I am about a month to six weeks behind my normal whitetail summer routine. The wife and I adopted a lil guy from Hong Hong in early July. He is 3 and will be 4 in October and he was born with CP. So, he has stolen our hearts and most of our free time, but that is ok. Today I had the chance to sneak out to my two nearest stands in a wood made up of some old river bottom pastures. When I say old, I mean no cows in like 50 years. So the old growth is very big. I park in a local park and walk over a levee that keeps flood waters off the local park grounds. Just off the levee is a small edge of think/dense woods, that quickly open up to the old growth river bottoms. I was half way down the levee when something caught my eye. Off to the south 30-40 yards were turkeys (two Jakes and a Tom). Big news for me, I have never seen a turkey in this area or even on this side of the river....ever! I was sporting my newest red Blackhawks t-shirt and was surprised at how close I was able to get before they saw or heard me. When I was only 20-25 yards away, they turned and waddled off to the south into some thicker woods. As they left the area, I stopped watching my feet and watched them. Instantly, I stepped on a branch and made a loud crack! Not 15 yards to the east of me on the levee is a 8 point buck, maybe in the yearling class (approaching 1.5). He bolts to the southwest into a thicker bedding area that I never go into. I check around the area and find a tree that will look to the northeast and catch much of this bottom area, including where the buck was and where the turkeys were. This are can be a shallow backwater area in very wet times, so there were dozens of different tracks in the area. So I will be posting every pic I get from this camera on this tread. I walked over to a stand I have hung for a hard south or southwest wind, because it blows my scent over the river. I took a 9 pointer from this stand two seasons ago. I was almost to this stand, thinking my noise had cleared the area. Not ten yards from my riverside tree is doe who had bedded down for a mid-day nap. I had not been in this woods since the Rut ended last November, so this was very exciting to me. I will do my best to update this thread with anything of interest that I find on the cam. I will most likely switch cards a week from today. I have ran into some great bucks every RUT since I started hunting this ground around 2010.
Yes! His right side (which was quite large) had a very good sized drop tine. Long story, but a larger, older 4 point (with long main beams) a deer I call "Fork head" for many reasons, ran up ahead of this beast and his lady friend and stopped under my stand. There was a bit of a stand off, then old Forkhead figures out something is up and blows big time. That is when I put the bow down and grabbed the camera and got what I could, as that stud walked off with his lady. I never wanted to waste a tag on "forkhead" but if he shows up on my trailcam, I just might target him out of revenge (and to take his genetics away).
Don't know if your'e from the same area, but looks very similar http://forums.bowhunting.com/showthread.php/74050-Just-worthy-of-being-shared
FEB, I think that other one is a much better deer. He is a good 90-120 miles south of here. But thanks for sharing! That is a real beast!
Yea, I agree. Yours looks like his little brother though. Stronger right side with the matching drop and all. No sightings of yours this year? If he survived, he may be right up there. Good luck!
I have no knowledge of his death and I just put the trailcam up. The river bottom woods goes on for mile after mile. Many of these bucks don't live here, but travel through this area in the rut. A few do live year round, but they are not normally giants. This buck, I have only seen twice, on Nov. 7th and 8th last fall. Buckhead, this guy I have seen for the last three years. He has been a messed up, forked-4 point every time. When he was 1.5, his right side was a twisted fork, at 2.5 he was tall and thin fork. Last year he was both tall and wide. If he comes in range again, he will be dead.
Ok, so I was going to wait until Saturday morning to sneak down there and pull the card, but I just couldn't wait. As I was walking the levee to the area, I came up on a doe who was getting a drink out of the third pond. She let me get fairly close, but as I switched the camera on my phone from video to picture mode, she bounded up the levee and into the dense brush. I bulled the card and saw 32 pictures and was pumped. From Saturday am, till Wednesday was a fairly short time for me to get 32 pics. I got a few of the buck I bumped and he is not as good as I thought he was. Not the beast or even "forkhead". I got several blurry pics of the doe and a few of a fawn. These are the best I pulled:
a little background. the camera is looking to the east/northeast and looking at the levee, across the dry backwater area where the deer are.
I can stop thinking about what I would do to this area if I owned it. I could take out some trees and get sun to the ground. Put in some food plots. The area has not really been touched in 30-40 years. The only thing was the levee and ponds were built and fenced. The growth of the tree has ripped out the fences. The flood waters have washed away the old pasture fences. It is literally untouched other than me a two other hunters. Those hunters don't hunt the areas that I do.
Going to sneak out in the morning and switch out the memory cards. Just hoping I have something cool on the camera this time
Need a little help. I am using a cheap Moultire, not sure of the model, it was like a $120 maybe a 4 years ago? I don't know what the best settings would be, but I am getting a bunch of blurry pics? If you can help, please send me some tips. I have a buck in a pic and he seems to be tall? Maybe "Forkhead"? I used my lap-tops picture tune-up program and tried to find the best, this is all I got:
Made a trip into the woods on my mountain bike, nothing special to see here. Just a dork and some does/fawns and a buck in the background.
Got some Tink's Scrape Bombs and I will create a mock scrape line using some Maple trees. I also have a Tink"s Power Scrape spray bottle. So I think I will be moving this camera to where the best mock scrape will be. Then see what is hitting there
Hunted this morning, freshened my mock scrapes and pulled my cards. This area is a buck haven when the rut comes and I hope to show you that next month. But for now, does and small bucks. I think this one is a 1 and 1/2 year old twin. One is a 7 pointer and the other is an 8 pointer. I have a video I will try to post soon
[video]https://drive.google.com/a/rochester3a.net/file/d/0B3iRrK2Ervs3X1dkSnM2TkpUcjV2XzJZQllIaXNobDctQXdz/view?usp=sharing[/video] Here is the video of those twin Bucks from Saturday Morning
