The cold weather fronts this week had the deer moving about and starting to feed in earnest.

When the shift from summer days goes into autumn days, an automatic response of the deer herd is to seek out any and all feeding opportunities. I have long recognized the behavior of deer when the weather turns cooler and the start of early muzzleloaders’ timing couldn’t be any better.

After several hours on the shooting range, I was confident that any deer that crossed my path on the opening day would be in some serious jeopardy. I planned on meeting up with my cousin and we were very enthusiastic about our chances in this early hunt.

Saturday morning came and I was disappointed with the forecast of rain and more rain! I did have a plan B in place and that was to visit a couple of gun shows in Grove City and Rocky Grove until the rains lightened up or quit entirely.

We had to wait until after lunchtime before we would get our chance. I figured we would have about five or six hours of shooting time left in the day and the evening hunt has always been a good hunting time for us.

We chose to wait until the last moment to load our muzzleloaders due to moisture and the intermittent rain showers.

My neighbor had a blind with good cover about a quarter of a mile back along some fields of clover that deer had been visiting regularly. It seemed like a decent place to stay in case of rain and we headed out to the stand.

We had just started out and had taken the rifles out of their cases when a windy rain started to hit our faces. I covered up my rifle with my jacket and started to get pelted with cold rain drops.

This was no good for the black powder, but we were committed at this point. In about 15 minutes, we arrived at the blind and quickly got under cover and wiped down the rifles. Not too bad, I thought, and did my best to keep any moisture away from the muzzle lest it drip down the barrel.

We settled in and started to check out our surroundings carefully. There were three or four likely areas that a deer might approach us, so we split the areas to observe and made ourselves comfortable. It didn’t take long for a flock of geese and some sandhill cranes to start a ruckus and fly over our position.

Too bad we weren’t goose hunting because it was a perfect location for a shot at the geese as they went overhead. Soon we saw a bald eagle soar over us as well; it was hard to believe it was Butler County that we were planted in for this hunt.

In a bit of time, I noticed movement several hundred yards away and after glassing the location we found several does being chased about by a nice buck. They certainly had our attention as they fed their way toward our position.

Suddenly I saw some deer moving up a draw near us. They were cautious and seemed to sense that something was not quite right. Then I saw at a close proximity the shoulders and back of a pretty decent-sized deer. I put the binoculars on the deer and studied it before I would decide to take a shot.

Good thing that I did, as the deer lifted its head and then looked away to reveal that he was a spike buck and not legal quarry for the hunt.

We turned our attention to several more deer that appeared into the field edges. Many were youngsters that didn’t interest us, either. A really nice buck showed himself and proudly displayed a yellow colored rack that was way wide and past his shoulders.

We started to count deer and the number grew to the 18 mark. Many of the deer were young bucks and that held much promise for future hunts in the upcoming years.

Two mature does worked their way toward us and were joined by a half dozen more deer. They were on alert as they left the edges and headed into more open areas.

We knew that there was time clock running on the remaining daylight and we grew anxious. No matter what, we had no plans on taking a poor shot or a young deer. It had to be the right one.

Several times we had the rifles raised, but both times the binoculars proved that the deer were bucks and not legal for us. Soon the darkness arrived and the deer came no closer.

The hunt had ended and we decided to shoot our rifles off into the soft bank near us. One rifle boomed a report and the other fizzled a cloud of smoke ... damp powder!

It was a good thing that I didn’t take a shot as it would have added insult to injury on this soggy day. Walking out to our truck, we saw several nicer deer cross our path in no special hurry.

It seemed that they now knew that we were now just on a stroll back to the house for a hot drink and our dinner, too!

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle