, rode the four wheeler around the land, went on a walk to see some of the other blinds. Later we did some work to fix up one of Cameron’s blinds that we found toppled over. We all worked on trying to camouflage it and put it in a really good spot. It was great teamwork. That night, Cameron and I went on a spotlighting hunt. I had never spot-lighted before. It definitely gave me a rush every time I turned the spotlight on, hoping to see something. Well we didn’t see anything, except the cows on the land. But I have to say that Cameron described it perfect when I asked him what I was looking for. He told me, “you are looking for their eyes, they light up like Christmas lights”. Well I got to see this with the cows and he was exactly right, their eyes at night with a spotlight shining on them were bright green. It was really neat to see that. We didn’t see any coyotes either that night. But the next day while me and Caitlin were in a blind (this time a double blind so we had much more room) we saw a coyote walk from far in the distance all the way right in front of our blind and go behind us. The coyote never seemed to even know we were there. It was then that I found the hunt to be exciting. It was so amazing to watch these animals in their normal environment doing what they do (and not even know we were there). I felt like the discovery channel. It might not be the most exciting thing to watch, yet so interesting to see the life of animals. Well I didn’t see any deer or hogs on the other hunts, but it was a very fun trip. We ate like champs every night. We deep fried a turkey for thanksgiving dinner. Other items on the menu consisted of steak and baked potatoes, chicken wings (ranch, parmesan, lemon pepper, and spicy), and ribs with mashed potatoes. The Reynold’s family sure does know how to eat good. It was a wonderful thanksgiving. I am so thankful the Lord has given me such an amazing husband and family. Even though hunting was a lot harder than I ever thought it would be, it was so very peaceful. I can't wait to do it all over again next year. Plus, as a friend told me, "every hunting trip is a success. It's all about the hunt, not the kill".



Here is the only video we took: