Red Fox

Well the rifle season in western Virginia closed yesterday. Last week was a carbon copy of the week before. No shooter buck sightings and very few deer seen at all. Most every one around us reported the same thing. One guy that hunts property higher up the mountain said he hunted one of his best stands for four days and never saw a deer. Now that depressing. We did harvest a couple of Does for the freezers so the season wasn't a total bust. Late muzzleloader season starts back in mid December. Hopefully we'll get a little more hunting in then. I've got a big project at work cranking up so that may cut into my time. For some reason the company I work for has this silly idea that I should actually get some work done during the hunting season ;).


Didn't get much on the cameras last week. I relocated all of them today and hopefully we'll see some bucks start to move again after things settle down for a few days. I did get a nice Red Fox on the rocks were I put the fish scrapes but I think it missed out on any of the fish. The Gray Foxes and Raccoons had cleaned it up before it got there. There's about a 2 1/2 hour time difference between the first three pics and the last two but I think it's the same fox.

I saw a huge red fox one morning from one of my stands that was colored different from any I had seen before. The one in the pics is pretty typical. Bright red, white under belly, black leggings, and a white tail tip. The Fox I saw was a darker blood red with no white under belly, black leggings, or white tail tip. When I first saw it I thought it was a coyote and got it in my scope to shoot it. But after looking at it closely I was sure it was a Fox. I was able to watch it for three or four minutes with my binoculars and just thought it was most interestingly colored. Love to get it in some pics.

Cabin

I mentioned my farm buddy's cabin in a couple of past posts so I thought I post a few pictures. Back in high school we had an old school bus converted into a hunting camp. About three years after we got out of high school we decided we needed to upgrade our facilities. The original cabin was 20' X 20' with a front porch. The pine logs were cut on a neighboring farm. We'd spend Thursday and Friday nights in the barn notching the logs with a chainsaw and haul them back to the site and assemble on Saturdays. Over the years we've added on until we have the cabin you see in the pics.



The first two pics were taken in late October when we had some good leaf color.

No, this isn't a group of bank robbers plotting their next heist. It's some of the hunting crew and neighbors that came back for the Sunday cook out.

Wrong again. This isn't a Christmas tree it's a hunting tree. We like to cut a Cedar tree and put in the cabin for the great Cedar smell.

This pic was from last January after one of our big snows last winter.



Gray Foxes

Pretty slow week in the woods last week. Didn't see any shooter bucks and very few bucks of any kind. The deer have been hunted now for three weeks and this has made them pretty nocturnal. I went back through my logbook and I saw 18 bucks the first week and a half I hunted for an average of about two bucks a day. Three were shooter bucks. Some were the same bucks on different days but still not a bad average. Last week I saw two small bucks all week for an average of .33 bucks per day. But I can't hardly complain about hunting and bumming around the cabin for the last two and a half weeks :). Back to work tomorrow for three days. I figure I'll have two hours of going through emails and another hour of going through voice messages. I should be pretty well be ready to get back into the woods by mid morning. LOL!!
We had a Rockfish and Oyster fry one night at the cabin. Yes, it's pretty tough hanging out at the cabin :). I took the skins and scrapes from the fish and put them out on some rocks above the cabin on Cedar Ridge. I was hoping to catch a Bobcat but was pleased that I got a pair of Gray Foxes. I haven't seen or gotten pics of many Grays for a while. I was afraid the Coyotes had killed most of them off so it's good to see a pair.

Bushy Tails, Blue Jays and Crows

Well I'll start with the bad news first. I shoot a big 9 pointer on Thursday morning and couldn't find him. I had a good blood trail from where I shot him for about 100 yards and then nothing. It just completely stopped. I spend over two hours trying to pick it up again but never found another drop to tell each way he went. I finally just started searching the woods hoping to either find him or jump him up but never had any luck. I take a lot of pride in my marksmanship and getting a good quick and clean kill shoot on whatever I'm hunting. Just makes me sick that I hit this one and lost it.


On a brighter note we had a fantastic week of weather. Clear skies, light winds, and nice temperatures. Afternoon temperatures were a little too warm and really slowed the deer movement down until about dusk each day. I'm always having people ask me what I do in a tree stand to past the time while I'm waiting on deer to past by. So I posted a few pics on what you can watch to past the time. There is always something going on the woods. Squirrels and Chipmunks foraging, all types of birds fluttering around, Raccoons on the prowl, and on and on. Even had a Barn Owl land on a tree limb beside one of my stands last week. It was looking for any Squirrels that may have been out foraging a little too late in the day. Having a cookout at the cabin tomorrow so I won't get to post anything from last week. Hope you all have a great week. I'm off another week before I have to go back to work for a couple of days.

Turkey Day

There's no hunting in Virginia on Sundays so I went and check the cameras. We'd been seeing a lot of turkeys along this road the last couple of weeks and I finally got some good pics of them. Couple of these would make a good size Thanksgiving bird.
The deer have been winning so far last week. Been seeing a good many small bucks along with two shooter bucks. Shooter bucks in our camp generally means having at least eight points with a spread at least to their ears or about 16 inches. Both of the shooter bucks managed to keep enough tree limbs and brush between them and me to prevent me from getting a good shot. It's uncanny how they can do that. Been fun seeing a buck and thinking back to the pics I have of them. Though I have seen a couple that I didn't have any pics of. Back after them tomorrow. Ya'll have a good week.