www.roanoke.com

Jim Forbes sent in this shot of a great national forest buck he killed in Craig County during the early muzzleloader season.

The buck was moving back up the mountain from the valley when Jim shot it about 8:30 a.m. He said his hunting buddy killed a bigger buck in the same area.

The method is a great way to kill some big bucks on public land, especially if you can locate areas above farms that are carefully managed for trophy deer, of which there are quite a few in Craig County (and other counties with lots of mountainous national forest land).

It's rarely easy hunting as reaching those areas can mean covering lots of ground from the nearest access points. Forbes is one of those guys who doesn't mind putting in the effort.

Not only does he get to remote areas, his deer season never really ends. As in, after Jan. 5, he'll start seriously preparing for next season by scouting, locating potential stand sites and even preparing trees for stands.

That approach, which John and Chris Eberhart advocate in their excellent book "Bowhunting Pressured Whitetails," won't guarantee a buck like this every season. But it helps.

When Forbes sent in this shot he reported that he passed a couple other bucks in this class in hopes they'll be around next season.

Again, thinking ahead. That's what you have to do.

Friday afternoon my girls got out of school early so I took them out to Bedford County for a "deer hunt." We poked around my friend's farm a bit and didn't see any deer, but we did spot a big gang of turkeys. We stuck around to pinpoint the wooded hollow in which they roosted, and then I faced a dilemma. Should I hunt turkeys or deer the next morning?

I ended up doing both, hauling in both my muzzleloader and my shotgun. (I know it's legal to shoot turkeys with a muzzleloader but it's not my thing.)

(Note added by Mark Taylor on Dec. 27: Well, it may be legal to shoot turkeys with a muzzleloader or even a high-powered rifle, but it turns out it's not legal to carry another firearm while muzzleloader hunting. So DON'T DO THIS. As soon as a friend pointed out my mistake I sent an e-mail to a senior conservation police officer, self-reporting my violation, which is detailed in the original blog entry. Because I'm not hiding anything, I've left the blog entry intact below. I'm awaiting the conservation police officer's reply. As I wrote in a comment below this entry, people who know me know I hold myself to high ethical standards and try to do things by the book. I fell short in this case. I'm sorry and I'm willing to accept the consequences.)

Continuation of original entry:

I knew that if I got in there before first light, sat down and waited for the turkeys to hit the ground I would have a good chance of killing one. Pretty much a sure thing. But I wanted a little more fun than that. So I decided I would try to get in there and flush them off the roost, hoping they would scatter well. Then I'd sit there and try to call one back in.

I got in there at a good time, put all my stuff on the ground and got ready to run under them for the flush. Unfortunately the flush didn't go as well as it could have and most of the birds went off in one direction. But a few scattered so there was hope. I set up a little ground blind and started calling. I got immediate answers.

Unfortunately there was at least one boss hen in the main flock and the separated birds were heading to her, skirting about 100 yards below me.

About 7:30 or so I heard a noise and looked to my left. Two does were crossing the hollow about 20 yards away, to my left. They were in a hurry and by the time I put the shotgun down and picked up the muzzleloader they were across the hollow and about 50 yards away. Then another deer came in right there and gave me a perfect shot. Unfortunately he was a young buck, a spike or four-pointer -- a non-shooter on a place where we're doing our best to get doe numbers under control. By the time I got back to the does they were out of range.

The way the situation unfolded I suspect that buck was chasing those does, which would indicate some secondary rutting activity. I really think the doe-to-buck ratio is so out of whack that all the does can't possibly get bred the first time around.

I went back to the turkeys. Sure enough, a couple minutes later another doe came in above me, about 40 yards away. She was dead downwind but I was totally in Scent-Lok and she didn't smell me. But she did see me as I aimed, She turned toward me but didn't spook. As I've written previously, I'm not crazy about head-on shots. But it was that or nothing. I actually hit her a bit high, at the base of neck, and she dropped. I guess my excuse for the shot is that it was over my right shoulder and I was shooting off-hand. But it all worked out. I'm pretty sure this is the biggest of the four does I've killed this year, and I think her field-dressed weight was about 100 pounds.

A few minutes later a turkey came in. He was a nice young gobbler with maybe an 8-inch beard. But he got no closer than 50 yards and I just wasn't going to try that with the shotgun. That was it for turkeys. Pretty pitiful to roost 40 turkeys not kill one, isn't it?

I actually had two more does come by but both were small so I didn't shoot.

When I got home my wife said, "So, you're done deer hunting now, right?" I probably am done hunting for myself because even though I've already give away three hindquarters, my freezer will now be sufficiently stocked for the next 10 months. But I may still try to get out a couple more times. If I get another one it will go to friends or Hunters for the Hungry.

Here's Debbie Reynolds with her second big 10-pointer of the season. She killed this buck out of the same stand from which she killed the other trophy in her previous hunt.

Clearly, I need to recruit Debbie to help me with my stand placement. Yesterday was a good example.

I sat on a hillside overlooking a hollow where I'd seen four deer Monday evening. Everything seemed perfect, including the wind. But I didn't see anything. Oh well.

A few years ago Debbie Reynolds (she was Debbie Horne back then) was telling me about a big buck she had killed. She had seen deer moving on an adjacent ridge. Rather than sitting tight and hoping, she moved her stand. Boom. Big buck down.

This year Reynolds was back to moving her stand after a slow bow season. The first day in the new stand, this big boy walked by and she made the shot with her muzzleloader.

The next time she was in that stand she had her rifle. And she ended up with another hero shot. I'll post that picture next.

Things have quieted down a lot in the deer woods the past couple of weeks. Even in counties where rifle season lasted an extra two weeks things have been pretty slow.

I hunted Saturday in Franklin County with six friends. We spent the day driving thick clear cuts. We flushed a good number of deer but the clear cuts were so think it was pretty much impossible to get good shots, even with shotguns and buckshot. We killed five doing that two seasons ago, but those two years made a big difference. One guy could have killed a small buck and another hunter missed a shot. That was it. But it was still a lot of fun.

Two evenings ago I did a quick hunt at a place in Bedford. I saw eight does but couldn't get a shot. I hope to get back out there this evening for an hour or so.

Time is winding down. I'll be on vacation most of next week, but my wife has to work so I'll have the kids. I wish I could take them out there but they're not quite ready to spend much time sitting still waiting for deer.

Proud dad sent in this shot of his 8-year-old daughter Mya with a great doe killed on the family's property in Giles County.

They were hunting in a pop-up blind and Mya made a perfect shot with her Rossi Triple Threat, which had its .243 barrel on.

Twelve-year-old Megan All couldn't be happier about tagging her first buck.

She's the 12-year-old granddaughter of Hunter's Den owner Ellen Horn. Ellen says Megan gets out there after the deer and turkeys in all kinds of weather.

Ellen Horn of the Hunter's Den in New Castle sent in this shot of the second-biggest black bear she's ever checked in.

Killed by Kristopher Peters (right), the bear weighed 467 pounds, live weight. Also pictured is Peters' hunting buddy, Andrew Greenway. Peters was hunting with the Benny Shires hunting group.

Bill Forren knew this big 11-pointer was wandering around a friend's property near Rocky Mount, so he passed up shots at young bucks and does early in the season while waiting for this one to show.

When the buck finally did appear on Nov. 20, Forren couldn't get a shot. Fortunately for him, the buck came back by a couple hours later and Forren dropped it with a 20-yard shot with his .50-caliber muzzleloader.

The buck's main beams measured 25 inches, with an inside spread of just over 20 inches and 5-inch bases.

You won't see many better seven-pointers than this beauty Jack Bryant killed on the opening day of the early muzzleloader season in Bedford County.

Those G-2s don't just look tall, they are tall, measuring over 13 inches. The buck's inside spread is about 20 inches.

Jack said his buddies are encouraging him to take this buck to the Virginia Big Game Contest next September. I hope he does because I'm really looking forward to seeing it in person.

I suspect it will be among the highest-scoring seven-pointers, if not the top one, at the contest. The thing is, because of the way that contest is set up, this deer will have a tough time winning its class because it will be in the category for seven- and eight-pointers. Even though the tines are long, it's just hard to make up for that "missing" eighth point, especially in the ultra-competetive muzzleloader class.

Unfortunately those rules sometimes prompt less-than-ethical actions. A few years ago at the contest one of the winning bucks won only because the hunter knocked off a short sticker point so the deer would be in the 7/8 class and not the 9/10/11 class. I know it happened because I saw pictures of the deer while the sticker was still there.

But, like I tell people who wonder how their deer will place, plaques and ribbons are nice but that's not what it's about. It's about sharing successes and letting others enjoy the trophies. Every year the Big Game Contest features deer that have people saying "Wow" but that don't win their category because of the way the contest is set up. This is definately a WOW buck.

Considering that Virginia hunters kill more than 200,000 whitetails every year, you know there's going to be some weird stuff in there.

Like this deer, killed by David Sowers in Floyd County on Nov. 28.

It's a doe, but carries a nice set of 10-point antlers.

Antlered females are rare, but not unheard of out there. I'm sure this wasn't the only one killed in Virginia this season.