Pencil Is Alive!

Pencil will be celebrating his 5th birthday in May and we're excited to see what type of crown he decides to put on this summer. I'm going to guess that he'll remain a straight up 8 point (a 5% chance he'll have a very small G4 or two), but just get a little more height, a little more mass, and should gross about 130 if we're lucky. Even with a good growing season, it's hard for an 8 point to reach 130. He'll need 57" antlers and a 16" spread to gross 130. He could do it.
Mom and Dad have had their cameras out throughout the majority of this mild winter and luckily after we moved some of them around, they captured a few pictures of a buck that I'm 98% sure is Pencil. He looks a little run down, but the green shutes are coming out and he's only going to have more and more food as we finish out April.

A few crazy things to note: on our way to Grand Forks on Monday, April 9th, I saw two fresh roadkill bucks that still had antlers. Not to say they couldn't have been a few days old, but there was no damage from birds etc. Secondly, south of Sherack, there was a guy out seeding soybeans! April 9th! Two years ago we couldn't believe that our farmers were getting out in the fields by the end of April. We've had some wind and some cold lately, but the fields are drying out very well. The forecast is supposed to warm up and cool off a few times before we hit the 70's again. Hopefully we get some heat to encourage some more early green up.