I hadn't seen much deer activity the first week of WV firearm season until the evening of Black Friday. Seemed they started post-rut feeding more aggressively that evening and were hitting acorns. Had really thick fog the first morning, and had a miserable rainy sit second day. Only saw smaller spikes and does through Thanksgiving.
It was 22F at 7 AM on Saturday. The sun was not risen, but it was legal shooting time. I heard heavy pawing at leaves, I assumed to get at acorns, on the knob behind the tree stand. It was too dark to see what was making noise in the woods.
Eventually, a deer stepped into the overgrown jeep trail and I could see its body profile. I tried to get binos on it, but they were half steamed up from the cold. I was eventually able to see his head gear and confirm it was a buck.
He stopped to browse acorns about 20 yds from my stand. Waited for him to step out from behind a tree and took my shot. He ran down the hill and heard him stop and crash. Waited until sunrise to trail him.
I found a very unique heavy bodied non-typical 2 x 4. It appeared his right tine has split off and has metallic residue embedded in the antler break. Possibly someone shot at, and broke off an antler.