Our 2012 "Hit List"

Every year I always try to use the trail camera pictures I have gathered through the summer to come up with a "hit list" for us.  This year as been exceptionally good and we have 3 def. shooters that we are going to be looking for. 

Lets start with number 3:

I just call him the tall 8.  He is a perfect 8 point.  All his tines are very close in length.  He is a bit narrow but pretty tall. 

Here is a video capture of him:

Here is is 2 weeks ago hard horned and ready to meet our arrows:

Number 2 on the list I actually just found 2 days ago while going through my videos.  At first I had thought this was the big 8 point that you will see below but after looking at the video of him and watching it in slow motion I found he had 5 points on his left side and his right side g2 and g3 are different than the big 8.  So we are calling him the big 9.  After finding the video of him I started to look through my pictures and I found pictures of him as well.  When I compare him to the big 8 he is wider and the end of his main beams to curl in as much.

Here are a couple video captures from the video I have of him: The video was a bit bright but if you click the picture you might be able to see all 5 points on his left.

 

 The big difference is the g2 and g3 on his right side both are very long.  Compare that to the big 8 below. 

Here are a couple of still photos of him here you can see how wide he is. I had a discussion with my friend Ross about these pictures and we thought maybe this was the big 8 but the brows are different and you can see the mains just don't curl in like they do on the big 8.  

Last but certainly not least is the big 8.  He is just a stud of a buck.  Nice big heavy rack long tines good spread.  I have so many pictures and videos of this deer so it is really cool to have that.  It would be so awesome to put him on the ground having such a history with him.

Here are some video captures of him:  Notice the right side g2 and g3 like I mentioned above.  The g2 is about twice as long, this will make him easy to spot, that and the giant rack on his head.

 You can also see his left side is really stout. 

Here are some stills of him:

So there are the ones we know for sure.  I have some other pictures of really good deer I am just not sure if it is one of the 3 above or a different buck.  This is the best year by far as far as the potential deer we have to hunt.  Above are 3 mature big deer and usually I get 1 of those maximum on camera.  The key is going to be taking it slow and wait for the right times to go after them.  I am excited for what lies ahead this season.  Wish us luck and good luck to every one else out there as well. 

Hard Horned Bucks!!

Yesterday (Sat. Sept. 8) we had to put our dog of 12 years, Cooper down.  It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, much harder than I thought it would be.  I guess you don't realize how much of a part of your life they are until it comes time to make the decision to put them down.  He was part of our family vacations up north, numerous hunting trips, he was there while our boys grew up and many other memories.  We are going to miss him a lot.

So that was how I started my day.  Then in the afternoon we did drive down to Gobles to do some work around the farm.  We were unsure of going down but it really was good medicine, just to kind of get our minds off of things.  I was also able to finish clearing shooting lanes around the rest of my stands down there.  I know I am late but its been one of those summers.  

I was also hoping to get some pictures of some hard horned bucks this past week and I was not disappointed.

I believe I got two different shooters.  I will let you be the judge.

The first one I know for sure because his picture was so clear.

This is the buck I have video of 3-4 weeks ago bullying a smaller buck over my minerals.  He didn't really lose a lot when he lost his velvet.  

Here is his picture:

Here is the video:

Here is the picture of the deer I think is different its hard to tell because the picture got blurred.  It might big the big 8 that I have a ton of videos and pictures of.

Here is the picture I got:

Here one of the videos of the big 8


The reason I question if it is the same deer you can see in the picture the left side g2 looks taller you can see in the video the big 8's right side g2 is quite a bit taller than the right.  But with the picture being so blurry it really is hard to say.

I put some apples out in front of this camera to get them to stop so hopefully I get some better pictures this week.  The good news is both these deer are going to and coming from the sanctuary and using the treeline I planned on them using.  I actually have 4 stands covering different parts of this tree line.  So we will see.