Velvetine Rabbit...here we come!

I made it out into the woods today and had a whole list of things to do, from hanging stands to moving cameras. Steph was at home finishing up her last week's worth of homework for her Master of Science in  Special Education. I'm so proud of her. She's put in so much hard work to earn it. She's very much looking forward to August and her month of freedom!
So this morning I had Zach Johnson's help and that was much appreciated, as I tried to film some of the parts of the day for Midwest Whitetail - Minnesota. We started off the morning by taking down the camera I had north of Pete's that I set up on that new mineral lick. As we got to the camera I noticed that it was unmistably crooked on the tree from the swat of a bear. It only had a couple pictures on it. I know that once deer start using that area more this fall, they're put it into their memory for next spring. We took that camera down and put it up to the east of my permanent stand in an attempt to catch deer heading to and from their beds as they use the soybeans out by the road. We put up a stand on the oak ridge for early season hoping to have Steph shoot one of the does that frequent that area in the morning. It looked great up in the tree. I'm super pumped for a morning with a south wind. After that we drove to the gravel pit and took that camera down, which had over 600 pictures on it. Nothing magnificent. Just a few young bucks:

We moved that camera down the hill and across the soybeans on the east side of the road. I am very pumped about this spot. I think that by the end of August, I will have shooter or two on that camera. After that, we headed out to the south end of everything. The camera in the Tweeten Island's batteries were dead after about 17 pictures. So that sucked. We moved on and drove out to the south point near John's pond and checked that camera, which had 40 some photos with a decent two year old on it. We cleared a few branches for a shooting lane. We ran into the landowner out there. He talked about wanting to set up a few more stands out on his west end. It kind of sounded like he was unsure if he wanted me in there bowhunting this fall, which would really bite the big one. I'm hopeful that he'll still allow it if he knows it's just me. Hopefully. After that, we drove over to the John's Island and sure enough, the camera was sideways on the tree. I don't know what's a worse feeling, knowing a bear is messing with me, or not knowing at what point during the 16 days he spun the camera. Turns out I still got some pictures of a decent up-and-comer:

Then we headed back to the cabin to eat some sausage that mom boiled. On our way out, I tried using some pre-orbital gland on some licking branches at the top of the hill, where there's been a scrape for several years. I read about it in an article of Deer & Deer Hunting. It's bottled in the hills of West Virginia by a company called Smokey's Deer Lure and he has a lot more scents available. I'm curious to use this in a month or so and again in October.
The last errand we ran was to go get Zach's camera from a piece of private land up near the Pinecreek International Airport and set it up in a spot that we'll hopefully get some pictures of the same bachelor group as last August. Curly, Whitey, Contender, possibly Skyscraper and a few other up-and-comers should show themselves in a few weeks. The only downside to this is that Zach's camera is an older Moultrie and it the photo quality is significantly poorer than the Cuddebacks I'm used to.
All in all it was a great day. We weren't able to hang the two stands and set up the ground blind like I wanted to, but I'm sure there will be time for that yet. The deer will definitely hit these mineral sites in the next three weeks. I can't wait to see who shows up. The beans are also looking fabulous!

We also saw the biggest spider I've ever seen up here. The body was bigger than the size of a quarter. For real. I learned that it is known as a "Feather Legged Spider".