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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.

As I wrote in my column today in The Roanoke Times, I rarely have folks show up at the office with dead deer. But it happens once in a while.

It happened the other day, when Clyde Price arrived with this nice eight-pointer. Price had shot the deer the prior evening with his crossbow while hunting on Bent Mountain, and had recovered the deer that morning.

I don't mind taking a picture of a hunter and his deer if I'm at the office and have my camera. But, as the saying goes, it's best to call first to make sure I'm here. Ideally, you've got a digital camera and can take your own shots in the woods. I mean, I think Price's expression is great in this picture. But the municipal building in the background isn't ideal.

I haven't hunted this week but plan to try to get out in the morning. The weather is supposed to really cool down so it could get deer moving.

At this time in the season I'd rather hunt in the evenings but it's been pretty tough for me to get away for afternoon hunts.

Keep the reports and pictures coming.

In October of 2004, my buddies Bobby Hogan (left), Kraig Cesar (second from left) and I spent a few days camping on the shores of Lake Moomaw and bowhunting the surrounding mountains.

We called it Bow Camp, and the day the short trip ended we immediately started planning to go again the next year.

Well, the next year came and went. As did the next. And the next.

This year we finally made it happen again. Joining the original trio was Kraig's friend Cliff Bruner (to my right), a Navy SEAL who, like Kraig, lives in Virginia Beach.

We headed out for the public land hunt on Oct. 4 and came back four days later. It was a good trip, but a tough one.

How tough? Toward the end of the trip I asked Cliff if he'd consider doing it again. His answer was, "I'll tell you after we get out of here."

This shot was taken at the end of our canoe "paddle" out of camp on the final day. I put "paddle" in quotes because we spent about as much time out of the canoes dragging them through shallow water as we did in them actually paddling.

The trip in was the worst. It took nearly five hours. We had to drag our gear-laden canoes for much of the way. Dragging through shallow water was not the worst of it. The river was blocked in many areas by fallen trees. We cut out the smaller ones with a hand saw, but had to drag over others.

There was much cursing, plenty of it directed at the guy who picked the hunt location. (That would be me.)

Once we stopped for the day and got camp set up, things improved. Camp was pretty comfy, which it should have been considering all the stuff he hauled in there.

We hunted the next two mornings and evenings, and it was pretty good. The acorn crop was very spotty but Bobby, who lives in Roanoke and is a frequent hunting partner of mine, was able to find some white oaks that had hit pretty well. As you bowhunters know, when you can find a good white oak stand in a spotty mast year you will probably see deer. And we did.

Among the four of us we saw a total of probably 15 deer in our two days of hunting. Had we been hunting some of our private land spots we probably would have seen that many in an evening. But this is public land, remember.

Not only did we see deer -- though not a single antlered buck of any size -- we got shots at deer. Bobby and Kraig both killed does. Bobby, who killed a doe at Bow Camp 2004, made sure we all knew he is now two-for-two.

Not surprisingly, we didn't see any other hunters, though we did find evidence of other hunters.

So, where did we hunt? I'll let that remain a mystery for now. I plan to write a story about our trip for Friday's Outdoors page in The Roanoke Times and the story will include the location.

I don't mind sharing the location. I just don't think many hunters are going to be jumping to physically beat themselves up like that to see a handful of does. I'm not sure we'd do it again, either. But a trip like this is about more than just seeing deer and maybe getting a shot at one. If a hunter is willing to pay the physical price to seek those rewards, more power to them.

I'm starting to notice a pattern here, and it's a good one. I've gotten three pictures of hunters with nice whitetail bucks since the early archery season opened -- and every hunter has been a youth.

Two of the kids were hunting with their dads, who could have been hunting but were spending time with their kids.

I don't have too many details on this Montgomery County monster, but I suspect 14-year-old Hunter Westmoreland was on the stand on his own when this 12-point bruiser showed up on Saturday evening. Hunter -- appropriate name, huh? -- made a perfect shot with his bow and the buck went just 40 yards before piling up.

Today is on its way to being a scorcher and not the best hunting weather this evening. I don't mind because I have to work tonight anyway. Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler and I hope to hunt tomorrow evening. I wouldn't mind seeing something like this show up. I wouldn't mind seeing a nice doe show up, actually.

Tim Craighead sent in this shot of his 8-year-old son, Cory, with a great opening day buck Cory shot with a crossbow on the family's property in Callaway.

Tim reports that this is Cory's biggest buck, so it sounds like this kid is already a veteran.

According to Tim, they watched this buck feeding on acorns for more than 20 minutes before the buck offered a good broadside shot. What a great lesson in the importance of patience.

Eleven-year-old Kevin Swingle had an opening day hunt with his dad, James, that both are sure to remember forever.

They were sitting in a double ladder stand overlooking a Craig County field when Kevin shot this nice buck with his crossbow. The deer, which had been sparring with another buck, was 25 yards away and Kevin made a perfect, quartering away shot after patiently waiting for the deer to clear some branches that had been in the way.

I've got as couple other hero shots from the first few days of the archery season, so some of you have been having some success. I'll post them soon.

I got some hours in the stand during my public land hunt the first few days of the week. It was also a pretty memorable few days. I'll file a detailed report soon.

The hunter who sent me this shot said he's caught glimpses of this buck over the past couple of years, as well as seen giant rubs around his hunting spot. But this is his best proof that this thing is a serious trophy. It appears to be a mainframe nine, though it wouldn't surprise me if it has a few stickers around the base.

He said this picture will help him spend more time in the stand this fall, and I can understand that.

I got out for a quick scouting trip yesterday afternoon to a spot I hunt in Bedford County. It was a productive trip.

First, I checked a stand I'd left up by a big white oak that hits just about every year. But it didn't hit this year. It is absolutely bare. The place is only decent in the early season to I pulled the stand.

The next spot I checked was better. A good white oak there was loaded with acorns. They were also also still green, so the timing for them falling around the opener should be good.

I've hunted the spot before and it seems to be a yearling buck hot spot. Maybe this is the year a shooter shows up. I don't have a stand there so will need to get that done soon.

Over the weekend I traveled to Harrisonburg for the Western Regional of the Virginia Game Contest, something I do every year in September.

As usual there were some incredible bucks on display. I featured the stories behind a couple of the bucks, as well as a big black bear, on the Outdoors page in today's Roanoke Times.

Richard Kesler shot this buck, the highest-scoring six-pointer in the muzzleloader category. His son, Ryan, sent in the shot.

As I wrote in my story this morning, there's usually a pretty good story behind each trophy. I wish I could feature all the deer and all the stories. Since I can't I just start asking questions and try to focus on a few. I don't concentrate only on the winners because, as I always say, hunting really shouldn't be about "winning."