Another Gorgeous Weekend

I only made it out for one night but what perfect fall weather.  High of 70F, low of 40F, clear skies, no wind.

The "Hunter's Moon" was still out during the day.

Never a good sign when you get busted walking in to your stand.

The spiders have been busy.

I still had lots of activity.

This guy came in for a visit and chased a few does around.

Young Buck Arrival

The absolutely still wind worked in my favor.

Some Does

I could watch the main field too.

There were deer running around up there.

The trailcam later revealed these shots of them. 

This buck was aggressively chasing does.

The next morning also had quite a bit of doe activity.

But no bucks.

This wimpy looking mock scrape/licking branch does get some attention.

After the big rain from Helene, it's been dry again.

I walked and cleared a few trails.

Last week Joan was out for a Ranger ride - first one since femur surgery.

She was hanging on pretty tight.

Fox.

Turkeys.

Button buck.

Some young bucks.

And the usual crowd of does.

I was checking a camera and noticed a lot of buzzing.  I was standing almost on top of this swarm.  After I got them riled up, I stepped away and took this video. Bee Swarm

And the Asian Beetles (false lady bugs) are also swarming. It's hard to capture how many of them there are. Beetles Swarming

No Shortage of Does

Awesome weather this weekend. I had three perfect evening sits. The first night at the driveway stand.  There was almost no wind.  The turkeys came out first.

Then the does started to bleed in.

Then more does.

And more does.

And the turkeys and the does mixed it up a little - here's a video. Does and Hens

Finally someone got a little whiff of me.  That was then end of it.  Getting Busted  No bucks spotted that evening.

The next morning I tried the pond stand with no success.

I saw these turkeys on the walk in for breakfast.

The maples seem to have skipped the pretty phase this year.

We had some good fetch sessions.

I had an impulse buy from a FB ad for this t-post camera mount. It seems ok but the tree mount brackets from the same site were junk. I got a refund on them.  

There are a few colorful maples.

This is the brassica field.  we could have used the rain sooner. It's still attracting attention from the deer.

View of the same field from the pond stand.  I had 11 does out this evening.  There were two bucks near last light at 440 yards.

I had does out on the other side of the stand too.

A couple had the audacity to just bed down out there.

I took the plunge and bought Swarovski range-finding binos to replace my old-faithful Nikons.  They can do ballistic solutions etc but so far, I'm just ranging with them.

Still some storm remnants to deal with.

There were a pile of these pretty mushrooms under the pine trees.

The last evening I went to the barn stand.  The wind had picked up ahead of a cold front.  I still had 9 does out.  Does coming out

Not much of a harvest this year but I loaded it up.

A few more photos from the Lucy and Charlie visit.

Fisherwoman on the hunt.

Persimmon tree with fruit drying up.

The clover at the driveway came back nicely.

The bobcat was back!

Coyote count seems to be down for some reason.

Lots of turkeys.

The bucks are stating to warm up for the rut.

A hawk I think

And, the does.