The Dilemma Named "Contender"

What do you do when a stud shows up on camera only to realize that he's a buck you nicknamed Contender a year ago because of all his potential as a two year old ten point? I've told myself to commit to only harvesting bucks if they are 4 1/2 years or older. This is not easy. It's not easy to do anywhere let alone public land. So the first picture I got of Contender was last summer near the same area I'm getting pictures of him now. He came in only one or two times that whole month and then disappeared until November. A neighbor sent me a picture of him in October, so I'm pretty sure I know where he was spending his time between August 28th and November 7th.

Then after the rut, he moved a little ways north, but that was because of a standing bean field. Outside of that relatively small range, he did take two excursions, one on the 15th of November and the second in early December northeast into the swamp up by the bus.

Otherwise, his range was fairly small.

Looking at his pictures and the formation of his rack, it looked like he left plenty of room between his G4 and the tip of his main beam. I told dad that I thought he could be a 12 next year. Well, he almost did. He's now a great looking 11 with a small sticker on his right G2.

The dilemma comes in with him only being 3 1/2 years old. He'll gross in the 140s. The problem is that anybody else who sees him during rifle season won't think twice about shooting him. This is the type of deer that could easily be in the 160s as a 4 year old and net Boone by the time he's 5. This is a breeder buck. Shooting him this year not only shortchanges his individual potential, but it takes him out of the gene pool. We don't want that. But as I look at pictures of him I'm forced to ask myself, "Could you really let him walk?" I know that I have to. I can't be the reason he can't breed.
Other than that, pictures haven't really been that great. There is another stud of a young deer that I just knew would be an up-and-comer. Not sure if I'm going to call him Black Nose or what because he's got a dark muzzle and he was very distinguishable as a yearling and now he's a nice 110" 8 as a 2 year old.

I keep hoping for something big, but it's just not happening. Scabby 10 has turned into Scabby 9 and has been a regular in the Tweeten woods.

The thing that blows my mind was that last year I got pictures of 8 different bucks 3 or older in that woods: Splitbrow, Pencil, Chippy, Mr. 140 (one pic), Scabby 10, Mom's buck, Wide Heavy 8, and even Benji's buck. This year has been way different. I've only gotten two different bucks that are 3 or older: Scabby 9 and the Wide Heavy 8 (which could easily be a 9 or 10). There is so much food, the deer don't have to move very far to get what they need. The only scarce thing right now is water. I need to get a camera back on the creek somewhere.
I moved my camera from Nordvall's back to my permanent stand. Out of literally thousands of pictures at Nordvall's I got only one buck and he was a yearling. Pitiful. So since it's been up in the spruce, I've got two different two year olds that have been coming in fairly regular. One is another great up-and-comer for The Hill. He's a ten with good potential. He looks to be a descendant of Splitbrow or even Mr. 140.

Getting Warmer

Although my hopes were as high as the sky for this next round of checking trail cameras, the results were somewhat disappointing. I got some decent bucks, but I guess I thought I'd get the same bucks from the year before in the same areas, which did not happen. Not only that, but as I feared, the growth on these bucks has been behind and they have appeared to only put on more mass. I'd say a 5-10% increase this summer versus last years 15-25%. I can live with that. The most difficult so far is that I have no pictures of a lot of the bucks that I thought I might see: Mr. 140, Splitbrow, Chippy, Curly, Skyscraper, Bullwinkle, etc. I know there is a good two and a half weeks of time to get pictures before the beans die out and they shed velvet, but it's just surprising that none of these have shown their faces. Well, I take that back. One chose to only show his face after a bear took a swat at my camera:

The strategy has been good, I'm getting pictures of bucks. Here's Scabby 10:

And the Wide Heavy 8:

I finally got pictures of Pencil:

I also have pictures of Whitey, who is 4 this year, and it looks like he doesn't want to share:

And a few nice three year olds. Contender blew into a giant 6x5:

PegLeg:

Junky Brewster:

So as you can see, I've got plenty of pictures, just not of the bucks I'm really excited to see. You never know, Curly didn't show up until the end of August last year. And I only got one series of pictures of Skyscraper too. It could still happen. Just have to keep batteries fresh. The soybeans got crotch-high, which was way higher than I thought they would. We had a good growing season after June got over with. The camera I've had by the top of the hill has not produced squat. Nearly 1000 pictures and I only got 1 buck - a yearling fork. What is that all about? I think I'll move it back to my permanent stand.

Velvetine Rabbit...here we come!

I made it out into the woods today and had a whole list of things to do, from hanging stands to moving cameras. Steph was at home finishing up her last week's worth of homework for her Master of Science in  Special Education. I'm so proud of her. She's put in so much hard work to earn it. She's very much looking forward to August and her month of freedom!
So this morning I had Zach Johnson's help and that was much appreciated, as I tried to film some of the parts of the day for Midwest Whitetail - Minnesota. We started off the morning by taking down the camera I had north of Pete's that I set up on that new mineral lick. As we got to the camera I noticed that it was unmistably crooked on the tree from the swat of a bear. It only had a couple pictures on it. I know that once deer start using that area more this fall, they're put it into their memory for next spring. We took that camera down and put it up to the east of my permanent stand in an attempt to catch deer heading to and from their beds as they use the soybeans out by the road. We put up a stand on the oak ridge for early season hoping to have Steph shoot one of the does that frequent that area in the morning. It looked great up in the tree. I'm super pumped for a morning with a south wind. After that we drove to the gravel pit and took that camera down, which had over 600 pictures on it. Nothing magnificent. Just a few young bucks:

We moved that camera down the hill and across the soybeans on the east side of the road. I am very pumped about this spot. I think that by the end of August, I will have shooter or two on that camera. After that, we headed out to the south end of everything. The camera in the Tweeten Island's batteries were dead after about 17 pictures. So that sucked. We moved on and drove out to the south point near John's pond and checked that camera, which had 40 some photos with a decent two year old on it. We cleared a few branches for a shooting lane. We ran into the landowner out there. He talked about wanting to set up a few more stands out on his west end. It kind of sounded like he was unsure if he wanted me in there bowhunting this fall, which would really bite the big one. I'm hopeful that he'll still allow it if he knows it's just me. Hopefully. After that, we drove over to the John's Island and sure enough, the camera was sideways on the tree. I don't know what's a worse feeling, knowing a bear is messing with me, or not knowing at what point during the 16 days he spun the camera. Turns out I still got some pictures of a decent up-and-comer:

Then we headed back to the cabin to eat some sausage that mom boiled. On our way out, I tried using some pre-orbital gland on some licking branches at the top of the hill, where there's been a scrape for several years. I read about it in an article of Deer & Deer Hunting. It's bottled in the hills of West Virginia by a company called Smokey's Deer Lure and he has a lot more scents available. I'm curious to use this in a month or so and again in October.
The last errand we ran was to go get Zach's camera from a piece of private land up near the Pinecreek International Airport and set it up in a spot that we'll hopefully get some pictures of the same bachelor group as last August. Curly, Whitey, Contender, possibly Skyscraper and a few other up-and-comers should show themselves in a few weeks. The only downside to this is that Zach's camera is an older Moultrie and it the photo quality is significantly poorer than the Cuddebacks I'm used to.
All in all it was a great day. We weren't able to hang the two stands and set up the ground blind like I wanted to, but I'm sure there will be time for that yet. The deer will definitely hit these mineral sites in the next three weeks. I can't wait to see who shows up. The beans are also looking fabulous!

We also saw the biggest spider I've ever seen up here. The body was bigger than the size of a quarter. For real. I learned that it is known as a "Feather Legged Spider".