younggun308

Sorry about not replying; I took a hiatus from this forum for awhile. The semester started pretty busy, and I've only come back here in the past few days.

So my dad and I went to Havens WMA near Roanoke VA the day before the deer rifle opener (which is the primary reason we were in the area), hiked about 4-5 miles in the process. There was a great amount of brush on the forest floor (mainly mountain laurel/rhododendron) and, with the exception of the fact water sources were scarce and concentrated, habitat looked pretty good.
Much of the area was marked on the map as being an area that was burned awhile back by a forest fire, so I was initially really excited about the location. But it looked like that must have been 20-30 years ago, as it was full or relatively tall, albeit thin, trees---so that was a bit disappointing.

The biggest factor that worked against us, besides there not being abundant sources of water, was that the high was 75F that day. There was hardly any game movement, even when he took 15 minute breaks being stationary.

HOWEVER, it was a wonderful day in the woods, and one of the coolest experiences I've had happened. While my dad and I walked through the thick laurels and blueberries, we followed an astonishingly clear deer trail---not only was there a clear path, but the deer had literally chewed their way through the little twigs to make it clear. At one point we found a sizeable monolith and decided we wanted to take a break to eat some granola and drink some water. Suddenly, we heard a sound 70 yards in front of us and saw a button buck making its way toward us via the trail. He had no idea we were there, and got as close as 8 yards away from us. I could hear him chewing acorns, and it sounded loud---the only sound in the still, sunny forest. Because my dad and I remained almost motionless, the buck never spooked. He noticed something was unusual, and kept moving his head to and fro, staring at us, but after doing this for no less than 5 minutes, finally proceeded to calmly go past us. We waited until we could no longer hear the sound of his hooves rustling leaves before we moved.

The crazy thing was, at that point, my dad and I were sweating very heavily, but the slight breeze being in our favor was more than enough to keep him from scenting us.

As for January, I ended up not going in Tennessee as planned, due to a family vacation---I definitely want to, next season.