My 1st deer season in VA has been awful and tommorrow is the last day of the firearms deer season. In the early muzzleloader season, I missed a doe, my fault. I also saw a small buck, but couldn't get off a shot because of heavy brush and limbs in the way. During the 2 week gun season I havn't seen any deer at all and it's just amazing to me. They must have gone to night movement or they are picking up my scent. I tell my story to people at work and they say that the National Forest is a tough hunt when there are so many other private lands the deer frequent because of the planted crops. That makes sense, but I know the deer are where I'm hunting because the rubs are there and I've seen them.

I have put in a lot of time so far and the only thing I have to show for it is a better understanding of the terrain I'm hunting and some likely bedding areas, good trees for a climbing stand and an appreciation for the keen ability of the whitetail to survive. Of course it gets kind of old returning home with no deer and the wife lays in to me about it, but then I tell her that is why it's called hunting and not a sure thing.

What really gets me upset is the guys at work who have access to private land or know someone and they get a lot of deer with not much effort on their part. The only thing coming up now is the late muzzleloader season and that runs for 3 weeks, hopefully the deer will go back to their normal pre-season patterns of behavior.

One thing I'd like to do is buy some land and plant some food plots, but land is outrageously expensive these days and I'd only be able to get maybe 15 acres for about $35K. The first thing I'd do is post it too.[:-]