Bear Insurance?

I'm getting so mad at these bears. It seems like I just get my camera into a great spot or I'm anticipating some great pictures and something just goes wrong. I went to my camera out west and I really had my hopes high to watch the progress of this droptine buck. I walked up to my camera and there was just a strap on the tree. Puzzled I went in for a closer look. There lay my camera, on the ground. A bear had knocked it right off the tree. I left the camera about 11 days ago and I was hoping that the assault happened fairly recently. I pulled the card and... nope, the same day I last checked it. July 12. So my camera sat on the ground for 11 days and then got rained on and now, to the best of my knowledge, does not work. I'm ticked!

My driving around was good. I didn't see any mature deer, but I'd like to park and sit by that same bean field and just wait to see what happens. I think there's a good 5 + bucks that would be worth watching in the beans. From now until archery season opens, I'm going to have a camera there. It will most definitely be worth it.

After that ordeal, I made my way to The Hill and checked my camera by the beans that so far, has only produced pictures of sled dogs and house cats. This time I was visited by three different bucks. All of which are making significant progress from last year. The first is a four year old. A neighboring friend picked up his sheds from last year, and I also identified him as a two year old. We'll call him SplitBrow.

The next is a three year old that is now a seven point. Last year he was an eight and I have both sides from him. As a two year old he had 18" mainbeams. For some reason, he decided not to grow a G3 on his right antler this year. Weird. I'm pretty sure we have him as a yearling too.

Lastly is a buck I called Chippy last year because it seemed like all the tips of his points were chipped. Not a really big buck, but he's three years old this year.

Thing's are picking up a bit, but I'm still looking for something that's at least 5.