TOPIC: Good day digging in the App. Mtn's of Southwest Virginia

Yesterday was only the 2nd time that I was able to get out and do some digging. I went on opening day for a few hours and dug a little bit, but was only finding small stuff and left 95% of what I found. Yesterday I went back on a STEEP north-facing mountain to a holler I haven't hunted since I was a kid, probably 25 years ago. Apparantly, no one else had been in it either in the past 25 years, luckily. We own the mountain but get a lot of poachers that sneak in on us from time to time.

I got in my first holler and started digging as soon as it started getting steep and turning up the mountain. It's a real rocky holler and I made my way up one side all the way to the top and back down the other side, just working my way back and forth. I found the most 'seng yesterday I've ever found in one holler and most of it was BIG 'seng. I spent about 7 hours digging that one place and came out with a pretty good haul. Found quite a few big 4's and a lot of REAL big 3's. Most of it had already turned yellow and dropped its berries and a lot had already broken over and I'd say it will be getting hard to find in a week or two around here(about 3,400 ft). I found quite a few stalks that were just stems only, but happened to spot them. It was all hard digging because its practically solid rock and took forever to get it dug without tearing it up. Some of it was down in the rocks 14\" or better and my knuckles are paying the price today. I'm not real good at guessing weight, but I'd say its gonna be over a pound or better of dry. Also found one real pretty \"man\" root. It was tough digging but I loved every single minute of it. It was one of the best days I've had in the woods in a while. I'll try and get some pics up.
Here's the man root:

Here's most of it after I got it cleaned up...

Nice root...

This one was buried way down in some rocks...Took me probably 15 minutes to get him out intact...

This one had a good top on it...

Here's another one that was buried WAY down in the rocks:

This was the biggest of the day...It was growing back up under a big rock and had grown in between a couple rocks. Took me a long time to get it out. It didn't have a top on it but found it while I was digging another big 4. The top of the root had a rotten place on it where the stem should have been and all the scars had fell off or rotted off or something. It's a shame, I'd say this was an old one:

jason44... That is some really nice old seng and you did some really good digging to get them out mainly intact! Congrats and I hope you find a lot more before it fades away for the year! Welcome to the forums and hope you will stay and share more pics of dug seng and some stories with us!


Frank

I like that 1st one!

Had a local buyer talking $650-$800/lb, ya'll heard any prices?