Been hunting since Friday the 7th through yesterdayand all I can say is if you can go, go now! Both of the farms I hunted had lots of action like bucks with does, chasing does, responding to calls/scents.
On Fri(only slow day)& Sat I bp hunted in Dinwiddie county and killed a 6 (Sat am)working a scrape line.My brother was bowhunting on the other side of the farm and saw a nice 8 but he was bowhunting and could not get a clean shot.
Monday and Tuesday found us on the Eastern Shorefor an action packed Mondaymorning. My brother took his first ever bow buck(spike) and saw two other bucks and two does. I missed one(doe) clean with my blackpowder.....don't ask
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After processing his deer around 2:00we were driving to a different farm and I was showing some of the other land I could hunt when we spotted a big 8 with a doe in the middle of a bean field I could hunt. There was good cover between us and the deer and I drove up to a pull off and parked snuck down the back side of the field and set up in the back corner where we have some stands. I watched him for about 30 minutes acrossthe field and he was being led around by the doe until they finally went into a pine cutover never getting close enough for a good shot. Evening hunt was slow I passed on some does but saw no bucks with them.
The way it worked out thenext day three of us ended up hunting the area(which is two bean fields and a block of woods seperating them)we had seen the buckand the doe in and the way itplayed out was unreal.The buck and the doe showed up in the bean field aroud 915within a few hundred yards of where we had seen him the day before. Fortunately for us we set up a perimeter around this field and once they came in there was no way out without going past one of the three unless they just went straight back the way they came. So for the second day in a row I got to watch this dude hound this doe right in front of meand both days he got within about 130-140 yards of me and that in itself was awesome. She ended up leading him right past my buddy Matt (HNI Member Name: MDS184122577) and he made a great shot at about 80 yards that anchored the buck on the spot. You talk about some happy hunters,Matt, my brother, and I stood in that field around that buck and justyucked it up for a while,unbelieveable hunt.
We only had camera phones in the field so the pic quality isn't great but when we got back to the skinning shed my other buddy took a bunch with his digital so I'm sure he will e-mail me in a couple of weeks. We saw one other buck about this size at 11:15 but he was on some bordering land and on the move away from our land. Action seemed hot & heavy the past few daysbetween 8am and 2pm with several bucks seen making rounds or tending with limited sightings in the evenings(1 buck and some does). Both deer had stinky black tarsals but the big boys entire backlegs were black and sticky form his tarsals down. Sorry so long, good luck.