Getting Warmer

Although my hopes were as high as the sky for this next round of checking trail cameras, the results were somewhat disappointing. I got some decent bucks, but I guess I thought I'd get the same bucks from the year before in the same areas, which did not happen. Not only that, but as I feared, the growth on these bucks has been behind and they have appeared to only put on more mass. I'd say a 5-10% increase this summer versus last years 15-25%. I can live with that. The most difficult so far is that I have no pictures of a lot of the bucks that I thought I might see: Mr. 140, Splitbrow, Chippy, Curly, Skyscraper, Bullwinkle, etc. I know there is a good two and a half weeks of time to get pictures before the beans die out and they shed velvet, but it's just surprising that none of these have shown their faces. Well, I take that back. One chose to only show his face after a bear took a swat at my camera:

The strategy has been good, I'm getting pictures of bucks. Here's Scabby 10:

And the Wide Heavy 8:

I finally got pictures of Pencil:

I also have pictures of Whitey, who is 4 this year, and it looks like he doesn't want to share:

And a few nice three year olds. Contender blew into a giant 6x5:

PegLeg:

Junky Brewster:

So as you can see, I've got plenty of pictures, just not of the bucks I'm really excited to see. You never know, Curly didn't show up until the end of August last year. And I only got one series of pictures of Skyscraper too. It could still happen. Just have to keep batteries fresh. The soybeans got crotch-high, which was way higher than I thought they would. We had a good growing season after June got over with. The camera I've had by the top of the hill has not produced squat. Nearly 1000 pictures and I only got 1 buck - a yearling fork. What is that all about? I think I'll move it back to my permanent stand.