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I always joke that scouting cameras are great for getting pictures of the big buck you won't kill this season.

Of course we know that sometimes we do kill those bucks.

Jason Nicholson, who got that recent cool coyote/eight-pointer double, filled his second west-of-the-Blue Ridge buck tag on the morning of Oct. 24 when he shot this great eight-pointer in Floyd County.

It's a deer he had captured previously on trail camera pictures that appeared here in September.

Nicholson said the buck showed up early in the morning and got to a range of 15 yards where Nicholson made a good shot and the 100-grain Thunderhead-tipped arrow did it's job. The buck still had the wound on its snout that was visible in the trailcam pictures.

He further reported: "All in all I have been truly blessed this season to have take a great 8, good 8, doe and coyote all in the same week. I owe a lot of credit to my wife who puts up with me going hunting as much as I do."

The good news for the rest of us is that Nicholson plans to start hunting in North Carolina so he will leave some game out there for all us average hunters.

Jerry Borger of Christiansburg had quite a hunt on the morning of Oct. 9. In less than two hours he had opportunities for a coyote and a bobcat, and he capitalized on both.

"The squirrels on the Borger property are rejoicing," reported Borger. "As is the local taxidermist."

What a couple of awesome animals.

I've been preaching since I launched this blog that I wanted any and all hero shots -- not just of trophy bucks. A hunt isn't just defined by antler inches, but what goes into the hunt and what the hunter gets out of it -- beyond the actual animal. It's why I post shots of myself with does and I'm always glad when others submit the same.

Anyway, regular Ralph Barton came through with this shot of his great doe from a recent hunt on public land. After Ralph smacked the doe at 18 yards it ran just 40 yards before crashing. It's a long walk out but he had stashed a game cart in there so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

I wish I could post a shot of me with a nice doe but I haven't been hunting since the first week of the season. Tonight wouldn't be a bad night but I have an assignment. But, looking at my schedule, my non-hunting streak might end tomorrow. It's a little warmer than I'd prefer but I've got to take the opening when I get it. I hope I get some openings next week because it looks like a nice cold front is coming.

Jason Nicholson didn't have much time after work on Oct. 21, especially since he promised his wife he would be home early and wouldn't hunt. But he wanted to run out and pull the memory card from one of his trail cameras. Not wanting to take any chances he took along his bow. I'll let him take it from here:

"I made all kinds of noise because I was in a hurry. I got to the camera and took the memory card out and started viewing what was on there with my digital camera while sitting in my tree stand. It wasn’t five minutes and nine deer were under me, all does and there little ones. They hung around for a few minutes until this coyote scared them off. I shot him at 20 yards (first coyote).

Then 15 minutes later a six-pointer which I have on the trail camera showed up with this good eight-pointer trailing him. This is the first time seeing this eight-pointer. He is more than likely a   2 ½-year-old but he looked pretty good and he was hard to pass so I stuck him. (With a 100-grain Thunderhead, same as the coyote).

What did I learn? I learned no matter how much you try to sneak in the woods you may or may not see deer. I made too much noise if I were going to hunt. I had my dress pants on with my green rubber boots and only my camo jacket, no hood, no mask, no gloves, no cover scent. Basically all the tricks I’ve learned over the past 20 years were out the door on this venture. All the stars must have been aligned for me yesterday because it was a perfect hunting evening! The buck weighed in at 170 pounds field dressed and sported a 16 ½-inch spread."

Wow! Maybe Jason can weigh in here and tell us what kind of area he was hunting. Whatever it was it sure was a hot spot.

Eighteen-year-old Nathan Wimmer shot this nice bear on the morning of Oct. 17.

He was hunting on Bent Mountain when he saw the bear about 100 yards out. When it got inside 20 yards Wimmer grunted to the stop the bear and made a good shot with his new Hoyt Alpha Max. This is his first bear.

It's 4:30 a.m. on Friday and this is my second early wake-up in a row.

I'd like to say it's because I've been on my way hunting, but it's not.

Yesterday I had to hit the road at O-dark-30 to go to the DGIF board meeting in Richmond to cover the board's vote on the proposal to protect elk that wander into the state from our neighbors, a story I wrote up for today's Outdoors Page in The Roanoke Times. I was going to link to that story here, but it didn't make it onto our Roanoke.com Web site. So if you want to read what happen you'll have to buy the paper. At least my fall turkey hunting preview made it.

Today I'm on the way to the airport for a 6 a.m. flight. But it's not a bad thing, either. My wife and I are heading to Chicago for short little getaway, and I actually will be back at Northwestern tomorrow for our homecoming game against Indiana. It should be a fun weekend, even though the weather doesn't look too good.

My mom is in town to watch the kids, and having her here next week should help free me up to finally get back in the woods.

Good luck to everyone this weekend and I'll be back at it on Monday.

Stacy Osborn put a lot of extra work into positioning two stands together so it was easy to hunt next to 10-year-old son McGuire. The work paid off on the opening day of bow season when this eight-pointer showed up and McGuire made a good 23-yard shot to put the deer down.

McGuire, who lives in Grayson County, killed his first deer at 7. This is his fourth deer, and first with a crossbow.

Since he was a young tot, Donnie Barger has been tagging along with his father, Don Barger, in the woods. "He taught me everything I know from the time I was 5 years old and I haven't missed a hunting season with him in 30 years," the son reported, proudly.

So Donnie didn't mind giving his dad a hand pulling this monster buck out of the woods on Oct. 12.

The elder Barger, who is 63, shot the huge 11-pointer on private land in Botetourt County, not far from the family home in Buchanan.

If you're wondering where those three extra points are, they are short stickers on the massive bases of these antlers. This is really just a mainframe 8-pointer. According to Donnie Barger, who sent in the shot, the deer had an inside spread of 21 inches and those G-2s measure 12 inches.

Mainframe eights don't get much bigger than this in Virginia.

Donna Justus sent in this shot of her favorite hunting buddy, grandson Gary Justus.

Gary got a .22 from his grandfather last Christmas and has been diligently practicing even since. Recently he's been plinking at walnuts.

About a week ago Gary got his first squirrel -- knocking it off a limb with an impressive 40-yard shot. Don't we all wish we could shoot like that?

I got a note from a reader who said he was thrilled to see all the pictures of young hunters on the blog. He said he wondered when some of the Wild Life regulars would start showing up with their deer.

I suspect that will start happening soon. It always seems that the first couple of days of the season are pretty good, then things slow down for a few weeks. What happens is that good bucks quickly figure out that it's that time again and they make themselves scarce. That will start changing as the pre-rut gets rolling here toward the end of the month.

This chilly weather sure makes it feel like deer season has arrived, though. This morning my wife said, "It would be a cold morning to be a treestand." I said, "Yes it would, which is what you want."

I have one spot that I'm really dying to hunt. But I just hate to get in there too early and bugger it up before the bucks start moving. So I am going to do my best to leave the area alone for a couple more weeks.

I did get out for a quick hunt last Thursday evening and had some excitement when a spike came in perfectly to the white oak I was watching. It was pretty cool watching him until he winded me and bolted.

The encounter was a good lesson. My stand is in pretty much the only available tree but the prevailing wind tends to blow right to the area where the deer feed. I went all out with scent control and it still wasn't good enough. However, if the wind is blowing the other direction it blows right to their bedding area.

There is a place where I can set up a ground blind so I think it's time to don the Ghillie suit and try that. The shot would be longer than I prefer (about 25 yards) but it's really my only option.  I hope to give it a try one afternoon later this week.

I've got a few more hero shots on hand and will post as soon as I can.

Carl Cundiff just sent me this awesome shot of his 13-year-old daughter, Kameron, with a great buck she shot in Franklin County on youth day.

According to Carl, before the shot his daughter was super nervous and asked, "What if I miss?" Carl calmly replied, "We'll get him another day." Kameron took aim with her 7mm-08 and pulled the trigger.

They wouldn't have to wait for another day.

The rain we've had the past couple of days has been reminiscent of that wet youth day, huh?

It actually looks like we may have a window this afternoon and I plan to go if I can get my Outdoors page wrapped up and get out of here.