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 Season to Date 
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Longbeard

Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:29 pm
Posts: 195
Post Season to Date
October 1 and the opener of archery rewarded me with a textbook hunt culminating on a dandy doe. I did not make the best shot, but she didn't go more than 100 yds before expiring from the liver hit. This Bent Mountain deer was the first to hit the freezer this season.
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I hunted harder than I probably should have for another doe to fill a coworker's freezer for the next few weekends, even taking my father with me during the first cold front that brought with it wind like we are experiencing today. That was the first time I had ever been scared in a treestand. Halloween weekend I decided to spend in Richmond hunting public and private lands in that area.

The evening of Saturday, October 29th found me 25+ feet up a white oak tree with my back to a big beaver pond/swamp. I received an education in wood duck behavior for the entire evening while eagles flew overhead and raccoons and beavers walked the swamp edge below. Around 1600 a doe flew through the draw to my left at mach five. Thirty minutes later a buck came through and went to visit the thick area against the swamp where I jumped him from his bed two hours before. He knew something was wrong as he nosed around where I had walked, but didn't seem to want to leave. A young spike buck came from my right and joined him in browsing on the briars before the two of them went up the opposite side of the draw. A grunt brought the bigger fella back for a better look, but he wouldn't cross the creek and rid the space between him and I of brush. I picked him apart with my binoculars and decided that he was at least 3.5 years old and carried his mass very well through his main beams. I decided that I would take the deer if he presented a shot. But he cruised up the opposite ridge and out of sight.

A mature doe and her two kids crossed the swamp behind me and milled around in the draw forty five yards away. As light began to fade I could hear deer around me but just beyond the holly trees and my vision. Something to my right alerted me to another deer's presence and the same buck was coming from the scrapes I had found sixty yards in that direction. As he crossed twelve yards from my stand, I drew and found a hole between two beech branches and stopped him. The lighted knock showed the arrow finding its mark and bounded away as the buck took off up the hardwood draw.

I found this guy at the end of the blood trail. He was aged at 5.5 years old and weighed 96 pounds, dressed. The deer on this property have the genetics of a smaller strain of deer and, compounded by the big woods nutrition, they maintain a lower body weight than the neighboring properties' ag fed deer.
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I took the entire first week of Muzzleloader season off to hunt the rut around Richmond again. Aside from election day that I spent sleeping in, picking up more hand warmers and simmering the skull from my archery nine point, I hunted dark to dark for nine days. I found some incredible deer sign, saw some incredible deer and spent some great time with great friends.

_________________
"We are measured more as hunters by the things we choose not to shoot, than by those that we do." -Unknown


Sun Nov 20, 2016 12:07 pm
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Longbeard

Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:29 pm
Posts: 195
Post Re: Season to Date
My favorite part of deer season this year was the evening of Friday, November 11. To fill in the back story, five years ago my hunting buddy and I started taking a couple of newbies hunting. They killed their first deer a year apart, a doe for Kendall and a buck for Tyler. While Tyler took a hiatus for a couple years, Kendall has been hunting his tail off with my buddy or I to get himself another deer. For four years. His attitude never faltered through the trials, tribulations and disappointments of hunt after hunt without an opportunity to harvest a legal deer. His drive to hunt and spend time in the woods with friends overcame the frustrations of deerless days. Tyler decided to join us again this season, and the aforementioned evening found a group of seven guys miles apart from each other on public land to see what luck might bring us. As I sat watching a beautiful creek bottom pinch point with about ten minutes of legal light left, I started to receive a flurry of text messages. "Deer down!", "I got one!", each from these two boys who were hunting on their own in spots chosen by themselves within a minute of one another. I have never climbed out of a tree faster in my life. I raced over to where Tyler was, as Kendall had two others en route to his aid, and helped him gut and drag his second deer ever.

When we convened at my parent's house in Richmond, as we had done many times before to skin and quarter deer together, we regaled the stories and triumphs and reliefs and laughs and exhausted, off handed jeers and jokes. I have never been a part of a deer camp as my father grew up doing in western New York, but this gave me a glimpse into the that kind of camaraderie. To watch these two kids, and especially Kendall, finally get their second deer ever (and Kendall's first buck) definitely takes a spot of the five greatest hunting moments of my life.

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I was talking with my cousin last week about his incredible rut trip to Ohio with his hunting buddies. He commented on the fact that all of the greatest relationships he has with friends and family come from the simple fact that we all share a common passion: Hunting. I agreed with him, but it wasn't until the five of us were cleaning up the shed around midnight after skinning and quartering two bucks that it hit me how right he really is. The people you hunt with, from mere acquaintances to those you have spent years worth of days in the woods beside and no matter the quarry, leave a lasting impression on you that is tough to match by other types of relationships. Even my friends who do not hunt become a part of the equation when I have the opportunity to share the harvest in the form of a meal.

I have attempted many times to put into words the characteristics and ways of this passion, but the more I try the more difficult it becomes. Maybe it is like a sunrise and sunset or the way the steam comes off of a duck swamp in that it is pretty much impossible to capture the true essence of the moment with a camera. Its just as it should be. Indescribably perfect.

Hope everyone is having a great season so far. Stay safe and happy hunting!

Best,
Royce

_________________
"We are measured more as hunters by the things we choose not to shoot, than by those that we do." -Unknown


Sun Nov 20, 2016 12:08 pm
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Co-Owner/Dog Feeder

Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2004 10:20 am
Posts: 3774
Post Re: Season to Date
Nice report and some nice deer

_________________
"even after almost a half-century of hunting of the noblest game bird I am going to confess that I am still in the kindergarten; and I doubt if any human being ever acquires a complete education in this high art."
- Archibald Rutledge


Sun Nov 20, 2016 1:37 pm
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Longbeard

Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 9:08 am
Posts: 148
Location: Bluefield, Virginia
Post Re: Season to Date
Thank you!!


Sun Nov 20, 2016 5:22 pm
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King of Spring
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Joined: Sat Apr 19, 2008 5:27 pm
Posts: 462
Location: Augusta County, VA
Post Re: Season to Date
Awesome!


Fri Nov 25, 2016 10:19 pm
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Boss Gobbler

Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2004 10:59 pm
Posts: 2851
Location: Roanoke
Post Re: Season to Date
Nice year Royce! Congratulations

_________________
"What gets us jangly is the suddenness of everything. We hunt turkeys because we want to hear them gobble, watch them strut and all that, and we hunt them with shotguns because we want to be close to them when those things occur." - Jim Spencer


Sat Nov 26, 2016 7:24 am
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