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A few weeks ago I was hanging out at the firearms counter at Sportsman's Warehouse when I struck up a conversation with Gerald D'Inzillo of Moneta. We talked about deer season. I can't remember if he said he had killed anything because all he wanted to talk about was the hunt on which his wife, Katrina, shot two does during the general firearms season. He e-mailed me a couple of shots later that day.

Katrina shot the deer at ranges of 175 and 200 yards, respectively, within a few seconds. She was using a Savage .243.

I went out Saturday afternoon for my final deer hunt of the season (assuming I don't get out on any urban archery hunts). I decided to hunt a Bedford County farm from a stand that I hunted only once, during early archery season. It almost worked out. Walking in I bumped three deer that had bedded just 20 yards from the stand. I knew the stand was close to a bedding area, but they usually don't bed right there. As they bounded away I hustled down the road bed that cuts along the hillside, just in case they planned to cross ahead of me. There, trotting away from me right down the middle of the road, was a big gobbler. It was no more than 30 yards away and would have been an easy shot with a shotgun. Just my luck. I just shook my head and let him run.

When I stopped I couldn't hear anything. I stood there for a couple minutes hoping that the deer had stopped within range and were just waiting to better check out the cause of the disturbance. Eventually I figured they had gotten out of there so I started on toward the stand. Of course they were only about 40 yards away, and blew and got out of there for good.

Things were quiet for the first hour in the stand but then I heard deer behind me. One deer was chasing another through the woods. It was like a buck chasing a doe, but unless the chaser had small spikes it sure looked like they were both does. They came to within 20 yards of my stand but never stopped so there was no way I could get a shot. A couple minutes later I spotted two more deer about 75 yards away. I had a borderline shot at one but it was pretty brushy and I also couldn't be sure with my 4-power scope if the deer was a doe or a yearling buck. So I held off.

While I was standing there trying to figure out if I was going to get a shot my heart was really pounding. I actually started feeling a little faint. I'm not sure what to think about that. On one hand, it's good because a big reason I hunt is for the excitement. On the other hand, I don't want to pass out (or have a heart attack) 20 feet up a tree -- safety harness or not. I hope this was just a function of my not being in the best shape.

Now that deer season is over I'm going to switch my recreation focus to getting back in shape. But I'll probably try to get a few times for squirrels, probably when I'm taking stands down, and maybe on a waterfowl hunt or two. I'm also planning to try some coyote hunting over the next few months.

A friend of John Pinkard sent in this shot of John with a beautiful Franklin County 10-pointer killed on the opening day of the general firearms season.

Picture submissions have pretty much slowed to a trickle and most of the shots that have come in from the past few weeks are of deer killed in November.

That's normal. There are still some big bucks wandering around out there, but most are doing their wandering under the cover of darkness. And, as usual, deer hunting pressure in this part of Virginia has pretty much ground to a halt. Of my friends who have been hunting, most are focusing on other stuff, such as waterfowl and coyotes.

The same can't be said of hunters in Eastern Virginia, where the final week of the deer season is pretty popular among those who hunt with hounds. Driving back yesterday from a weekend at my mother-in-law's in Virginia Beach, I saw lot of hunter activity. I talked with a guy as a gas station in Crewe who said his 70-member club had killed over 100 deer this season.