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I got out yesterday afternoon for a couple hours and had a fun hunt at a spot in Bedford County.

I haven't killed a doe there this season. And since I have killed a buck (even though it was in Botetourt County) my next Bedford deer needs to be antlerless due to the earn-a-buck regulation in Bedford.

So what happens when I'm walking to my stand? I walk right up on an antlerless deer standing about 50 yards away, feeding in a field.

I'm hunting with a Thompson/Center Hawken with iron sights since the bolt system on my older Knight in-line broke. I was just at the range on Sunday shooting it some and it shoots pretty well. A 50-yard shot is totally makeable.

But I didn't shoot right away. Something didn't seem right. First, the deer was BIG. And I was thinking of a note I got from reader Don Sledd that morning. Sledd said a buck he'd been watching had already lost its antlers. He suggested I write something urging late-season doe-hunters to be careful not to mistakenly shoot a buck that had already dropped its antlers.

I glassed the deer and eventually saw the bloody holes in its skull cap. It was a buck. It would legally count as antlerless, but those aren't the deer we need to be shooting in EAB counties.

But then came another issue. I could see that it looked kind of emaciated. The right ham looked especially bad. Eventually I could see that the deer was injured, with a wound on the front of the ham.

So now what?

If the deer was going to die anyway, it would be best to kill it now.  But what if the injury was minor? After all, the buck was feeding. And other than its rear end, it looked OK.

I decided to just wait and see how it moved. If it was obviously in bad shape I'd try to shoot it.

Well, the wind made up my mind for me. It swirled and he caught my scent. As he moved off he didn't use the rear leg. But he moved OK. I hope he makes it. I told the landowner and he said he'll be on the lookout.

Once I got settled in my stand on the edge of some woods bordering a long, narrow field I immediately spotted three deer about 150 yards away. They were moving along the far edge of the field and looked to move away from me. But about an hour later I spotted two deer about 70 yards out. It's possible they were the same deer and had just been skirting the edge of the field and moving toward me.

I turned on the video camera and got ready. One of the deer moved into the woods and was coming right to me. But she was sort of downwind and she knew something wasn't right. She was super skittish. But she kept coming so I tried to get the camera on her and waited for her to get into an opening. Once, when she was about 35 yards out she did get into an opening and was broadside. But instead of shooting I adjusted the camera. (I couldn't see the viewfinder and was just guessing. As it turned out I was on her pretty well.)

When she got to 25 yards she stopped. But by then she was quartering to me pretty severely, plus was behind some brush. Then the wind gusted and that was it. She winded me and bolted.

Had I just been hunting and not trying to get video, it would have been a slam dunk. The more I try this the more I come to realize just how lucky I was to get that bow kill on tape last season. When a deer is not on high alert, it's possible to make it happen. When they are already skittish, it's really tough.

That was the end of my deer action. On the way home I stopped to visit with the landowner. He said he saw 11 deer that evening while out feeding his cattle. So they were moving pretty well, for sure.

Merry Christmas, everyone.