A Temporary Shift Of Focus

Whether it's a shift of focus or a lapse of reason, for some reason, I am now determined to kill a bear. I'm fascinated by how long they can live and how much ground they can cover. To get a big bear coming into a bait setup, and to kill him, it's not as simple as I once thought. Especially if you're dealing with a mature animal. In 2008, I shot two bears and both were relatively young bears. Both came in with plenty of daylight left and that may have meant pressure from older more aggressive bears in the area. Well, now I've found an area that doesn't have many bears, but the few that have been coming in are big. So they're not coming in until after dark. Maybe they're coming in from a long way away. Regardless, I've got Donny and possibly Tara coming in this weekend for the bear opener and I'm going to give it my best attempt on Saturday afternoon to get them both on a bear and myself as well.

On the deer front, I checked the cameras that I put so much effort setting up last week only to find does, fawns and a yearling buck. I'm determined to leave them for another full week and by then, a lot of bucks will have shed their velvet and should begin dispersing towards a new fall range. I did get out yesterday, when I was setting up a bear bait for my brother in law, to check a camera. Man were the deer photogenic over the weekend. I now have hundreds of pictures of PegLeg.

I had a Gnarly 8 come in that has been seen to the south over 2 miles away. He came in on the 21st and was in there every day or night at some point until the 26th.

Also, Blacknose showed off a little bit.

The average 8 was there but the wider stumpy 8 only showed up once at the end.

Finally, one of the younger bucks that I got pictures of in mid July showed back up and he is a stud of a two year old.

The End Of The Growing Season

August turned out to be quite a bit better than July, but there's still some missing pieces to the puzzle. I've gotten several great pictures of PegLeg and Blacknose now, but still have seen no sign of Pencil, or the other big woods bucks - Bullwinkle, Chippy, and some of the other up and coming younger bucks.
I'm still not convinced that the new 6x5 is Twigs, and I for sure haven't gotten any pictures of HighRise yet. So there's a lot of work yet to do before archery opener to have a more complete 2012 Hitlist.
Yesterday, I put on many miles and rearranged cameras, set up a couple new ones, and cut some ash trees out for a nice shooting lane area near the river. I've been getting lots of bear pictures lately and it looks as if there will be plenty around this season. I may have to shoot some of them.
I've been tracking PegLeg's movements back and forth across the road and it seems like he should be in the right area come season opener. I just pray that I can get out and hunt him when the conditions are right. I'm hopeful that Stephanie can hop in the driver's seat and have the first crack at one of the many bucks that are visiting the island woods. We just need a south wind.
PegLeg's doing just great this year and although he was pretty much done growing by the first of August, he's going to gross around the mid-upper 140's.

Blacknose has been putting on a show once a week or so, but I'm not real positive where he calls home yet. That remains to be seen. He should gross around the high 130's if not 140".

These other two bucks are both three year olds. Either would be a shooter for Steph, so we'll be on alert for them, too.

The bear situation is one that I didn't really anticipate, but could be a good situation. There are plenty of bears so far and this year we have an odd acorn crop, despite the drought. Oaks that never produce acorns, suddenly have loads of them. Conversely, the oaks that usually carry plenty of acorns have none.

Donny and Tara are coming up on the opening day of bear season and we'll see if we can get after a bruin.

The Flip Of A Switch

I really only went to go switch batteries in a camera and it turned into the turning point of the summer! Of course it was pouring rain on me while I checked my cameras friday evening after a week of speaking at Bluewater. I didn't have the point and shoot camera to review them so I had to wait until I could get on the computer. Man was it a nice site to see. I popped in the memory card from the island woods that I just got some nice pictures of Black Nose and as I was scrolling through several pictures of a really weak three year old buck, BAM! There was PegLeg in all his 4 year old glory!

He came through around 2 in the morning on the morning of the 31st of July. He stopped back through after he was switching beds for the daytime. I got one more instance of him the morning before I checked the camera (August 3rd). Then to top it off, I went for a drive tonight to move cameras around and just happened to turn back up north although I wanted to keep driving east, but a car turned in front of me and I decided I didn't want to follow him. Boy am I glad I turned left! As soon as I rounded the corner I spotted a couple deer so I pulled over and glassed them with my new Nikon Monarchs. ANTLERS! I quietly tried to pull out and set up my spotting scope as these deer were just coming into the soybeans from the woods. I got it set up and locked on to the biggest one and sure enough - PegLeg again. He looked really impressive.

After trying to measure from trail cam pictures and now seeing him on the hoof, I think he'll gross in the mid 140s to maybe even 150". That'd be pretty sweet.
So that was the first memory card. There were also some other good pictures of Black Nose and two other weaker three year olds.

I put in the next card that had 1600 some pictures on it. I thought it had to be wind. Nope. There were two different yearling bucks that basically set up camp in front of the new Wildview. I did have it on a 3 shot burst mode, but even so, it was getting a little ridiculous. I was really hoping for a picture of the nice buck that disappeared on the 15th of June. Nothing.

The next card was on the other Wildview that I just moved back to the spot where my Cuddeback took on some water and that card had 76 images on it. Again, on a three picture burst mode, my hopes weren't very high. As I flew through the pictures, all of a sudden there was a nice rack. Picture after picture showed me a really nice buck that looked nothing like I had been imagining, but after closer inspection, there's no doubt that it's the buck that disappeared.

Thank you, Lord! Although it's one tiny piece in the puzzle, I still have no clue what direction he came from or where he has been this entire time. It's just so odd. So tonight I moved one of my Cuddeback Captures there now so that if he decides to stroll through again, I won't miss those higher quality images. He looks to be a clean 6x5 with good mass and character around his bases and brows.
The fourth card I checked was from the spot where I picked up Twigs' shed along with the Stud Yearling's antlers. That card had 154 images or so and there were two different two year old bucks that were in there plenty. One of them was no doubt the Stud Yearling from last year. He's now a tight massive little 10 pointer. The other buck is an 8 with an inside point of his left beam and he broke his brow tine off already this summer. So he's really an 8 again.

The camera in the Tweeten woods had dead batteries, so that was a fruitless week.
I now have a camera on the inside of the creek that should produce plenty of pictures. It's just a matter of what kind of deer are living over there. It sure would be a miracle to have Curly appear out of nowhere. I'm still waiting on Pencil to get his act together too. Hopefully August and these cooler temperatures will coax him out of the timber.