Growth Spurt

Every buck seems to be growing at an above average rate. It's incredible how much can change from year to year. Last year every buck seemed to be behind by two weeks, and this year they seem to be at least a two weeks ahead of a 'normal' year. We should have some bucks to go after, but I think this year is going to take a little more strategy and a little less time spent in the woods. Waiting for the good windows will be key. Early season when the bucks guards are down and patterns are more predictable, the classic rut hunts, and if we have any late season food sources and there's pressure for deer to feed - these will be the three windows. I know that these are not a new concept by any means, but I think I pressured some deer too much when I really didn't need to.
Pencil through out some good main beam length and confirmed the splitting of his left brow, with the possibility of his right. One more camera check on him and we'll have a great idea of what his brows will look like.

I finally took down the camera over my northeastern mineral site that was just started this year. There was a good sized bear and a couple younger bucks, but nothing that gave me a reason to leave the camera up out there. I'll bring it back when more deer have found that mineral lick.

The focus as of right now is on this buck that I'm fairly sure is Twigs, but I'm not 100%. He's looking really good. He's got good mass, good brows and is working on some G3s as of the 6th of June.

I got a picture of a buck at the southeastern mineral lick that had about the same shape as Twigs, but on June 3rd didn't quite have the same growth. It'll be interesting to see if these are two different deer or just how many bucks we're dealing with out there. The mineral sites are over a mile and a half from each other. It's a terrible picture, but it was the only one he presented.

I haven't put a camera out on the northwest mineral site of these four, but I'm guessing it would be mostly the same deer as the southeast one since they're only one mile from each other. I'm not being specific because I'm really excited about some of these deer and I want to kill one on film this fall and I can't afford to have anyone mess that up. It needs to be my own fault if I can't get it done.

On Tuesday, I got my first newborn fawn picture of the year. He looks really stocky or fat for a newborn. I wonder if he was born early. That'd be great if he was a healthy male.

Lastly, I killed my first deer with my truck on the way home. I was coming down the hill and out from someone's driveway came a sprinting doe. By the time I saw a flash of red, she was under my bumper. Poor thing. The most unfortunate part was that she was pregnant. I called the DNR and asked what I should do and they basically said that there really wasn't much I could do. So I drug her off the road and let nature take over. I felt bad. Not that I killed a deer, but that I potentially killed 2, 3, or even 4 deer.

Twigs? Is that you?

I finally got my Bushnell camera back from the company and guess what? It's a totally different camera! They stopped making my model and came out with a widescreen camera that only shoots in 720p. I was a little upset at first, but I thought I'd give it a try. I figured that my most likely bear attack spot was the refuge so I cabled the bear safe around it and hung it to the tree. Well it sat for a week and I figured I would make sure everything was ok with it and check what the images looked like out of it. This is a classic example of why you always should carry a point and shoot camera or a viewfinder of some kind with you into the woods. Since this camera shoots in widescreen and it cables at the top, most of the deers' bodies are half cut off. Since I didn't bring a viewfinder to check that out, I set it back just how I had it. However, the pictures revealed our stud buck to be growing quite nicely for the end of may.

He could be a dandy, we'll have to see what kind of genetics he shows off coming up from his main beams. Maybe he'll only be an 8. Maybe he'll be really short tined. I doubt it.
Setting this camera out in the refuge allowed me to take my broken cover - Capture to another spot. I chose to set it up along the river where I didn't really know what to expect. I had checked on the mineral site and just saw some deer tracks, nothing much, but thought I would try it there. I hung it on the 24th of May. That same night the batteries died. After the batteries died, it rained for about 2 or 3 days. I went back to check it and when I took the cover off, water poured out of the camera! My stomach sank as I thought for sure this camera was ruined. I took it home and of course the memory card didn't work at first. Eventually, I took the camera apart, dried the many pieces and put it back together and let it air dry overnight. When I dried off the memory card, and tried it again, I got nothing, finally I figured out that it would play in the point and shoot camera, so I hooked the camera up to the computer and loaded the images that way. The first deer into the mineral site was a yearling doe. All of a sudden a great looking buck entered the frame.

At first I thought this has to be a new buck. he's got great mass and his G2s are just starting to emerge. A few pictures later another decent buck walks up to the camera for a sniff. This buck looks a lot like HighRise.

Now I'm starting to think that the duo is back together again, so I had to scan through some pictures of Twigs to compare. The mass is a good match. The brows even are fine to me, but if this is Twigs, he is either going to be very palmated or his G2s are starting significantly closer to his brows than last year, which is totally possible. The other possibility is that this really is an entirely different buck, which would be fabulous. When you look at the faces, it's no doubt Twigs, but when you look at the G2 starting point, it doesn't look possible.

Needless to say, I'm very curious to see what this 5 year old and his 4 year old decide to wear for headgear in 2012. I did get the camera functioning again. I put a nice water tight seal around the outside. Hopefully that helps.

Meanwhile, up on the Hill, I managed to get one isolated picture of Pencil out on the edge of the cedar swamp.

It looks like his brow on his is going to have a hefty sticker or it will basically be a split brow tine.  He's really putting on the inches this year. Mass, points, length - so far he's looking like he very well could break 130". His body is about to take a big transformation as soon as he starts to pack on the food.
Speaking of food, the soybeans went from just poking out of the ground on May 20th, to about 3 or 4 inches on the 30th of May.

This creates a larger window of ample food to put even more inches of nutrients into that velvet covered eye candy. At the Refuge, they even planted corn in the Sanctuary. This is something that as not been done for many years.