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.
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