Bastian VA Rifle Season Opener 11/15/08

Today was an odd day in the woods, I didn’t see the first deer, but I came away feeling very successful anyway. I checked the weather all week and although I knew the best-case scenario for today involved bad weather I decided to be in the woods anyway. I was setting off of a trail, way back in the woods, when the sun came up and the day started off pretty promising. I heard two shots in the distance as soon as legal shooting hours began and I felt a great since of optimism! It wasn’t long after that though and the rain came in. It started off fairly light but ended up pouring for a long while. A lot of people were leaving but I decided to tough it out. My hunting pants and jacket were supposed to be waterproof and I wanted to see if they truly were. Luckily for me, my gear did the job and I barely felt the rain at all! The one piece of clothing that failed me though was my gloves. Other than having to switch to my back up pair, I was dry and toasty the whole time! After I survived the downpour, I thought that the deer would start moving and it would to turn in to a great day to be in the woods. However, I was disappointed when the wind started blowing like crazy and showed no signs of stopping. After I decided that this was not going to be much of a day for deer movement I decided to take advantage of that situation and do some scouting. I looked around for quite a while and finally found some positive sign! I don’t think that I’ve figured this property out very well but I feel much better about my chances. Hopefully I’ll have more time over in Bastian to get a better feel for the property but at least things are headed in the right direction! I hope you all had a great and dry opening day!