Season Is Open - Sits # 1, 2, & 3

Well my birthday came on the opening day of archery season this year and I was lucky enough to be able to sit out in the stand to watch the sunrise. My first sit was spent on the swamp ridge, where I had the only pictures of HighRise this year. I had a south wind on Saturday and I didn't have many other locations set up for a south wind. As expected, it still took me longer than I planned to get hunkered down and hunting. Trying to film your hunt is a lot of work. Hopefully it will be worth it. I sat from about 6:25-8:55am. I only saw a pine martin.
The next afternoon, Sunday the 16th, Steph was taking her turn and I was running the camera. We sat in the nook north of the firing line. We had some fun, but saw no deer.
This morning, I sat on the swamp ridge again in hopes of seeing HighRise again, but he never showed his face. I haven't got a single picture of him after the 5th of September.
I was able to check a few cameras lately and have picked up on a few deer. Most importantly, I suppose, I got a few pictures of PegLeg out of velvet. Finally.

Blacknose, Gnarly and the Stud 2 year old all showed their faces briefly.

I checked the camera I set out looking for Pencil. I did not get any photos of him, but I did get a nice two year old 10 that NO ONE CAN SHOOT.

There are even some very similar characteristics as the one dad shot last year. This buck needs two more years.
Today I was able to check the camera on the spring. It had over 1,000 images on it and only one buck - Gnarly. He showed up on the evenings of the 7th, 10th, 11th, and 12th.

I also had a few images of two brothers who I figured out who they were. I'm glad they left my camera alone.

Yesterday when I moved the camera that I placed at the refuge, I was going for a walk and came across a water hole that was still holding water. It was completely annihilated by the deer. Needless to say I hung the camera there. I'm interested to see what shows up there. The only difficult part is that there were literally dozens of trails coming to and from the water. I was only able to place it in one place where there was a tree near by. Hopefully that's good enough until I can switch them out with the Bushnell on field scan mode. I was pondering something today. This spring and summer were looking like Pencil would be a local deer. That might be in question for this fall. Bucks tend to move into another bucks range once the more dominant one leaves, dies, or gets killed. It was looking like Pencil was going to fill the void created by Splitbrow. The more I was thinking about it, the more likely that he may seek to replace Scabby 9. Although there were no beans out around Pete's this summer. A neighbor to the south planted a corn food plot. That could keep him nearby. I could try run a camera out there for a little while. Just to see if I can find him. I hope I'm wrong and that he's just laying low on the top of the ridge eating acorns and getting fat.

A Farewell To Velvet & The Homecoming Of HighRise

With only 3 days standing between me and legally shooting a buck, the anticipation is through the roof.  It's amazing how fast the crops have peaked and are ready to be harvested again. On our trip to the cities I saw several people harvesting soybeans on the 7th of September. That's just crazy! The deer will adapt as usual and any green food they can find will be key. I checked the camera I have had in the same area most of the summer and finally, on the 5th of September who should walk in front of the camera, but HighRise himself!

He lost a little height in his G2s, but he's gained it everywhere else. His brows are close to 6 & 7". His G3s are 8.5 and 9 at least. His 4s are both over 5". He should gross 140 if not higher. He should be 4 years old this year. It's just great to have some photos to confirm his whereabouts, health, and antler development. He looks to be doing just fine.
There's also been a big bear visiting the same camera site pretty routinely. I'll have to kill him.

Lastly, most of the bucks are out of velvet, if not all. I was surprised not to catch any of them going out in August, but for whatever reason, on the 4th-6th most of the bucks I've been watching shed theirs. Gnarly held on to his left G3 for about 12-24 hours before sparing with another buck and losing it somewhere. So now he's just a 3 year old 7 point.

Blacknose looks good, but I'll be honest, I was a little disappointed how much velvet there really was on that buck. He looks pretty delicate now.

Still no sign of PegLeg. I heard that somebody saw him out out on the other side of the creek in the beans. I hope he's smarter than his uncle Skyscraper was.
I finally set a camera up on the spring back in the swamp. This year has been a severe drought. Now the weather is calling for about a week of rain due to hurricane Isaac. That's good for the roads and fields, but it throws a wrench in the placement of that camera. One of my Wildviews is set out specifically to find Pencil. I need to close the gap on these missing bucks. There not really missing, they're just unmonitored. I'll see if I can change that.

Autumn's Blood

The time is finally here. The dew is holding longer in the mornings, the leaves are drying out, and the velvet is peeling. I always anticipate the first pictures of bucks out of velvet and I've always wanted a picture of a nice buck with velvet hanging of his rack. I haven't gotten that yet this year, but I have seen a couple crack the surface. This last week it looked like Blacknose and PegLeg checked out what each other was worth. I got some pictures of Blacknose bleeding on the inside of his mainbeam where the velvet was broken open. I didn't notice it right away, but a little while later on the same night, PegLeg came in with blood spilled all over the left side of his face! Now it makes perfect sense. If you study the pictures further, you can even see what part of PegLeg's rack caused the tear as there's a little piece of Blacknose's blood/velvet on the outside of his mainbeam. It's pretty neat.

I thought that the next card pull would reveal one of these two out of velvet, but so far that's not the case. Basically it's the same bucks coming in to the Trophy Rock and I can't wait to sit there opening weekend. I also got a picture of a flying squirrel, which I didn't know lived up around our area.

On the bear front, Donny and Tara were up this Labor Day weekend and I set them up in the big oak in an attempt to kill that big bear. They didn't end up seeing any bears, but it was good to do a test run with stands, equipment, etc. Donny may have time later this fall to come back before the season is over. The next evening (Monday the 3rd), Joe and I sat in the same tree with the same hopes. Nothing. Again, we got to test out the GoPros and Joe's new Rebel T3i. Last night we sat one more time and had a yearling bear come in to the bait. He was pretty small, but he had a beautiful hide. He was in there the night before and that morning as well.

It's a good thing that it was just a yearling because everything that could have gone wrong - did. My GoPro was acting up because of a bad memory card, Joe's GoPro thought his card was full, and worst of all, Joe's battery died on his Canon. What a mess! Good thing it was A) bear season and B) just a little bear. I guess we learned a bunch of lessons in a short amount of time.
A mile and a half northeast I got some more pictures of the big boy again. He was at the camera one hour before I was. So now I need to get my other stand hung for him up there. I believe he will do the same thing he did last year - travel long distances between acorns and sunflowers. This site is in a pretty good spot to intercept him while it's still light out.

Only 10 days until the opener. And 10 days until I'm 30. I don't know which one is more exciting!