Guess Who Showed Up? - TWIGS!!!

While running a camera in hopes of locating HighRise again, I locked onto another buck that took me a split second to recognize, because I assumed he was dead. Twigs walked into the cameras frame for no rhyme or reason on the morning of September 18th (Wednesday) at 11:15am! So strange.

He came from the west or south and I checked back and it was a south wind that day. Weird. He's a beast! He's for sure 5, but I think he's 6 (based on his 2011 pictures as what I thought was a 4 year old). His body is going to be enormous.
It makes more sense now about the other big 8 point I got those two isolated pictures of near the river back in July:

I thought this deer was somewhat mature, maybe 4, but not 6! I'm thinking it was Twigs. He's got pretty good mass, he's still narrow, but his height is awesome. He must have 3 tines that are 10". I'm guessing him to gross just over 140". We'll see as he offers me some more pictures.

ND update - Velvet Peelings

I was able to swing out to the ND property on the 16th of September, as I had appointments there that day. I checked the cameras and found that most of the deer had shed their velvet by that point. No new bucks that I could find. I got a few more pics of the big heavy 8:

A few more of the buck Im going to call Cowboy:

And the wider short-brow 3 year old (hopefully 2):

The studly little 9 point:

And this nicer 2 year old:

I moved my cameras closer to corn. With me only able to get out there every few weeks, I can't really set the cameras over an attractant, because after it's gone, the deer activity just dies. I set my Cuddeback down along the river anticipating that deer use the mowed trail as a funnel. I didn't spend any time clearing grass, so I hope that's fine. The Bushnell got moved to a ridge that sticks out towards the river coming off the southwest cornfield. I don't really know what to expect there, but a person never knows. There was a decent amount of tracks through the grass there. Plus there's a good tree to set up ladder stand. I am going to try to hunt out there for a couple days beginning this coming Sunday evening (29, 30, & 1st). Hopefully I tag out and can just forget about that place until the post rut or until shed hunting even. I need to make my $215 tag worth it!

September Madness! - Sit # 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6

Where is the time being sucked away to? I know. Photos. Double-edged sword. We've been super busy and stressed this last two months and although I've managed to slip out into the woods a few times, I haven't found enough time to write in this blog. So here's my last 5 sits in Minnesota:
Opening Morning (September 14th) - I sat on the ground because of my leg. I headed to the refuge and sat near the west edge of the Carlson Slough. I saw zero deer. Beautiful morning, though.
Sunday Evening (September 15th) - It was my birthday and I couldn't decide whether or not I should hunt, but last minute I did and so I set out to hang a stand in the nook, but when I arrived I noticed a vehicle parked there. I found out whose it was so that meant I had to sit somewhere else on the fly. I ended up under the big spruce tree in the SW corner of the Saltou Field. When I snuck to the handicapped stand, there was a doe and fawn right in front of me. Once they slid into the corn, I decided I better sit behind some cover on the ground and so I found the big spruce. Right at last light I heard a twig snap and footsteps coming my way and it sounded like a big deer. Turned out to be 4 deer! A doe with her triplet fawns ended my evening as we got into a staredown at about 10 yards. I eventually blew at her just so I could get up and leave.
Thursday Afternoon (September 19th) - I sat in the NW corner of the Saltou Field to see if I had been missing anything. I had a spike and another nice yearling buck come out at about 150 yards and work their way towards me. At last light another doe and a fawn came into the field, but never really came close.
Friday Morning (September 20th) - Zach was home and there was a cold front coming through so we figured we'd try the west end of the same field. We didn't really have many options for that wind, which was a NW? I can't remember. We saw zero deer.
Thursday Morning (September 26th) - I had a SE wind and I decided I would see if the 6x5 wanted to show his face. Nope. I did have a yearling buck approach my stand from directly downwind and sniff all around looking for acorns. He gave me plenty of shot opportunities, too bad he wasn't 5 years older!
Friday Evening (September 27th) - Zach was home again and we thought we'd tough it out and sit in the mist and rain. We sat in the nook and unbelievably, saw zero deer! We've got some warm weather right now, but that's supposed to change in two weeks. We haven't had hardly any frost yet. So the plants are still edible for the most part in the woods. Not to say that deer aren't coming out into the larger food sources, but rather that there's no urgency to feed or poke their heads out until well after dark because they can browse in the woods still.
We're catching up on photos and as long as the weather is warm like this, I'll have to tell myself that the morning hunts are maybe my best option. We'll see. Another 2 weeks will change a lot of deer behavior.

North Dakota - Open In AUGUST!! Sit # 1

So after gaining permission to bowhunt on a large piece of private land in North Dakota, it's been a very interesting challenge to try to figure out how to hunt a brand new property like this. Most of the places that I hunt, I have known my entire life. Starting from scratch is a very new process. About three weeks ago, Steph and I cruised around the perimeter of the property at dusk on our way back from Grand Forks, just to try to see what crops were planted where. After jotting down that basic information, I was able to go home and look over the maps and try to put together some sort of camera strategy first of all. After locating what I thought would be the best natural food sources, I hired the help of my friend Ethan to help hang cameras with me on the 17th of August. I hung the first camera down in the bottom bean field after noticing a ton of browse on the beans, but very few tracks. We laid out a Trophy Rock and some corn to hopefully get some type of inventory of the deer using that 20 acre bean field. Next we went up to the west side and found another enormous bean field that had a nice browsed area and hung camera number two. For the last camera, I wasn't concerned with the amount of pictures I would get because I figured that the corn wasn't ripe quite yet. There was a corn field near the center of the property, up on the high part of the river bank. We set the Wildview there with just a Trophy Rock in front of it. Something happened to that camera because it never took one picture in the two weeks it was there. Stupid. While we were glassing from the overlook, some of the locals saw us and stopped to chit chat a bit. He told tall tales of big bucks and of course tended to contradict himself a bit in his stories. After we didn't see any deer, we took off.
North Dakota's archery season opened on August 30th at noon. I really didn't imagine that I would hunt opening evening, but through several events, I was able to. I met up with my friend Zach and we checked cameras in the mid-late afternoon which told us a few things:
1) There was a reasonable age structure in place.
2) The genetics were average to a bit above average.
3) There are enough acres of food-providing habitat to lead us to think that we may have only scratched the surface with the amount of deer and the caliber of bucks present. Time will tell.
We set up for the evening hunt in a bit of an observation spot. We tried to play the wind and again, just try to learn more about the property. On the northeast corner of this 160 acre bean field, there was a little bowl where the beans dropped out of sight from the main road. I'd say this bowl was almost 40 acres. So a huge portion of the beans were very secluded from any road noise and pressure. As we pulled along the two-track field road, we drove under some white oaks that were just starting to drop acorns. We saw a hog trail coming out of the beans to the fallen acorns. So we backed up and just sat on the edge of the woods within about 40 yards of the acorns and still up the ridge enough to overlook this bowl in case something big came out from somewhere else. As we were setting up, we had a yearling 6 point sneak right up behind us within 10 yards! Zach got some good footage and as it got later, we had another 6 point yearling sneak around us and circled back towards us. They both were very curious. Those were the only two deer we saw that evening. It was really cool to be hunting deer that you knew were in full velvet! Crazy. While we were pulling down the Wildview, we ran into another bowhunter who was sitting at 4:30 in 85 degree heat! I apologized for intruding and we got the camera and got out of there. So apparently I won't be the only one hunting out there. Hmmm.
Here's the top five deer that we found on the cameras:
1) 4+ year old 8 point with a split brow - should gross in the mid 130s.

2) 3 year old 8 with crooked brows (might call him cowboy) - gross 120s.

3) 3 year old 8 with short brows. A little wider - might gross 115.

4) 2 year old 9 with one intense brow! - gross 110.
5) 2 year old 8 with decent brows. - gross 110.

So that's a pretty good starting point. As the corn ripens and the beans yellow, I'll be moving my cameras for the following two weeks. I'll move them the next time I can get down there. So I'll have about 4 weeks in each spot. Should be interesting.