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.