Not seeing bucks on my trail cams has been driving me insane. So last week on a hunch I moved one of my cameras to the far corner of my property where there is a pond and a big oak grove on the back side of my sanctuary area, and found this guy again. I'm thinking he is 3 years old judging by body size. Not the biggest rack, but i have 2 RI buck tags and this guy would look nice wearing one around his antlers. Yes he is bedding down in front of the camera....LOL!!! Again, this is in an OPEN oak grove with red oaks and white oaks... the dates and times are correct. i have a few hundred pics of various doe and a few spikes at all times of the day going through here this past week. daytime pics of this buck as well, just blurry so i didnt post it. there are tracks and droppings everywhere through here. There is an old logging trail i access this area with so I can get in there relatively quiet, and not disturbing much. Here's the aerial. The pond is the black rectangle (old cranberry bog) the brown line is the cart trail the red circle is the oak grove the blue circle is my house. I'm thinking of hitting this area up saturday morning. do you think i should? or is it to invasive? This would go against my initial plan/rule of only hunting the perimeter of my property.....but......i want to kill him.
Right now when oak trees are dropping their acorns, this is where you gotta hunt em. Deer will bypass beautiful food plots to get at those acorns. Make sure your wind is perfect to hunt it and you should be ok. Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
If you want to tag him, this is a good opportunity. As long as you have good entry and exit routes, that deer is very killable. I should've made a move on a buck last year when the time was right and I was too afraid to mess it up. Now he and I are playing the same game again. This year I won't wait so long.
If you can get in there quietly, without distubing anything - I say go for it. If I had a deer on camera (mine disappeared!) - I'd be all for it; especially if you have more than just him on the camera. That must be a good deer trail and maybe an even bigger boy will be in there.
Why make rules if you aren't going to follow them when things get dicey? Good way to get mad at yourself for good reason, .
I like to rotate properties and not apply pressure unless it is the right time of year or I have multiple day pics or sightings. Plus, I think you are talking about a property that you own and could save. One daytime pic of a buck eating acorns would not put me in that mode.
I guess if that's your property you could always hunt elsewhere until you have substantial proof that he's up and moving during daylight hours but I couldn't imagine bucks doing much different anywhere else. How many other places do you have to hunt?
It's at the far corner of my property on the opposite side of the sanctuary. I'm confident i can get in there quietly on the logging trail. I have quite a few pics of him during the daylight like i mentioned, they are just blurry so I didn't post them. I'm leaning towards going for it!
I think you just answered your own question, Get It Done! I think the pond could be the ticket. I wouldn't set up right on top of it, I like to keep my distance from watering holes. But find out when he uses it and how he gets there.
If your gonna try it I'd hunt the evenings. Don't know about your property but on mine the deer are on the acorns before sun up and if I tried to get in there in the mornings I just bump too many to make it worthwhile.
Acorns = dead deer. Opportunity only knocks once and I would get after him knowing where he is versus wait and have him pulled away by a hot doe. Once chasing starts he might get killed a mile or two from where he is now.
