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.