The End Of The Growing Season

August turned out to be quite a bit better than July, but there's still some missing pieces to the puzzle. I've gotten several great pictures of PegLeg and Blacknose now, but still have seen no sign of Pencil, or the other big woods bucks - Bullwinkle, Chippy, and some of the other up and coming younger bucks.
I'm still not convinced that the new 6x5 is Twigs, and I for sure haven't gotten any pictures of HighRise yet. So there's a lot of work yet to do before archery opener to have a more complete 2012 Hitlist.
Yesterday, I put on many miles and rearranged cameras, set up a couple new ones, and cut some ash trees out for a nice shooting lane area near the river. I've been getting lots of bear pictures lately and it looks as if there will be plenty around this season. I may have to shoot some of them.
I've been tracking PegLeg's movements back and forth across the road and it seems like he should be in the right area come season opener. I just pray that I can get out and hunt him when the conditions are right. I'm hopeful that Stephanie can hop in the driver's seat and have the first crack at one of the many bucks that are visiting the island woods. We just need a south wind.
PegLeg's doing just great this year and although he was pretty much done growing by the first of August, he's going to gross around the mid-upper 140's.

Blacknose has been putting on a show once a week or so, but I'm not real positive where he calls home yet. That remains to be seen. He should gross around the high 130's if not 140".

These other two bucks are both three year olds. Either would be a shooter for Steph, so we'll be on alert for them, too.

The bear situation is one that I didn't really anticipate, but could be a good situation. There are plenty of bears so far and this year we have an odd acorn crop, despite the drought. Oaks that never produce acorns, suddenly have loads of them. Conversely, the oaks that usually carry plenty of acorns have none.

Donny and Tara are coming up on the opening day of bear season and we'll see if we can get after a bruin.

The Flip Of A Switch

I really only went to go switch batteries in a camera and it turned into the turning point of the summer! Of course it was pouring rain on me while I checked my cameras friday evening after a week of speaking at Bluewater. I didn't have the point and shoot camera to review them so I had to wait until I could get on the computer. Man was it a nice site to see. I popped in the memory card from the island woods that I just got some nice pictures of Black Nose and as I was scrolling through several pictures of a really weak three year old buck, BAM! There was PegLeg in all his 4 year old glory!

He came through around 2 in the morning on the morning of the 31st of July. He stopped back through after he was switching beds for the daytime. I got one more instance of him the morning before I checked the camera (August 3rd). Then to top it off, I went for a drive tonight to move cameras around and just happened to turn back up north although I wanted to keep driving east, but a car turned in front of me and I decided I didn't want to follow him. Boy am I glad I turned left! As soon as I rounded the corner I spotted a couple deer so I pulled over and glassed them with my new Nikon Monarchs. ANTLERS! I quietly tried to pull out and set up my spotting scope as these deer were just coming into the soybeans from the woods. I got it set up and locked on to the biggest one and sure enough - PegLeg again. He looked really impressive.

After trying to measure from trail cam pictures and now seeing him on the hoof, I think he'll gross in the mid 140s to maybe even 150". That'd be pretty sweet.
So that was the first memory card. There were also some other good pictures of Black Nose and two other weaker three year olds.

I put in the next card that had 1600 some pictures on it. I thought it had to be wind. Nope. There were two different yearling bucks that basically set up camp in front of the new Wildview. I did have it on a 3 shot burst mode, but even so, it was getting a little ridiculous. I was really hoping for a picture of the nice buck that disappeared on the 15th of June. Nothing.

The next card was on the other Wildview that I just moved back to the spot where my Cuddeback took on some water and that card had 76 images on it. Again, on a three picture burst mode, my hopes weren't very high. As I flew through the pictures, all of a sudden there was a nice rack. Picture after picture showed me a really nice buck that looked nothing like I had been imagining, but after closer inspection, there's no doubt that it's the buck that disappeared.

Thank you, Lord! Although it's one tiny piece in the puzzle, I still have no clue what direction he came from or where he has been this entire time. It's just so odd. So tonight I moved one of my Cuddeback Captures there now so that if he decides to stroll through again, I won't miss those higher quality images. He looks to be a clean 6x5 with good mass and character around his bases and brows.
The fourth card I checked was from the spot where I picked up Twigs' shed along with the Stud Yearling's antlers. That card had 154 images or so and there were two different two year old bucks that were in there plenty. One of them was no doubt the Stud Yearling from last year. He's now a tight massive little 10 pointer. The other buck is an 8 with an inside point of his left beam and he broke his brow tine off already this summer. So he's really an 8 again.

The camera in the Tweeten woods had dead batteries, so that was a fruitless week.
I now have a camera on the inside of the creek that should produce plenty of pictures. It's just a matter of what kind of deer are living over there. It sure would be a miracle to have Curly appear out of nowhere. I'm still waiting on Pencil to get his act together too. Hopefully August and these cooler temperatures will coax him out of the timber.

July's End

It's almost embarrassing how long it's been since I've written, but maybe even more disappointing is that I haven't picked up on many new deer. I've picked up on a few younger bucks, one of promise is Black Nose. I've mentioned him in the seasons past and so far he's living up to my predictions as a 3 year old. He should be grossing around 140. He looks to be in the same family line as Contender and maybe even pencil with the way his main beams come up and sweep at the end. He's pretty nice. Another dilemma buck.

As far as Pencil himself goes, I have had very minimal activity with him. Mom and Dad have two pictures of a mature buck - one at the later part of June and one in the beginning of July, but nothing that can make me 100% sure that it's even him. Neither photo show the bucks brow tines and right now, that is the give away with Pencil. This year he has one split brow and one bladed brow.

I was able to watch him for about 5-10 minutes one night in the middle of June. He had just started working on his G2s. I set up a camera in the Tweeten woods assuming that's where I'd get some better quality pictures of him more fully developed, but that has not been true either. Apparently, he's been in the big woods this entire time. Lessons Learned: 1) When bucks reach a more mature status (5+), their core area shrinks quite drastically. The same was true last fall with Splitbrow. Scabby 9 was picked up on two cameras last summer as either a 5 or 6 year old and was shot between the two cameras on the morning of November 11th.  2) On a year where the mosquitos are minimal, there is less urgency to evacuate the timber. I'm sure that by the end of summer we'll lock on to him and get a better idea of what he'll score, etc.
The biggest disappointment of the summer so far is this buck that I had picked up on the river. I had thought that he was Twigs and he still might be, but the issue is that the buck disappeared on June 15th.

I was getting pictures every couple days of him and he was showing some very impressive progress. It's been a month and a half and I'm positive that this buck would be around 150 at this point. I have moved cameras around in an attempt to pick up on his whereabouts, but I have not been successful. Hopefully by the time I return home, he'll pop up.

There were more bucks that were coming in as well, that have all vanished. Hopefully I see more of them this fall.

I got a few pictures on the fence line on the west edge of the swamp of a decent wide buck in the end of June. Not positive what deer he is, but my thought is that he's the nice wide 9 point that was a two year old last year. I pulled that camera down and moved it back to the river. I had another issue with the same camera that had water pour out of it in the beginning of June. Same thing happened. So right now, I'm one camera down.
The mineral site in the gravel pit actually produced quite a few bucks with no one in particular spending lots of time nearby. Here were some of them:
A nicer 4 year old that I've been seeing there the last two seasons:

And a couple of 3 year olds that we could likely see during the rut:

I'm contemplating trying out the field scan mode over the bean field, just to see what I'm missing. However, the deer aren't just coming out at dark. They're coming out after dark. We'll see how I can utilize that camera differently this year. Lastly are the bucks that I am hoping to find this summer: PegLeg, Chippy, Bullwinkle, HighRise, Twigs, and others. We set up some new spots to try and locate some of these deer, but like I said, older bucks' home ranges shrink up (especially during the summer and early fall. It's not going to be easy to just stumble upend these more mature deer. Finding food sources and using them to our advantage will help, but some bucks are just too cautious to be wandering out in the open. My hopes are high for August.