Started off this morning sitting for the second half of the PA bar exam... After I finished up at 5:00 - I really needed to clear my head, so I beat it home, changed clothes, grabbed my groundhog gun, camera,and headed toward myfave haunts.

First order of business was knocking on doors - had 2-3 areas mapped out that I wanted to get into for weeknight bowhunting. Went 2-for-2. I may actually be the only guy bowhunting in the one area - the second place, I'll have some company (but probably not on weekdays - the other hunters are weekend warriors). I knew that going in, so no surprises.

Had enough daylight left to go glass the beanfields at my usual haunt. Last year, I was glassing it once-a-week in August, and was seeing 4-8 bucks/night, but no size. Mostly all 1.5's.

This year, big change. Tonight, I saw no less than 15 separate bucks in the adjoining bean & hay fields. There was one bachelor group that was out when I first got there, and I had enough light to take pics.

This group has 3-4 legit shooters, the biggest being a mainframe 4x4 with a split brow tine. The pics are crappy, b/c my Sony digital cam apparently doesn't like my scope very much. I got a crystal-clear look at them (as close as 300 yards) before I slinked back over the bank and went to glass the other fields.

This makes me sad, really - I've always said that this farm would reallybe like a real-lifeBuckmasters if the pressure just stayed off. But, it gets poached heavily, hunted to death, and a deer in this area rarely sees its third birthday. Great feed and great genetics - if these deer lived to 4, 5 - they would be HAMMERS. Just too much pressure.

But, here's an example of what the area is capable of, when the deer are undisturbed...