First Sheds To Find : Pencil's

So after getting really excited to get a picture of Pencil on the 5th of December, our very next picture of him was in the shack field on the 15th of December and he was completely bald!

He made two trips through the area around the 15th. After getting home to review the multiple cameras, they told us that on the 15th at about 3 am, Pencil came from the east three corner and went west long enough to get a video and two pictures of him (one of his nose and one of his butt) - neither told us anything.

Then he must've bed down somewhere nearby because on the afternoon/evening of the 15th, he was caught crossing the shack field from southeast to northwest.

After confirming that it was him, we starting to imagine all the likely places he may have shed his antlers. Then on the 20th, at about midnight, he did the same thing again. This time Zach and I were out hunting and actually came into the property from the south east and cut a nice track that proceeded to take the strip the entire way north up to the three corner, then turn west right in front of the Bushnell camera giving us yet another video of him. So this time we knew where he came from at least. SOUTH. I later learned that he had been spending some time at the Little Hill. He was there on the 14th in the morning, and back again on the 16th at 6pm.

So all this data tells us two important things: 1) he shed his antlers between the 5th at 6pm and the 14th at 4:05am. 2) He was frequenting these two areas, which are unfortunately 1.5 miles apart as the crow flies. His sheds could be anywhere. His route on the 15th pm and 20th tell us he prefers entering the area from the south. When I look at what the weather did around the 5-14th, we had a definite cold snap around the 9, 10, 11th where his antlers would have really loved to pop off. Looking at his pedicles in the pictures on the 14th, it looks like he would have probably shed on the earlier end, more like the 8th (which we got a lot of snowfall) or 9th (in anticipation of the cold weather coming).

As of the 30th of December, he's the only shed buck that we have pictures of. There's supposed to be a lot of weather changes in the next couple weeks, some cold fronts, some warm. I'm guessing that the next cold snap/snow fall, we should see some more antlers hit the powder.

Pencil's Alive!

After no sign of this mysterious old buck, Pencil finally shows himself an hour after shooting light on the evening of the 5th of December. The craziest part is that I'm going to guess that he really hasn't been very far away from us, but that he moved only when he needed to and that he never walked in front of our cameras. If you remember me ranting about the series of pictures that were foggy in the end of October, you'll recall that those were the only pictures of Pencil since the very beginning of July. This buck has more than likely visited our area on occasion throughout the rut, but simply dodged our cameras. As the late season closes in, I'm concentrating more of our cameras in this area in order to figure out where Pencil will be dropping his 5.5 year old headgear. He's nothing to brag about as far as fully mature deer go, but it's simply the amount of history we've built with this buck that makes him a trophy.
One lesson that is continually being burned into my mind is that of how much trust you put in your cameras. Now that we have snow, a person can see exactly where the deer are traveling. And although we do the best we can to place our cameras over intersections of trails and travel routes (even in combination with scrapes), we still fall short of capturing tons of deer. I am a little surprised that mom and dad's camera in the shack field never captured pencil during the rut. It just tells me that he either had more does nearby his core area (wherever that was) or he dodged our cameras when he came to check out our doe population.
Pencil's history has revealed that he normally doesn't travel further west than John's farmyard/Little Hill area. His main "loop" is a north south stretch that goes as far north as the top of the ridge (probably the neighbor's feed pile), West into the cedars, South by the spring and all the way out to John's pond, back east through Heller's willows and back northeast again through fields that lead back to us. I don't think he goes east of the road towards the state quarter. So his loop is about 2.5 miles north and south by 1 mile east and west.
I found his two year old sheds north of the east/west road about 250 yards and I found his three year old shed about 200 yards east southeast of that.

Last winter, they logged some willows and deer immediately began to pour into the fresh cutting. It was such a mild winter last year that the majority of bucks held their antlers until february. He more than likely shed his four year old set in there somewhere. I never did find them. I'm guessing that that area was one area that he spent a lot of time.

Every time I hunted south of the landing I thought I had a good opportunity at seeing him. Never happened. He may have very likely stayed south of the road as long as that corn plot was easy pickings.  It's all about timing with these bucks. Some are very predictable, and others are dependent on many variables like food, weather, and doe populations. I am very surprised that the only pre-rut pictures we got were of Pencil up on the logging road north of Pete's. He went back and forth making rubs and scrapes all day long on the 27th of October. Interestingly enough, the two cameras of Zach's that I placed near where he shed those antlers a few years back, had nothing mature whatsoever on them. My guess, if I had to predict where he'll end up, is that he'll winter somewhere between a cedar edge, and some fresh-cut red willows, which creates one large area NW of Orville's mailbox.

In about a week from now, the second rut is switched off and food is all that matters. Figuring out where these remaining mature bucks are located will help me use my time wisely this spring when I look for these antlers.
As for the remainder of the 2012 hunting season goes, I will be lucky if I make it out a few more times. Life's just really busy with Steph coaching hockey. I have lots of things to take care of when she's not home and it's tough to find the time to get out there. It's not over till the fat lady sings, though. I know I can kill a doe.

The End Of An Era - PegLeg Is Dead

I ended the last post hoping for blood for this, my 200th post. Well, I got good blood, it just wasn't caused by me. A friend of mine and neighboring hunter, finally caught up with PegLeg - a local legend who was a very visible 4 year old this summer.

Somehow he made it through the bow season, rifle season and was on his way to make it through the muzzloader season too. This buck seemed to have 9 lives. He was shot at twice this year with a bow and crossbow - and thats all that we know of. He was probably spotted and shot at more than that. The story of PegLeg began in the winter of 2010 and Steph named him in the summer of 2011. I noticed a young buck with a gash or a laceration on the back left leg of this deer and it looked like he had been shot at. I hoped he would make it through the winter, but didn't really think that much of it. The next summer came and I placed a camera across the highway where I had the big bachelor group the summer before. Four bucks started showing themselves regularly: Whitey, Contender, Junky Brewster, and of course PegLeg. That summer we were trying to come up with names for Junky and PegLeg, when Steph shouted out "PEGLEG!" This was partly an inside joke with her parents in regards to how Steph used to run down the stairs, but also, it fit the deer since his leg was banged up. We followed him until the end of August and then lost him until the end of the rut - November 18th, when I finally decided to moved my camera into the swamp. There I caught him several times before winter's end. He shed his 3 year old antlers around the 5-10 of February, 2012. We new he was a nice 120-125 inch 3 year old and couldn't wait to see what he'd blow into in 2012. We had the most unbelievably mild and warm winter and tons of deer survived because of it. Farmers had their crops in the ground in the middle of April and things were really looking up for the crops, and in turn, the antler growth potential of some of these hitlist bucks. It wasn't until the end of July that I finally got a picture of PegLeg in John's island. He grew an awesome abnormal split G2 on his left and would easily be distinguishable from a long ways away. He was shaping up to be really massive with tall tines and really long main beams. By the time summer was over, he was looking like he would gross right around 150". An awesome four year old. I saw PegLeg once or twice in the binoculars feeding in the soybeans, but by the sounds of it, everyone was seeing him too. This buck was no secret. It was going to be a matter of time before the deer got shot. I set up a couple stands in hopes of getting close to him on the land that I had permission to hunt, but it just wasn't close enough. I only got one series of pictures of him out of velvet before his core area immediately shrank to about a 20-40 acre area. It wasn't until halloween that he started to spread out that area in search of does. I got two pictures of him on the east side of John's farmyard, which told me that he was making trips into the swamp. One was on the 31st and one was on the 7th of November. I scratched my head to figure out where he would be going during these trips - if he'd be heading north and just circling west through the swamp and ending back in his core area, or if he'd venture east after going north in to the swamp. Well, I didn't get any pictures of any mature bucks in the tamarac swamp during rifle season and the week after so I moved a camera up into the cedars over the live spring. I had about 10 days of garbage pictures and all of a sudded, BAM! there he was, looking like a giant. That was the night of the 21st of November. My hunch is that he was making trips back and forth from the soybeans to the cedars and he was spending a couple days in each place. That's when the last weekend of November rolled around. My friend saw him on camera on the 29th, saw him on the 30th, thought he may have seen him on the 1st of December and ultimately came in to the standing beans on the 2nd of December for the last time. At about 70 yards, my friend cocked the hammer on his TC and let him have it. PegLeg piled up about 50 yards away leaving no track job required. I was able to go over to his house that evening and take some really nice pictures for him.

They weighed him at about 190 lbs. He gross scored 153 5/8 and net 133 3/8". His right antler (4 point) went 65 4/8" and his left (6 point) went 66" even. His beams were 25 & 24". His G2s were 8 6/8 and 9 2/8". His G3s were 10 1/8 and 9". His mass measurements were also really good at 4 4/8 H1s, 4 4/8" H2s, 5 6/8 and 4 6/8" H3s and 4 and 3 4/8" H4s. He was 15 1/8" inside spread. A truly wonderful 4 year old buck. One more year and he would've easily grossed 165-170". Nobody in their right mind would pass him up however. I am really happy that somebody got to kill him near his prime, who knows how close I ever was to him. Especially in those 3 days right after the rifle season where I was covered up in does and fawns and yearlings. I probably wouldn't want to know how close I was. Now we need to focus on who's left: Bullwinkle, Pencil (somewhere), the 6x5, Blacknose, and a few others. It's getting slim, but there's tons of yearling and even two year olds left, which I am super excited about.
On another tragic note, our best up and comer around our hunting area, Crab 10, got shot opening evening of muzzleloader season by a neighbor less than a quarter mile from our cabin.

He was scored at 129" as a three year old. My dad is going to do the european mount, so I'll get lots more looks at him, but he had a lot more mass than I thought. He would've been a dandy next year too. Dang. And a true local deer - very killable.

Sits # 29, 30, & 31 - Thanksgiving... Thank Goodness The 6x5 Is Alive!

This just in!!! After almost 5 months of complete mystery, the 6x5 showed up 5.5 miles north of where I was getting pictures of him this summer. I can't believe where he showed his face - right in the cedars!
It's either part of his excursion, or he's looking for cover from the cold temps we've been having this week. I'll come back to this.
So I sat on the 20th overlooking the spring again. I saw absolutely nothing until right at last light. I had a deer sneak up behind me and come right under my tree again. I've finally figured out that this is not a coincidence. These deer are trying to use this trail, but they're getting my scent from either where I walked in or from me directly. I'm trying for a south wind, but apparently, these deer want to come in from the north, so it's backwards. I know I need to switch trees now for sure. I need a west to a southwest wind and I need to be more to the east of the spring so the deer that keep coming underneath me don't get my wind. That should fix the problem. Anyway, the deer that I saw was either a female fawn or a doe. There was a bigger deer behind it (I could tell by the stomping that ensued), but I could never get a look. So it was either a doe and a fawn or a buck with a doe. Probably the former.
On the day after Thanksgiving, I went out with Joe and we hunted a place he had a hunch about. We didn't really have an ideal wind to sit in that spot, but we tried it anyway. It was fun to hunt together and play with all our camera gear. Zero deer. That leads me to today, the 27th of November. I tried to get out early enough to check a few cameras. I learned some things again (like I typically do every time I'm out). I pulled both cameras off of John's farm country and put one back on his farmyard. The one in the cedars north of the road had dead batteries. I did get a picture of the same two year old that visited the scrape out by the corn plot from the week before.

I moved a few cameras along the road into the woods to the north in hopes of getting some of these bucks heading out to feed in the fields. After that, I took the wheeler out and checked the shack field camera and then moved on to the camera we set east of dads stand. The shack field had 28 or so photos and the camera to the east had 65 some photos. With the fourwheeler still running, I reviewed the images. I had no plans of hunting around that area that evening so I wasn't concerned with spooking any deer. I flipped through and said to myself, "two year old, two year old, yearling, yearling...".

And then I hit the 25th and got another picture of The King (as I'm calling him). Second guessing that name now. I thought it was a really cool picture.

As I continued to scroll and noticed the date approaching the 27th, I figured that'd be about it. WRONG! The last picture taken was taken only 1 hour and 45 minutes before I got there and it was a giant!

At first, I thought, "Is that blacknose?" As I zoomed in, the dozens of trail camera pictures flashed through my head until I locked in on a buck - THE 6x5! There was no way, I thought, that he would be up here. This camera was 5.45 miles away from where I was getting pictures of him in June and once in July. As I stared at the point and shoot camera, I immediately shut the fourwheeler off. Not like that did anything. It's funny how one picture can change the focus of a whole season. Not only was the buck alive, but he was healthy. The bittersweet reality was also setting in - this was more than likely an excursion and the odds of him coming back through this way were very slim. Regardless, I quickly checked my wildview, which was dead of course, and headed back to the cabin to formulate a plan. The wind wasn't good to sit in my new stand set north of the three corner so I opted to walk past the corner and sit in dad's two man ladder stand. The wind wasn't bad, but it meant I was hoping that the buck bedded up somewhere and would be returning through the same area that evening. Dad's ladder was a good observation stand with good visibility, but I observed nothing. Zero deer, but a lot of hope and wonder. I also am now 90% sure that this buck is NOT Twigs. So that means that Twigs is (or should be) out there still. That also means that this buck isn't for sure a 5 year old. I believe that he is, but there is a small chance he could be just 4. Either way, it looks to me like he would gross in the mid 150s and net somewhere in the high 140s. If these deer have a reasonable winter and spring, this buck could be a booner next year.

My next post will be my 200th. Maybe there will be some blood involved. Hopefully a buck.

Sits # 25, 26, 27, & 28 - Downswing of the Rut

After seeing lots of deer by the spring on Sunday the 11th, I was eager to get back over there with a better wind. Unfortunately, it said that the wind was supposed to be out of the SW, so my plan was to sit NW of the bus. I was also curious to see what was on that camera that I left there for over a week. After getting lost and found again through the maze of blowdowns, I finally made it to the camera at about 3:05pm. I reviewed the pictures and was horribly disappointed to find 4 pictures of two different yearling bucks. What a waste. I pulled the camera and figured I surely wasn't going to be sitting there tonight and so I made the decision to high-tail it over to the spring. Again, on my way over there, I was going so slow and quiet in the spot where I kicked up the buck the night before. I even stopped. Sure enough, I heard a twig snap right next to me. A deer got up and walked away from about 20 yards to 40 and out of sight. I never got to see the deer's head. I proceeded to the stand and on my way up the tree, while still holding on to the tree steps, here comes a doe busting through there and I heard something coming behind her! Oh no, I thought! That would be my luck. Have a bruiser come trotting through when I've got my hands completely tied. Thankfully, it was just a yearling 6 or so. I climbed up and they both just kind of walked off. About an hour later I had two lone fawns come in, I'm thinking it was the doe from before's fawns. At about 4:30pm, I decided to rattle a bit to see if I could stir something up. About 10 minutes later I had another yearling buck, looked like a little fork, came circling in. One thing I have learned already with this stand is that you need a straight wind from the South and it needs to be kind of stiff so it doesn't swirl. The yearling buck picked me off with his nose and calmly trotted out of there. That was it for that night.
The next morning, Tuesday the 13th, I had a south southwest wind and figured I would try it again. I left the truck and it was 6 degrees and I'm sure it dropped after the sun broke the horizon. I was freezing! at about 9:10, I was about to pack it up and climb down and I finally heard a deer coming. I got ready and of course, like always, the deer hung up about 45 yards away without me being able to see it. I always imagine antlers when I can't see the deer. However this time of year, Bucks aren't really calm feeding critters. They are still on a mission. If they're on their feet, they're cruising or following a doe. Sure enough, the deer shows itself and it was a fawn. Shortly after I see its momma. They feed slowly behind me, nipping on the cedar bows. Eventually they got my wind and blew. They didn't leave, although I thought they did. About 10 minutes later, around 9:40am, a lone deer came by at about 70 yards and stopped to browse. I thought it had kept going and wanted to pick up the pace. That could have been a mistake. A) the doe and fawn from before were still downwind of me at about 30 yards and B) the new deer was still out there, she was just not moving. I picked up the rattling antlers and banged 'em together for a while. The doe behind me blew and the other doe took off too. Had I known the new lone doe was still there, I would have given her some time. Who knows what was only a few minutes behind her that eventually may have came in. I scared 'em all away.That was pretty much my morning. It was so cold. I did settle on either switching trees or making sure I have a better wind than a SSW.
Then on Friday morning, the 16th,  I got out south of the landing, thinking Pencil might move into the area sometime soon. Nope. Still haven't gotten any pictures of him worth talking about. I also didn't seen any deer while sitting that morning. However, I did take advantage of an opportunity to hang my cameras out in some farm country where the deer should be congregating a bit. The corn food plot that I figured Pencil was frequenting this fall didn't have one cob of corn left in it by the time deer season came around. Unreal. The main scrape along the wood's edge was worked up after the snow, so I figured I had nothing to lose by tying it for a few days. We'll see how that turns out. I also put a Cuddeback over on the pinch in the creek (where I got some great pictures in 2010). There are two different standing soybean food plots and that pinch in the creek is one of many travel corridors between them, but I think I should pick up a buck or two in there.
I sat this morning south of my permanent stand for the first time ever. I hung a stand in a cluster of cedars on the 17th. I had a doe and a fawn come in from the east this morning and I was ready to shoot the doe, but she never came all the way out. Eventually the wind picked up and they got my scent.
I checked the cameras near there and as of today, the majority of the deer activity has shockingly been near our rifle stands. It's starting to wind down now, but we had a few more pics of bucks during daylight and as this weather warms up, that will probably shut down until it cools off again.

I checked the camera I put back up northeast of Pete's on the logging road, but there haven't been many tracks in there. I had like three pictures in a week, so I moved that camera to where I think three bucks' ranges overlap, right near the road. Last night a friend asked me if I recognized a buck, sure enough it was Bullwinkle. I just about wrote him off as dead. He's either 7 or 8 1/2 years old. That's amazing!
He's a basic 9 point this year with long beams and a solid body. I'd love to shoot him. I'd almost want to shoot him more than some of these other young studs. What an old warrior!

That's all I know for now. I'll try to sit a few more times, but we're running out of good days to be in the woods. This

Rifle Season 2012 - Sits # 22, 23, & 24

Thursday, the 8th of November set me up in the swamp in the ground blind. I sat from about 2:30pm to dark. I haven't seen a deer in either time I've sat there. Odd. When I left I pulled my Bushnell camera and brought it further south because as you just get into the tamarack swamp, there's tons of fresh sign, so I'm thinking the bucks just aren't going that far north. Two major things have changed that has dictated a switch in doe concentrations: 1) Rice's pasture plot is now only a green grass with a hedge of corn that has long been picked over. 2) Larson's have standing soybeans to the south and they're drawing deer in from everywhere. I may leave the swamp alone until late season, or until I see that there's a good reason to be heading in there. I've only had two different two year olds pass by the west camera and before I took the east camera down, I only had Gnarly two times. Everything else was yearlings. Dad saw lots of deer that afternoon. This weather front moved in at about noon and from about 3pm on, dad saw several different bucks. One of which he could have/should have shot.

Friday, the 9th brought me south of the landing as it was supposed to be a NE wind. Once I had sat there for about 30 minutes or so, the weatherman changed his mind and sent the wind from the NNE. Not ideal for that stand. The night before it began this freezing rain episode and after I sat for an hour or two, I got down to find that my camera was not covered in a sheet of ice like another one was, thankfully. When I checked it, I found that the batteries were dead, but the photos showed that on the night of the 8th, Gnarly made it all the way over there.

I later learned after we finally checked mom and dad's camera, that he was all the way to the shack field that afternoon! That may not sound that amazing, but if you had been keeping tabs on this deer, you might be impressed to know that from July to August, Gnarly made a move of almost 2 miles up the creek to the NNW. As if that wasn't enough, after he shed his velvet, he moved another 1.75 miles to the ENE and showed up on my camera. The ironic part of Gnarly's story is that last year, in summer and early fall, he was Pencil's sidekick. So he was probably born up in the NE. More on Gnarly in a second.
So I sat until about 10am. My feet were wet and getting cold. The only explanation for wet feet was sweat that didn't dry in the boot. So I left as much in the tree as I could and walked with just my bow back to my truck. Once I got to my truck I realized that the keys were in my backpack, which was not about 600 yards away. So I texted Zach and he came and picked me up. We took his deer down and got some more pictures of it, scored it, weighed it, and basically did more of an examination of the deer. Kind of a research and educational portion of the hunt. I had a bite to eat and then headed back down to the stand and still could not get fresh batteries for the camera, because they were locked in my truck. I sat from about 1:30 until dark and saw zero deer all day long. Very few deer were seen by anyone on friday. After I got back to my truck, I got batteries and hiked all the way back in there in the dark to change them. You just can't have cameras out there that are not working perfectly.
Saturday the 10th was spent at home in the morning. I texted dad and asked if he had seen any deer. Here's the conversation:

So I texted mom:

Right after I texted her to be "On your toes.", she shot one. Gnarly.
I left home in a hurry to try to get some good photos of the buck for her before they hung it up on the meat pole. The roads were absolutely horrible because of all the freezing rain. I was driving pretty slow and when I slowed way down to turn east at the dead end corner, my truck didn't want to turn. It wanted to park in the ditch. I was able to dodge the sign, thankfully. I eventually made it up there after dad came to pull me out. We snapped some nice pictures of mom's buck and then I was off to finish my errands in town.

Steph had a "scrimmage-fest" and so I brought her money to buy lunch. I was off to the cabin again to hunt that evening. I only sat for probably two hours until dark. As I was getting set up I had yearling 6 sneak up behind me. I'm sure he heard me walk in to my stand but couldn't smell me. He eventually tore out of there. Then as I was packing things up, I had another deer slip into close range.  A little two year old 8. I'm pretty sure it was this buck:

Finally, on Sunday, the 11th of November, we were supposed to have church so we stayed in town and I woke up as normal for church. While eating my cereal, Sheldon called to say that they cancelled church. Side-note - I was trying to make up my mind whether or not to go to the cities for my licensure interview that was set up for monday morning. I would have to leave right after church and drive down.  After Sheldon called to cancel church, that basically made up my mind as to me traveling across the state. I would not be going. Then I was anxious to get up to the hill. But, as seems to happen quite often. We think of a hundred things to do before we can actually get out of the house. We finally got up the cabin and I went out to sit overlooking the spring. I hung that stand in the second half of September and hadn't been back since. I kicked up a nice buck on the way in. That was super. After I crawled in the tree, it wasn't 20 minutes when I had a doe and two fawns come in and get downwind of me. They took off. Then I had a yearling buck (the thick spork) come in and make a scrape and circle around me and I grunted at him and he just hung around. He really wanted to know what was going on.  Then near the end, I had 4 deer come right under my tree. There were 3 adult does and one yearling. I was certain there would be a buck with them. Nothing. I still have high hopes for that spot. It needs more of a south wind to be most effective. There's another tree over about 25 yards that would be another good spot with a southwest or west wind. The other tree was used a few years ago as a hunting spot and has a shooting lane or two already trimmed. Mom took a shot at a fawn at about 10 after 5 on Sunday evening. Dad also shot at a buck just before lunch that he neglected to tell me about. He said it was limping pretty bad. I might go look for birds in a couple days.

So that wraps up the 2012 Zone 2 Rifle Season. Not much to say. I think Pencil survived (as far as I know), I think PegLeg and Blacknose survived. Chippy did not. I figured out that Warren shot Chippy. It took a few minutes of staring at his buck for it to click, but it's definitely him. What a jump he made.

Pitchfork got shot, but there still should be several middle aged bucks that made it through the season. As far as we know, Crab 10 lives on.
My hunting is not over. I would like to kill something - and fairly soon. It'd be nice to just concentrate on wolf hunting.