This and That

     I haven’t had much time for my cameras or blogging the last couple of weeks. Raining today so I didn’t get a chance to check them. Here’s a few odds and ends from a couple of weeks ago. These are after a small snow storm we had.

This one is a little camera shy.

If You're Mad Said You're Mad

     I'm mad! We had a power outage last Thursday evening and it killed my PC. I've troubleshot it down to the motherboard being bad. O.K. time for a new PC. Not going to chance buying a new motherboard and having something else fail next month. The new PC started up great with Windows 8. I have all of my files backed up so that's not a big deal. So let's download all of the software back onto the new PC. What the hell??? Two year old software is not compatible with Windows 8??? O.K. some is a little older than that but really. So I start checking on what I need to do to get things compatible. Guess what! Everyone wants me to spend more money with them to "upgrade" the software I already bought from them. @^%#$@#!!! Office now wants me to pay an annual fee to get Office 2013 apps. What happened to supporting your loyal customers?? I know I'm getting old but I am an Electrical Engineer and I deal with rapidly changing technology every day. I just don't think I should have to pay some company more money because they're too cheap to make patches FOR FREE to keep their software that is less than 5 years old compatible with the next version of Windows. I've got hardware and software I designed 10 years ago that I can still make work with the latest software. O.K. my rant is over. The weather has been too bad to check my cameras so no pics either. I guess pics are still compatible with something ;). But who knows. Hell, I'm still mad :)!

Another Year in The Books

     Saddest day of the year we say at the cabin...the Sunday after the main hunting season goes out. November seems to me to be the shortest month of the year. We start our gun deer hunting the 1st Saturday in November for four weeks. Today we ended the season with the end of the season butchering day. During the last week of the season does are legal to take and we full up the freezers. This year we took six does the last week and spent most of Sunday butchering. We only got one really nice buck this year but I had already guessed that was going to be the case from the lack of big bucks I got on camera this summer. We have three more weeks of the muzzleloader season the end of December. Hope to get a couple of more days in then.
     I don't have time to check my cameras today. I'm hoping to check them tomorrow. I did get a great deal on a new Covert MP6 on Black Friday. No, I don't wait in line. Come home for a bit and got it online. Hope to get it by the end of the week.

Couple of Sundays ago get together.

They said I had too much red on the tree :).

Cooper decked out in his blaze orange.

GW with the biggest buck we got this year.

Butchering

Couple of nice hams.

Cat and I grinding deer burger.

Final Week Hunt

     We’re into the final week of the rifle season in western VA. We really haven’t seen any of the bigger bucks since the first week of the muzzleloader season in early November. That’s generally the way it is. The bigger bucks become even more nocturnal than normal after they have been heavily hunted for a few days. About the only way we’ll see one now is if he messes up following a doe that is in heat. Then you could see one anywhere and at anytime. From the lack of big bucks I got on camera this summer I suspected we wouldn’t see many. I read an article a few years ago that has stuck in my mind ever since. The author of the article noted the even where there was a lot of big bucks there wasn’t many.
     Linda asked in a previous post when the black bears hibernate in VA. Generally they’re in their dens in January and February but I’ve seen bear in every month of the year. Following are two links to some more VA bear information that I find interesting. Bear Facts and About Bears.
     We have been really dry here since August and the mountain pond has been getting a lot of activity lately. Mostly does and small bucks with a couple of bear cubs mixed in. We’re supposed to be getting a big storm tomorrow and Wednesday that should bring us heavy rain/snow.

Filling The Freezer

     Well, I got the "high and tight" buck last Thursday morning with my muzzleloader. He was pretty much what I thought he would be from the pictures I had gotten the week or so before. He had a three point rack on the right side that was about a foot tall and the left side was a foot long spike with a small brow point. He was a big deer and dressed out at 160 lbs. So he made a dent in filling the freezer.
     We switched over to our rifles last Saturday and the rifle season lasts until the end of the month. We've not seen many shooter bucks since the first week. I did get a pic of a nice buck at the mountain pond last week.
     Don't forget to take a second and vote for Susanne.   

We're getting dry and the pond is seeing a lot of activity.

Always carry half a dozen Bits-O-Honey in my hand warmer.

This is the stand I killed the high and tight buck from.

It's hard to see through the trees but this stand looks out over the valley.

I love watching the sunrise slowly creep across the valley in the mornings.

Arctic Adventure

No. I’m not going on an Arctic adventure. My southern blood would freeze solid the first day :). However, one of my favorite bloggers is trying to win a four day Arctic adventure. Susanne over at Fjallripans Blog is in a contest to win the adventure. Please take a second and use your Face Book or Twitter account to vote for her at http://www.fjallravenpolar.se/polar-2014/visa-alla-bidrag/?uid=88285. I’d love to see her win and blog about the trip. Thanks.

Gone Huntin'

     Been gone all last week hunting. Our muzzleloader deer season started on 11/2. Saw two shooter bucks last week but couldn't get a shot at either one. One is a really nice buck with a high white rack and looks the be an 8 or 10 pointer. One buddy I hunt with has seen him twice and like me couldn't get a shot either time. We figure he has to be using up his 9 lives.
     We are also having a lot of extracurricular activity around the farm this November. The 230kV transmission power line that runs through the middle of the farm is being replaced and we have heavy equipment running all day long. We also have a new house being built on an adjunct farm that was sold a couple of years ago and divided into 1 to 20 acres lots. So we have a lot of sawing and hammering going on with that. Funny thing is the deer don't seem to pay much attention to either. I was hunting a stand about 150 yards from the house and the deer still used their normal travel routes. Even with the noise being irritating to me the deer were unfazed.
     I've got three days off next week so I'll have to make a token appearance at work on Tuesday and Wednesday.  My boss stopped by my office the week before I left and said it might be easier to just let him know when I was going to be at work the next two months instead of when I'm off  :).
     I did get a few of the bigger bucks on camera the last couple of weeks. Plus a bear visiting the mountain pond.

This is the veiw I had most mornings last week.

I think this is the high white horn buck we've been seeing.

Still getting a few bear pics.

Fall Excursion

Well, I survived another one of our annual fall hikes. I swear Lairds Knob is getting higher every year and my knees are telling me today they're not much on the rock climbing any more . We had pretty nice weather but once we got on top of the mountain the valley was pretty hazy. Didn't see much game as it's still pretty dry and the five of us made a lot of noise. It did seem like we couldn't go 25 yards without coming across some bear scat.

One of the many rock slides on the side of the mountain.

National Forest corner marker.

Debating whether we really want to do this.

The picture doesn't show it well but the big rock in the middle is balanced on the small one below it

Thought it was neat how the trunk on this old tree was twisted.

Big rock near the top of the mountain.

On top

Buzzards waiting on one of us to have a heart attack.

My house is in about the center of this pic.

High and Tight

     Got these pictures of a pretty big body buck but it's rack is a little weird. The right side looks like it has three points on it and the left I'm not sure it has any. It's a genetic tract in our area that we have a lot of bucks that have this type high and tight rack. I killed a buck that had a rack very similar to this one about 20 years ago. This buck was about 25 yards from one of my hunting stands so hopefully we'll cross paths in a couple of weeks.

Mug Shot

     I had to go back in the archives a little to get these. We've had anywhere from heavy rain to a heavy mist falling constantly here since last Wednesday afternoon. There's been a big low pressure system sitting right off the Virginia coast pumping cold, wet weather into the valley. Definitely not weather conducive to checking trail cameras.
     I had meant to post these a while back but never got around to it. Typical of the bears. They've always got to get a close look at the camera when they're a round it.

Small Buck

     Unfortunately small bucks are all I'm getting so far this fall. I'm guessing this is a 2 1/2 year old buck. Hopefully he'll make it a several of more years to give his antlers time to reach their full potential. It'll be interesting to see if the little sticker point on the inside of the right antler continues to get bigger.
     I'm probably going to set up my dripper again next week if the weather cools down and have deer lure in it this time. It felt like a July day checking the cameras today.