Our history with Splitbrow began way back in 2008 - my first year of running Cuddeback Captures. I set a camera over the scrape on the top of the hill under some century old oak trees. Almost every year there was a well used scrape underneath the oak on the west side of the hilltop. I hung the camera on the afternoon of October 28th, 2008. Immediately the buck pictures came pouring in. I had 15 different bucks hit that scrape in the month that the camera was up. There was everything from yearlings to 4+ year old bucks using the scrape with most bucks being 2 and 3. A small basket rack 8 point, two which nobody would pay attention, made his way to the scrape on the 20th of November for the first time. He had the rack of a two year old and the face of a fawn. We learned later that he must've been a late born fawn. His body was small, but I didn't want to over estimate his size so I assumed he was a 2 year old in 2008.
The next season, on November 2nd at 4am, we got two pictures of a buck that looked familiar. This buck had a typical 9 point frame with a split brow tine. It took me a while to connect the dots that this was the same deer, but it was because of his forward facing brows and short face that I knew it was him. So now the buck has a name - Splitbrow.
We got a couple more pictures of him in 2009, but that was about it. We couldn't really patten him or find much of a range, which I'm now learning is typical of a 3 year old.
A neighbor picked up his sheds that spring.
In the summer of 2010, at the same camera I started getting pictures of Scabby along with many other future hitlist bucks, I got a few pictures of Splitbrow. Some in July and a few in August.
Then he disappeared until October 15th. We caught him on the same logging road we did the year before at 10:15am - kind of an odd time to be moving that early in the fall. Must've been a doe that came into heat because there were two bucks that came by there that same morning at 6:30am.
We didn't pick up on Splitbrow at all again until November 10th at the scrape on the top of the hill. It was raining and his antlers were all slicked up.
We got another picture of him back at the scrape by the lone oak just a little ways to the west (kind of an alternate scrape). He came by at 10:00pm on the nose and this probably remains the best picture of him overall.
He definitely was mature, we thought 4.5. We never got any more pictures of him again, which was odd. The same neighbor managed to pick up his left side from that year in the spring.
The summer of 2011 came quickly and we decided to start a few new mineral sites. We hung a camera over one of them on the oak ridge and in the first half of June we got lots of pictures of ol' Splitbrow.
Then he disappeared and I fully expected to pick him back up in the Tweeten woods where he had frequented the summer before. Not the case. Hindsight tells me that he may have fed in those beans, but once he was crossed by Scabby, he moved on. Either way he was 5.5 years old and had to be around somewhere. I decided to move my cameras around a bit at the end of summer into places they hadn't been. I bought a new Bushnell Trophy Cam HD and set it up NW of Pete's where they had dozed the willows and we had picked up a few sheds that spring. I put it up on the 4th of October and by the 7th, I had Splitbrow on film. He only came by once, but he took his sweet time, so I got plenty of videos.
I had really hoped him to make a jump to a 135-140 deer, but he actually shrunk up a little. He kept the same mass and lost a little tine length. Thinking he would come back up and work the scrape by the cabin, I moved my camera up there on the 26th of October and caught him redhanded on the 28th.
We also picked him up on the same logging road the next day on the 29th.
Again trying to move my cameras around a bit I brought one down to my stand SE of the landing where I shot at Tank and killed Crazy 8. I hung that camera on the afternoon of the 5th and got him there on the evening of the sixth. My friend Zach got him on camera the day before. So we know he's in the immediate area.
On Thursday the 10th of November, dad had an encounter with Pencil and let him go. The next day, Friday the 11th, dad had another buck come towards the ladder stand and after he counted 10 points he shot. It was the two year old 10. Steph and I were on our way to GF when dad text me a picture of his dead buck and asked me which one it was. I was a little upset. Later that afternoon/evening as we were sitting down for supper at Whitey's restaurant in EGF I got another text that said Splitbrow was dead!
Sure enough Mom shot him! Apparently a doe came out on the strip near the south end of the shack field and dad saw it first. Mom eventually saw it and soon after a buck came behind her. Light was starting to fade quickly and she made up her mind to shoot. After fumbling with her safety a bit, she made a great shot and he only made it 50 yards. Neither mom nor dad realized it was Splitbrow when she shot. What a trophy for mom. A five and half year old buck. Finally. We got lots of pictures eventually and both mom and dad were fit to be tied.
Dad did a european mount for mom and it looks beautiful.
Splitbrow was a classic story. He was most likely a wanderer until he established some type of dominance at 4.5 and then his core area was defined by the older more dominant bucks around him. I wonder what kept him from going north or west of where he was. To the south was Scabby. To the west is probably Bullwinkle. Where's Mr. 140? North? Our neighbor picked up Splitbrow's matching set as a 3.5 year old and his left single as a 4.5 year old. Pretty great history.
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