The Stale Swamp - Sit #42 & 43

I drove out this morning with a NE wind and thought that the best place for me to be was a little ways off the bean field to catch something coming back to bed with shooting light available. I went north of John's and sat just south of the fork in the snowmobile trail running east and west. I saw zero deer. I checked the cameras along the snowmobile trail only to find that only one deer had passed by the east camera and a group of does and fawns passed by the west of the two cameras along with a spike and Bullwinkle yesterday at 9:45pm. He has really put the weight on since the last picture I had (at that point) on December 1st.

The rut really takes a toll on a buck's physical condition. It can even kill them. I checked the other cameras over by the beans and since I was going to town I brought the Bushnell with me to see if letting it warm up would help the display screen come alive again. On the northern-most camera, on the morning of the 7th of December I had both Chippy and Bullwinkle leave the beans a few minutes behind does respectively.

It seemed like most of the traffic on the north camera caught deer leaving the field in the morning. The only pictures of deer entering on that trail were at like 1 or 2 in the morning, leading me to believe that certain deer left and re-entered the same evening. This got me thinking that the heavier trails to the south must be where these deer are choosing to enter the fields, and therefore would be the best place for the evening sit.
I drove back to town to make sure I got all my errands done so I could sit along the beans in the evening with a close to perfect NNE wind. I let the Bushnell warm up and checked the memory card only to find that there were no pictures on it. It must not have even read the card when I swapped them. So that camera sat for 7 days not doing anything. I put up the Cuddeback from the east end of the snowmobile trail in the Bushnell's place. So there should be some good pictures even by the time I finish this blog.
I got out and set up by about 5 or 10 after 3 o'clock. I put the functioning Bushnell on photo mode instead of video and set it up on another well used trail quite a bit closer to the road. Hopefully this can pick up some of the deer that are living south of the gravel road. I still have no evidence of Whitey, which is extremely odd given his frequent appearances last year.
After sitting until a few minutes past shooting light (just to see if anything was going to come out) I packed it up and left with another skunked sit. I don't know how my luck could be so bad. It seems like the deer are moving, and definitely feeding hard. There are so many variables to make a hunt successful, but for whatever reason, they're not leaning in my favor.
I'm sure I'll get lots more good pictures. I need to change the batteries in the north camera. Otherwise, they should be good to be left alone for another week or more. I don't know if I'll get out much more. I guess my only reason to hunt would be if I could get another perfect wind - something north all the way to east. The hitlist is really shrunk down. I think 2012 may be a year of exploration. I have permission on several properties and this may just be the motivation I need to explore them with my cameras. We'll see. It's always a work in progress.