This past weekend we were in the woods a lot.  We hunted, scouted some new land, and moved two stands.  The Solunar calendar forecasted this weekend to ?Average?, but I think the fact that we?ve had a few days of cold weather made this weekend better than ?Average?. 

Friday morning I was in the woods before daylight and the moon was so bright that the trees were actually casting shadows in the forest.  It was neat to see.  It was crisp and cold out.  The weather was perfect.   I didn?t see any deer, but I did see some squirrels and a wood pecker.  That woodpecker had the brightest red head I?ve seen.  Our corn is still sitting out there not being eaten too much at this point.  There are still tons of acorns out and about for the deer to munch on.  About 3:30 on Friday afternoon I went walking in another section of woods that we hunt on and I found 2 good rubs.  I bent down to take a picture of the first rub when I heard a loud blowing sound.  I looked up and all I saw was white!  There was a deer about 50 yards from me up the hills in the woods.  I couldn?t see if it was a buck or a doe, but I do know that it was big enough to be shot!  I couldn?t believe that a deer was out there walking around at this time of the day?but then again maybe it was bedded down and I jumped it.  With two rubs, multiple scraps, and seeing a deer at 3:30 in the afternoon, all signs pointed to this being a good location.

	The rub I saw on that big tree

Saturday morning I was back in the woods at a different stand in some thick woods on another ridge between pines and oaks.  About 30 minutes after daylight I had a small bodied deer come ?sprint-jogging? through the woods.  He wasn?t burning through there, but he wasn?t just trotting either.  He had his nose down and was on a mission as if he was going somewhere.  I believe he was trailing a doe and he didn?t care who knew it.  I heard him from way out as he didn?t have his mind on being stealth or quiet.  He passed through the woods very loudly crackling leaves as he went by.  He came by about 40 yards out from me and never raised his head.  He stopped for a split second behind a tree and then kept on trucking.  I only got to see him for a few seconds, but he was so small I wouldn?t have shot him ( or better said? shot at him) if I could have.  Though, it was good to see some action in the woods.  I grunted a few times later on with no luck or response from other deer in the area.

Then we all met up and started working in the woods.  We took 2 stands and 2 corn feeders down and moved them to new locations.  We always say that we don?t do enough of this kind of stuff?scouting out areas and putting stands in new positions that is.  I think it?s true too!  We ought to work harder and be more persistent with it, but we just get busy with other things in life and let it slide.  So as we were putting the second stand out we walked through the woods in an area that has some steep hills.  This was back near the area where I jumped the deer on Friday.  Though this time we walked and scouted a whole lot more area than I initially had on Friday.  We crossed a creek and went up to another side of the hill when we found a nice rub on a large tree.  No small buck did this.  I took a picture of it and we continued scouting.  We?ve got a stand not too far from that area so we are still trying to figure out what to do with that area of the woods. 

Saturday afternoon we went back out in the woods on a totally different track of land where we frequently see coyotes and foxes.  We had 3 people and we didn?t see anything.  We did see a huge track in the sand as we walked in though.  It was a bit warmer on Saturday afternoon.  When it got dark we went to leave and we stopped by the game-cam to see what had been going on by the climbing stand.  The climbing stand is positioned in some planted pines and there are two huge scrapes right beside it.  After taking the card out of the game-cam, we now know what is making those scraps.  This buck or (bucks) is working this scrap line.  Will thinks that these are two different bucks, but I think the images are of the same buck.  What do you think?  So thanks to Bushnell, we know that there are some quality deer working the area.

	A close up shot of the image

Sunday afternoon I was back in Pageland on a different stand.  I sat there and heard acorn after acorn fall to the ground and the squirrels were having a field day.  Right as the sunlight started fading, I saw a flicker of white up the hill from me about 60 yards out.  It was a deer, but I couldn?t tell if it was a buck or a doe due to the dense forest between us.  I have a ?gun-cam? strapped to my gun and the first thing I did was to turn it on.  The lens is strapped to the barrel of the gun and the actual recording unit is inside of my pocket.  That deer stood in one spot on the hill for about 10 minutes before it moved.  It was moving its head up and down, up and down, up and down.  I think it was rubbing on a little tree over there.  Finally, the deer started heading into the clearing where I was.  This deer had a dark coat on him in comparison to the ones I had seen previously this year.  It was a small 4-point buck.  I knew I wasn?t going to shoot him, but hoped for at least some good video footage to put on the site.  So I put my gun up and followed him through the woods.  He walked 5 yards behind our pile of corn and didn?t even give it a thought.  He went out of one thicket, through the clearing, into another thicket and he was gone.  I filmed him for 4 minutes and 15 seconds.  When I got home I looked at the footage and he was too far out for the gun-cam to get a clear shot of him.  I?m going to zoom in some more on that camera and hope for a better video shoot next time. 

So that was the weekend in a nutshell?oh and we did win our 1st round playoff game against Mid-Carolina.  All in all I think the cold weather has the bucks out and about more now than in the past.  Hopefully we can catch that big one out during the day time at some point.

Regards,

Clint