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Virginia Tech engineering student Matt Wimmer sent me this shot of the awesome eight-pointer he killed last week in Roanoke County.

Matt took the time to write up a great description of the hunt. One of my favorite parts is his description of determining what a "shooter" is. I like to say that if you have to think about whether or not it's a shooter, it probably isn't a shooter. Matt's approach is the same. It's a great story so I'm posting the whole thing here:

"As per our family tradition, I hunted the entire week with my uncle (and my brother once he got out of school) in Roanoke and Franklin Counties. On Monday, it was just me and my uncle and we began our morning in Franklin County. My first bit of luck began when I popped a large doe as I was coming out of my stand to meet for lunch around 12:00. Once we got the deer to the truck, we headed to Vinton to drop her off at Hunters for the Hungry and proceeded to take a short siesta back at the house before heading to a spot in Roanoke Co. around 2:30.

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Proud dad Jamey Brugh sent me this shot of his son Austin with his first deer, a Bedford County spike.

Jamey and Austin were hunting together in a stand when the buck walked right under them and Austin made a perfect shot with a .410 loaded with buckshot.

Here's a shot of 10-year-old Greg Fralin with his first buck, a 7-pointer he killed in the Bonsack area while hunting with his dad.

It used to be big news to spot a white-tailed deer in town. No more. They're pretty much everywhere, which is why more than 20 localities even have special urban archery seasons in an effort to keep deer from totally taking over.

Now there's a new critter moving into suburbia. Bears.

Two years ago I spent the better part of Memorial Day running around Roanoke's Old Southwest with animal control officers who were trying to wrangle a juvenile bear. A similar scene played out in another part of Roanoke this spring. Then there was that infamous case of the bear that got into a hospital in Franklin County a few years ago.

Get on the outskirts of the city -- or any community of the region -- and bear sightings are becoming more and more common.

So someone here had the idea of plotting sightings on searchable map, and that project is now up and running in our Datasphere area. Datasphere guru Matt Chittum goes into a few more details in this blog entry on the topic.

The short of it is, if you've seen a bear in an unusual spot, they'd like to hear from you. Just contact Chittum through the blog and provide the details, and pictures if you've got them.

Again, the key word here is unusual. The yearling I saw this summer in rural Botetourt County? Not unusual. The sow you saw digging through your trash in a Botetourt subdivision? Unusual. Make sense?

Obviously, denning time is near so there won't be too many sightings after a couple of weeks. But they're looking for previous sightings, too.

Mike Webb sent in this shot of a great nine-pointer he killed in Bedford County with a muzzleloader earlier this month. That G-3 on the left antler is really impressive.

I've got a half-dozen more shots in the hopper and will post them as fast as I can.

Proud dad Allen Lazenby of Salem sent me this shot of his 16-year-old daughter, Mandi, with a nice eight-point buck Mandi killed on Thanksgiving morning. They both thought the deer was a spike that had been running around their stand but were pleasantly surprised when they walked up on the deer.

Here's a shot of 13-year-old Matthew Bower with a heavy 10-pointer he killed in Craig County.

I've gotten quite a few trophy shots the past few days, and this is one of the best not only because the deer is awesome, but because Matthew's expression is even better.

From what I'm hearing, things are picking back up out there after the lull we saw around the middle of the month. I've had a lot of people report seeing bucks chasing does the past few days. I saw some of it myself Friday evening when a nice six-pointer came trotting up to the ground blind I was in, spooked when he got downwind, then immediately forgot about the human danger and started chasing a doe again a minute later.

I'm not sure when I'll get back out, but I'd like to find a way to hunt Wednesday afternoon. The weather looks great.

I've got a bunch of deer pictures to post so I'll try to get them up over the next couple of days.

Eleven-year-old Blake Chitwood was hunting with his grandfather, Buddy Powell, on Nov. 17 in Franklin County when he killed his first buck. The nice four-pointer weighed 110 pounds.

Blake deserves, who shot the deer with a 30-30, some pretty major credit for the hunt. He and his grandfather were in the stand at 6:15 a.m. and the deer didn't show up until 10:30 a.m. That's some incredible patience.

I did a quick sit Wednesday evening, but it was mostly a scouting trip for a youth hunt I'm hosting Friday and Saturday. I saw a few deer and I think action should be decent Friday and Saturday after this front moves through and temperatures plummet. No hunting today. I'm taking care of some office work now, then it's off to deep-fry our turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I just got this shot from my friend Bill Sgrinia, director of the parks and rec department in Danville. Bill used to live in Craig County and work for the parks and rec departments in Roanoke and Montgomery counties, in that order, before heading down to the land of big deer. This is a beast, although when Bill said its estimated weight was 190 pounds, that means it was maybe 150. Seriously, does anybody get it right when they estimate the weight of a deer? I don't think so. Take off at least 15 percent and you might be getting somewhere.

I haven't hunted since Friday and I guess that's why I haven't updated the blog in a few days. It doesn't help that I haven't been getting many reports. I know there are still some bucks running around out there, but it's been slow.

I'm headed out this afternoon to set up some ground blinds for a youth hunt I'm hosting Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. It will be a nice day to be in the woods. I'm taking my kids and if we get the work done early enough I may see if they can sit still for around 30 minutes in a blind around sunset. You never know what might happen.

I bought a muzzleloader in the fall of 1998 when I moved to Roanoke, and I've hunted with the thing each season since. Yesterday, right at last shooting light, I finally killed my first deer with the thing.

I'm either a really bad hunter, a really unlucky hunter, or didn't spend much time hunting with the gun.

It's probably a combo of all three.

I really haven't hunted much with it in the early black powder season because I usually stick with the bow. And when I do carry it I typically am on the lookout for mature bucks, so I'm passing shots at does.

I've hunted some in the late season, and actually missed a shot at doe a couple of seasons ago.

Yesterday I hunted a friend's place in Botetourt. The wind had layed down a bit from Thursday, but the morning was still awful. I hunted on a fairly protected hillside but couldn't hear a thing because of the wind howling through the treetops. I didn't see a deer, and gave up after a couple of hours and spent the next few hours at the cabin catching up on some work. (I know you shouldn't take your laptop to hunt camp, but I do.)

By afternoon the wind was getting better, but it still blew pretty well. I hunted the point of a ridge that was fairly exposed, getting in the stand at 1:30 p.m. At 3, I saw a button buck. Then, at 4, the action got pretty good. The problem was the deer were all above me, most at least 100 yards out. I had two does at about 50 yards but couldn't get a shot at the largest one. (Yesterday wasn't an either-sex day in Botetourt, but the property is under DMAP so I had an antlerless-only DMAP tag, which is valid whether or not it's a designated either-sex day.)

One note about my muzzleloader. It's a Knight in-line and relatively "obsolete" in that it uses musket cap primers, but it's a decent gun and shoots well. Like any decent muzzleloader, its effective range is at least 100 yards. But my scope is just a 4X. For me, at that modest level of magnification, a deer much past 50 yards is pretty small. So, that's pretty much my self-imposed max range, although I'd shoot at a deer beyond that under the right circumstances.

After a parade of about 10 deer around 4 -- they were all does except one four-pointer -- things got quiet again.

After sunset I heard some loud crunching below me. I was sure it was a deer, but it turned out to be the loudest squirrel ever. Then I saw movement and spotted a deer that had come in quietly. It was a big doe, about 75 yards out. I pulled up my binoculars to get a better look. It was pretty brushy but I guess she still saw me. Or maybe she smelled me because she was dead downwind. She got real jumpy, and even snorted a few times. But she didn't bolt. Over the next 10 minutes she worked her way to within 50 yards but was facing me. I know the brisket shot is OK, but I'd rather not take it. Finally, she turned broadside and I shot. She bounded off.

I immediately went to the spot and started looking for blood. But my headlamp's light was dim so it was pretty hopeless. I marked the spot with my blaze orange hat and went back to my truck at my friend's cabin to get a better light.

By then my buddies were filtering in from their hunts and they all offered to come help me look for the deer. Even with better lights we couldn't find blood. I just walked downhill toward where she ran and there she was. The hit had been perfect, but she still went a good 75 yards, about three times farther than the doe I killed with my bow last month.

My friend Hal Orr and I took turns dragging her down the mountain to the nearest road while the other guys got an ATV and met us.

She weighed 93 pounds field-dressed, which is pretty good.

Rifle season opens today but I might not even get out, which seems strange. I've got family obligations early in the day. We've also got a ton to do to get ready for our Thanksgiving guests. But maybe I'll slip out for a quick hunt at my Bedford County spot.

The weather is perfect today, sunny and crisp. I think we're in kind a lull in the rut, which usually happens around now as bucks connect with does and stop moving around as much. But I think we'll see stuff pick up again in the next week as Round Two gets underway.