Scabby 8's Cousin

Checked a camera on saturday and pulled a few pics of a respectable buck. He has a lot of similarities to Scabby 8, but enough dissimilarities for me to believe that it's not the same deer. Yet. However, I am pretty sure I saw this buck in early June out in a pasture field.

Bear Insurance?

I'm getting so mad at these bears. It seems like I just get my camera into a great spot or I'm anticipating some great pictures and something just goes wrong. I went to my camera out west and I really had my hopes high to watch the progress of this droptine buck. I walked up to my camera and there was just a strap on the tree. Puzzled I went in for a closer look. There lay my camera, on the ground. A bear had knocked it right off the tree. I left the camera about 11 days ago and I was hoping that the assault happened fairly recently. I pulled the card and... nope, the same day I last checked it. July 12. So my camera sat on the ground for 11 days and then got rained on and now, to the best of my knowledge, does not work. I'm ticked!

My driving around was good. I didn't see any mature deer, but I'd like to park and sit by that same bean field and just wait to see what happens. I think there's a good 5 + bucks that would be worth watching in the beans. From now until archery season opens, I'm going to have a camera there. It will most definitely be worth it.

After that ordeal, I made my way to The Hill and checked my camera by the beans that so far, has only produced pictures of sled dogs and house cats. This time I was visited by three different bucks. All of which are making significant progress from last year. The first is a four year old. A neighboring friend picked up his sheds from last year, and I also identified him as a two year old. We'll call him SplitBrow.

The next is a three year old that is now a seven point. Last year he was an eight and I have both sides from him. As a two year old he had 18" mainbeams. For some reason, he decided not to grow a G3 on his right antler this year. Weird. I'm pretty sure we have him as a yearling too.

Lastly is a buck I called Chippy last year because it seemed like all the tips of his points were chipped. Not a really big buck, but he's three years old this year.

Thing's are picking up a bit, but I'm still looking for something that's at least 5.

Droptine?

I checked the camera that was just off one of the bean fields where Steph and I saw those five bucks on the 7th and got a few pictures. I didn't get the biggest racked buck in the field, but I did get the widest. Who's to say that this buck couldn't out grow the other, but he'd have to pack it on rather quickly. His nice and wide, and has good mass, but I'm thinking he won't get too tall. What I did notice was the start of a droptine on his left mainbeam. Although this drop might only get to about two inches or so, it's still pretty unique. So for now, we'll call him Dropper.

Dad and I took a drive the other night (12th) and saw quite a few deer. We were able to locate a buck that I already have two years of history with and he looks even more gnarly than before. His 2 year old rack he had a third main beam coming out of his left side and so he was pretty neat.Then the next year (2009), as a 3 year old, he straightened out a bit but his left brow was way up high and his mainbeam was still odd.This year, I can only describe him unless I try to get a camera out there to capture him. He's got a perfectly typical 5 point right side and his left is a killer. He's got a side split G2 and his brow now starts even higher - like on the inside of his G2 and G3. He'll probably gross in that 130-140 NT. I'd definitely shoot him. Stay tuned and I'll try get some kind of picture of him.

Beans!

On the 7th the bucks were coming out. I saw about 15 or more bucks. Most young, but three or four mature, out hitting the beans pretty hard. I keep telling myself to make notes of specific dates of when things are changing out in the woods. So, the beans are ready to go now. Time to start watching some fields. I'll check my cameras at the end of the week.

June's End

This spring and early summer have been considerably worse at locating mature deer. My only sightings have been while driving and there have only been two. It's sad that until now I've been keeping tabs on some scrubby bucks. I hope that Steph can shoot one of them this fall.

On Wednesday, my friend and I took off two a ridge out east and fought the bugs the whole way. I sunk in over my boots on the way out, and he did on the way back. To our disappointment, the camera was turned 90 degrees on the tree again. The worst part was that the mineral site was tore up! It seriously looked like a cattle pasture's watering whole - solid mud! Who knows how many pictures we missed. We moved the camera back and a bit higher to hopefully avoid those curious bears. Other than that, there's been lots of activity near the gravel pit and out in the more open grasslands. The bugs have been so bad, I bet that plays a role in the deer spending their time out in the open. Well here's some updates of the scrubby bucks.

The Plague of the Mosquitos

I don't know if Moses had mosquitos in the 7 plagues, but I'm sure he's chuckling now. These mosquitos are NUTS! In 27 years, I've never seen them this bad. Bug spray has almost NO effect on them. I ate at least a dozen yesterday. You might think I'm crazy to walk half a mile along a wheat field in order to set up a mineral site, and you'd probably be right, but to me it's worth it. To top it off, I got permission from another land owner to hunt his property. That makes two jackpots in one week. I've got a paradise in Malung, and now one up in Pinecreek. Between The Hill, The Refuge, and these two, there's no reason I shouldn't stike P&Y.

In my battle with the mosquitos, I did manage to pull 850 pictures of one camera, and some fairly dissatisfying photos off the other two cameras. I also got my first pictures of newborn twin fawns. All pretty exciting.

While driving up, I saw a nice wide buck (not WideWeb) out in a pasture that I couldn't recognize. So, that just means there's another buck to be watching for this season. After I got done with all my stuff I was heading home and I was seeing deer all over in the fields. I got to see the Inside Crab Claw buck at about 150 yards. He's gonna be really neat this year. He's going to have a Split G2 on his right and on his left he'll have a common-base point on his G2 and G3. Crab claws are sill very visible. There starting to point upwards a little more. He was out to his G4s already. So he's puttin' on the inches. Should gross 130 at least. I saw a couple other two or three year olds on my drive. It was a great day out in The Woods.

Gray Fox

Although the activity on the cameras is still not up to par with last year, I have been getting some unique pictures. I've been able to identify Mr. 140, the Pencil 8 (who's sheds I picked up), Chippy (I've decided to call him), and that's it for positive I.D.s at this point. I'll know it if/when we get a picture of the Clown. He should be astounding. Hopefully he's doing just fine. I got a couple pictures of a gray fox, which is fairly rare. I've never seen one as far as I know but I got three pictures of him near a gravel pit. On my way in to check the camera, I noticed a little burrow and now I'm wondering if it could be his.

Sadly, when I got to the camera I noticed that some of the LCD display was shorted out. The batteries that I put in when changed it last were questionable and now I'm regretting putting them in. I think one of the batteries was leaking acid. The funny part was that I still got 365 pictures in those 10 days. So it's like the camera fried right when I got there. Who knows. I need to call Cuddeback to see if it's still under warranty. So now I have two cameras down and I'm not liking it. Here are some of this weeks photos.