Something I don’t get to do very often is hunt in the snow.  For the first time in 4 or 5 years, a lot of North Carolina hunters got the chance to do just that.  It was awesome.  It is amazing to me how quiet the woods are with snow covering everything.  Of course, that didn’t last long when the wind picked up and started swaying me around in the tree…but I’ve always said the one thing I wish Piedmont, North Carolina had was more snow.  Love it!

So, I left the apartment in Raleigh at 4:30 a.m. on Friday headed towards Burlington to hunt where I saw the 5 bucks on Monday.  Packed my climber in and re-positioned slightly where I could shoot up on the pine ridge where I saw the good 8 pointer cruising 5 days ago. 

The sun was just barely coming up, when I caught movement and picked out a doe slipping along the trail in the pines.  About 30 minutes later, I saw more motion and 3 more mature does came walking by on the same trail.  Great start to the morning, now I just needed some headgear to show up.

It was about 8 o’clock when I looked and saw deer moving along the same trail but in the opposite direction.  This was the direction the bucks had traveled on Monday, so I got my scope set up in an opening, but it was a doe and fawn. 

I sat there another hour or so, when I heard limbs breaking on the far ridge that runs along the creek.  A deer was trotting down the ridge rather quickly and I kept on waiting for a buck to pop out behind her, but nothing ever showed.  I don’t know if somebody trounced her from her bed or what, but she was in a hurry to get out of there. 

With the beauty of the snow and the crisp air, I decided to hunt a little longer than usual, but ended up with nothing else coming by the stand.  Still, a great morning, beautiful scenery (sorry…left the camera in the truck because it was still snowing), plenty of deer, and a very relaxing time in the woods.