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As dawn broke this morning I was at a familiar place: the kids' school bus stop.

Last night after a great dinner at deer camp I pointed the truck down Interstate 81 and headed back to Roanoke.

I had planned to pull out of camp on Thursday but had to move things up a bit.

The main reason was  I found out that two stories I expected to turn in on Thursday were needed today (Wednesday). And it's not like I'm dying to be out there in this wet and windy weather anyway.

Those of you who have seen the current Field and Stream might recall that an article predicted that today would be the best day of the season to kill a big buck. That kind of prediction fits with typical pre-rut and rut patterns in whitetail country.

But, at least where I've been hunting, things seem to be a bit slow still. Yesterday morning I saw two bucks -- a non-shooter eight-point and a spike -- pretty early. Both were just easing through the woods with no urgency whatsoever. I saw three does that were also just taking their time. On my afternoon hunt I saw three mature does that also were just easing along, with nothing following them.

The property has a large (75-acre) field that's been drawing in quite a few deer because there's just not much food in the woods. A couple of my buddies watched the field yesterday evening and saw a bunch of does (as in, a couple dozen). There were a couple yearling bucks out there chasing around and sparring. But the only decent buck spotted wasn't chasing. When you have that many does in one place and little chasing, that tells me it's still early.

But this can turn on quickly and I think the next few days will see the action get increasingly more intense. My hope is to get all my work done today and early tomorrow so I can hunt Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. Then it's back out of the woods so I can go to Northern Virginia to cover the state cross country championships on Saturday, and possibly a high school football playoff game on Friday night.

I guess the good news is I will end up burning only two vacation days this week. The bad news is I still have a bunch of days on the books that I have to use or lose by the end of the year. I guess I'll just try to take them in little chunks here and there.

Of course the hero shots keep rolling in and I will post a few throughout the day today.

I got these two shots over the past couple of days from two different friends.

They remind me of one of Gary Larson's most memorable (to me) "Far Side" cartoons, the one with a huge eye (of a T. Rex, maybe?) visible in a car's side mirror, which had that common "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" notation.

The top shot was on public land in Botetourt County, the bottom one on private land in Franklin County. To be honest, I'm not sure what that critter is in the bottom shot. Anyone care to help?

Now that the deer feeding ban is in effect, hunters who want to get good scouting shots will need to put their cameras on trails and natural food sources. Acorns are already falling in some areas. From what I've seen in the little scouting I've done, the red oak acorn crop looks pretty good, but the white oaks don't look as good.

What are you guys seeing as far as mast?

The board of directors of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has unanimously voted to reject a proposal to pull the bear tag from the state's big game license and establish a separate bear license.

The issue was among dozens of proposed changes considered by the board.

The idea had been brought forward in February by members of the Virginia Bear Hunters Association, a group of hunters who hunt bears with hounds. Some have said they feel bears deserve to be more than just bonus animals for deer hunters who luck into one of the animals. They also said they believed a separate bear tag could raise $300,000 to $400,000 annually for the game department.

Many deer hunters were critical of the bear license proposal, and plenty said they would expect the fee for the deer and turkey tags to be reduced if the bear tag was pulled from the big game license.

The VBHA seemed to expect the outcome. While they have flooded some DGIF board meetings when bear-related issues were on the agenda, only seven spoke during today's public comment period. And while several mentioned their support for the license, the bear hunters actually were more focused on criticizing expanded bow, rifle and muzzleloader seasons for bears (all of which were approved, by the way), and on what they believe is abuse of special permits issued for nuisance bears.

I'm getting ready to hit the road for the drive back to Roanoke. I'll have a more detailed report on the meeting, including on other proposals, in tomorrow's Roanoke Times.

bear_dance

As part of their Northern Divide Bear Project, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey are using motion-triggered video cameras to record the behavior of bears (and other wildlife).

There are some good videos on the studies Web site. This is one of them, and it's even better than the original after someone fixed it up a bit by adding music. If this doesn't crack you up, there's something wrong with you.

I don't know how to imbed video into the blog. Sorry. But click on bear_dance above and it should open in your .wmv viewer.

Those of you who read the obituaries in The Roanoke Times already know that the Roanoke Valley fishing community lost one of its icons this week. Melvin Crewson, the 67-year-old owner of the Minnow Pond, died Tuesday.

Melvin, pictured with his doting wife, Christine, has battled health problems for years, but I was still shocked when I learned of his passing. Not even a month ago I did a story on the reopening of his store, one of the ever-shrinking number of mom-and-pop bait and tackle stores and a place that was devastated by a fire in October of 2008.

I stopped by there last week and Melvin looked fine and was in good spirits. "After that story ran, I had some people who hadn't seen me in a while come in and say, 'Man, Melvin, you got fat!'" he told me, laughing. "Since then I've lost 5 pounds."

My plan is to write a story on Melvin for tomorrow's Roanoke Times.

I hope some of you take time to offer your comments about this fine man.

Travis Patsell of Vinton sent me a recent rundown of his fishing exploits, including this shot of his girlfriend Brook Ayers with a 22-pound blue catfish from Buggs Island Lake.

Patsell said he's made two recent trips to Buggs and done pretty well on the blues. Fishing with cut gizzard shad on Carolina rigs (with circle hooks) they caught six in the 10-pound ranged on the first trip and nine on the second trip, with this one the biggest.

Daryl Taylor of Moneta sent in this shot of a nice bear he killed in Franklin County on Dec. 13. He said the brute weighed 300 pounds, and by the looks of that head I don't think there's any reason to doubt that number. Nice!

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Austin Brugh deserves a lot of credit for this nice 10-pointer killed on Nov. 15 by his dad, Jamey Brugh. For one thing, Austin spotted it chasing a doe. And, when it wouldn't come within range of Austin's buckshot-loaded .410, the youngster generously let his dad have a chance.

The next few days will see a lot of families out hunting together. To everyone who plans to get out there, good luck and, above all, be safe.

Jason Breeding killed this seven-point buck while hunting in Giles County during the early muzzleloader season.

Dutch Holland sent in this great shot of his 8-year-old son, Brock. This was Brock's first deer. Said Dutch: "Man was he excited. So was Dad!"