I went back to Fayette today. I saw a buck laying in the middle of the tractor path via the beam of my magic flashlight. I kept the light on him, continued walking and dug my camcorder out of my jacket pocket. I walked up to 15 yds or so, filmed him as he finally stood up and walked into a woodlot. The pic below is him, obviously.
After climbing my stand and waiting for daylight, I saw a doe and fawn behind me. They walked past my stand on the down wind side at about 25 yards. The doe became alert, starting sniffing and looking, licking her nose, head bobbing for several minutes before finally continuing on with her fawn in tow. I could have shot her a dozen times, but she was more curious than most when she smelled that smokey blob in the tree. She looked to be a fairly young doe, not a lot bigger than the fawn, really. She had a double throat patch. I took pics of a fawn last year that had one, so it may well have been the same deer.
Shortly after they left, a pretty nice buck came running across a cut cornfield as if he had someplace to be. I couldn't say for sure if I'd shoot him even after watching the video at home, but he looks decent. A bit later, I watched a really good buck running the heck out of a doe about a mile away. The video was useless, but I could see him fairly well through my binoculars...he looked good. Saw a couple more small bucks wandering around before I had to climb down about 830 to get home. Mason woke up sick today, so I had to get there asap. Another short sit in the tree. I didn't see any of the usual does around, which seems typical at this time of year...they seem to hunker down vs wandering around in a group, probably due to the constant harassment.
Back at it in the morning if the weather is decent.