Still Holding

Today is January 22nd and very few bucks have shed yet. I would guess that by the end of the month, that would change pretty significantly. There have been a few yearlings and maybe some unidentified two year olds that have shed, but besides Pencil, the only buck that has shed is a young buck we're calling TurkeyFoot. He just has a common base G2. Odds are, he won't have it next year. Anyway, he dropped his normal side. A person should be able to see lots of new bucks drop in the next week or so.
The deer are still heading out to the Soybeans. I really should check out some of the other spots that I've seen lots of deer tracks. Depending on the other people, there may be an antler or two just laying out in the open.
The prized antlers remaining are really the three year old 9 point, and a few two year olds. Not much too be thrilled about.

One Season Ends And Another Begins - Let 'Em Shed!

Well Auld Lang Syne came and went. New Years Day is upon us - 2014. I guess I didn't kill any monster deer this year. I did learn a lot of lessons in the woods that nobody can take away from me. I think the most important lesson was that there are preferred areas for mature bucks and that a new buck can move in and take over at any time. Although I never was able to confirm it, there was rumor of a giant that was spotted in a bean field this late August. A clean 10 that supposedly had 12-14" G2s. We'll see. What we do know is that Blacknose was shot at least once and that Pencil slipped through the cracks once again.
He's the first buck to have shed this year - sometime between December 27th and 28th, he dropped his left side. I have not confirmed how long he carried his right. He for sure still had his right side still attached at 4:44am on December 29th. I imagine that as he bed down that early morning. His right antler will be very near his bed. In fact, the morning of the 28th we had a lot of blowing snow (probably 1.5") and when Pencil came into the camera on the 28th at 9:44pm, he had snow on his forehead and a bloody pedicle.

I would bet that after being snowed on all day, he got up, shook the snow off, and POP goes the antler. So hopefully these two antlers are in the same little bedding area and I can find it. Zach and I were getting pretty close as we walked through some heavier brush. It hasn't snowed since, so basically any track thats fresh could be the best bet. We'll have to get back up in there, maybe Friday the 3rd.

Winter Solstice

As we approach the shortest day of the year, it's been kind of a head scratching late season. The deer seem to be scattered, and it's becoming more and more clear just how low the deer numbers are. We've also had some of the coldest weather we've had this early in a long long time. We've probably had 3 weeks of below zero temperatures and about 12" of snow to boot. What this has done is it has slowly pushed the deer out of the grasses and farm country and up into the northwoods. That's good for us, but with this new endeavor of trapping timberwolves, I haven't been paying as much attention to getting good pictures of deer in this late season. That's changing now as the wolf quota is 57 out of 89 as of today. We've got a week maybe two at the most to get something in the traps. It's already been a roller coaster with our bait sites. I did manage to snare one coyote - my first animal I've ever trapped. We hadn't had a bird or hardly a thing for tracks at our farther bait site, so we decided to pull the pin on that one. The day we went out to pull all the traps, there was a yote all tangled up in the brush. We proceeded to pull the traps and a few pieces of carcass in hopes of freshening up the closer bait site.
On monday morning, the 9th of December, we saw three fresh sets of wolf tracks coming into our bait site on the minimum maintenance road. Sure enough, from the truck I couldn't see my snare in the binoculars. I could see the brace wire, but nothing else. As we approached the tree, the site was demolished and there was a little blood on the ground and by the tree, but no wolf. We eventually picked up his running track where he drug brush and junk away from the site. After tracking him for a little while, it was just the snare that was hitting the snow on the right side of his track. SO CLOSE!! I was disgusted. Since then, we haven't had any fresh tracks in there. I'm hoping that they were not the only wolves to visit that area. As the deer are migrating east and north, we're coincidentally seeing less predator tracks. Maybe thats a coincidence. Maybe not. We'll stick it out in hopes of trapping a Twolf.

Today I placed four cameras out trying to get some coverage on the standing soybeans sw of the Tweeten woods.  I'm excited to see what comes through that area. I mostly want to know if Pencil is still holding his antlers. He should be. Then if I can capture him repeatedly, I'll know when to start the search for his antlers. I should back one camera deeper into the woods in hopes to pinpoint his bed. I've got a good hunch.