Our season started yesterday but I was too tired in the morning to update from the stand. God, I hate getting up at 330 in the morning and I almost never see anything so I don't know why I bother.
Yesterday afternoon, I hunted in a spot with poor signal so I couldn't "go live" very easily.
I made two stupid rookie mistakes that cost me a deer. I had been sitting for about 2 hours and my butt hurt. I stood up and faced North for about ten minutes, then south for about ten minutes and then sat back down.
After sitting, I watched north briefly but honestly expected deer to come from the south, so I was watching south for probably 5 minutes and turned my head back toward north. Well, it had been raining all the previous day until almost first light and I couldn't hear anything approaching in the leaves. In that time period, two doe had approached from the north and were at about 40 yards.
The closer one instantly saw my head move and they bolted. A third mistake, watching them go instead of standing and preparing just in case, because they stopped at 80 yards or so and the one came back to about 30, trying to figure out what I was.
Anyway, always keep your head moving but SLOWLY. That's two mistakes, and always try to prepare for a shot if you can after spooking animals. They do sometimes return and present an opportunity. Three mistakes.