A ton of year old bucks

The action in the woods the last couple of weeks has been great.  I have seen and passed up more bucks this year than I have ever before.  Its been a blast seeing so many bucks and the fact that there are a lot of different bucks.  Hopefully its a matter of time before a good shooter shows up.  This coming week has historically been a good week for us with getting cracks at big bucks so we will see what happens.  

Here are some videos from this past weekend of a couple year old bucks that I had great encounters with.

This one is at my Mom's.  Its a really good looking 6 point that should be a great deer in a year or two.(if he makes it.

Here is the video of the hunt.

Here is a trail camera video of him.  

Here is a video of a 4-5 point that I passed at my brother in laws.  

Like I said its been a blast having all of these encounters and I am not going to complain about this at all.  We will keep at it, keep hunting smart and I really feel like its just a matter of time.

2013 Season Update

I've been meaning to post an update on here of how our season is going.  Julie and I have been hunting a handful of times at both places, I don't like to overdue it in October so I like to keep a good gap in between sits and always hunt safe as far as wind.  Julie has been super busy and has only made it out a couple times and hasn't seen anything yet.  I told her last night she is reminding me of myself last year, when I didn't see deer at all but it all worked out pretty good.

Myself I am having quite a good season.  I've been hunting at my moms more than my brother in law's due.  They are still open down there so its been tough to hunt there.  I've been hunting on Friday mornings mainly and I have put in 3 friday morning sits.  All three I've seen bucks.  In fact I've seen 7-8 different bucks.  Nothing huge all mostly year old bucks, 3 different 8pts(all of which I've passed) and some smaller ones.  They have even been chasing and bumping does around so its been a lot of fun just watching that.

Then came last night (Sunday Oct. 27) I got a chance to try an evening sit there so I took it.  The weather was a little warm (mid 50's) and it was quite windy but it was forcast to calm down by the evening and cool down plus it was a S,SW wind and my spot there works perfect for that wind.  I killed my 10pt in 2010 same wind same stand.

One of the best things I feel about hunting and especially bow hunting is all the extra things you get to see.  You never know what you will see when you go into the woods and this time was no different.  I had a huge flock of turkeys come by me.  I guessed around 30 birds, mostly young ones from this past spring.

Here is the video of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtYuN_BsUCI

I watched them as they worked their way behind me and about 100 yards to my right.  Then I hear another noise and see a red fox right behind me.  He ran off behind me but you could tell he was hunting those turkeys.  Sure enough 5 minutes later the woods explodes with turkeys flying into the trees, cackling and running around.  It was pretty neat to see a fox doing this, so chalk that up to another experience I won't forget.

So at this point I am thinking no way will I see a deer not with all this noise and commotion going on.  I had turkeys in the trees above me flying around trying to get settled in for the night and sure enough here come two does.  I was able to get a shot off at 25 yds double lunged her and she only went about 100 yds.  She is a nice mature deer.  This was the same doe that had picked me out of the tree 2 weeks ago and let the entire woods know I was there and she was about to do the same thing so that made shooting her a little easier as well.  Does have actually been my Achilles heal lately, either I have blown the shots, they have busted me or I talked myself out of shooting them, so it actually felt really good to get it done and make a great shot on her also.  I feel very strongly that a big mature doe is just as hard if not harder to kill than a big buck.

Here are some pictures:



So that does it for me as far as does go.  I don't think I will shoot any more this year.  I am hoping to find a bigger buck at my mom's her property has been getting a ton of attention from the younger bucks so I hope there is a bigger buck in there.  I did find some promising sign and set up a camera so we will see.  I am giving both properties about a week break so next time we hunt it will be November and who knows what will happen.

Got my mount back from my 9pt I shot last year.

Like the title says I was able to get my mount back yesterday.  It seems like such a long time, almost a year.  I was really happy though.  I had her do a semi aggressive pose (notice the ears are back) because he was just a bad mean looking buck.  When he came in he had a walk like he owned the place and I could just tell he was the dominent buck in the area.  In fact the big 9pt I have been dreaming and obsessing about had a busted g3 last winter and it just makes me wonder if this buck was the culprit.  Also, when this buck was gone that big 9pt started showing up much more often and has stuck around thus all the summertime photos and videos.  So I am thinking he took this bucks place.  I hope!! 
The other feature I wanted to show off was his body size and his neck and I really think she did a great job doing that.  I should put a picture up with this deer next to the 10pt I shot in 2010 at my mom's.  The size difference between a 2 year old and this 3 year old deer is unreal.  Its hard to imagine but the big 9pt we are after right now is one year older and has about 20-25 more inches of antler, maybe more, thus the obsession with getting a crack at that deer. 

Its official he is a Giant

Here are the latest picture and a video of the Wide 9pt I am now obsessing about.  He has turned into an absolute stud.  Maybe even a Booner.

Here is a link to the video.

http://s863.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0063_zps5dac0fc3.mp4.html

Here is a picture

The good news I am getting some good info from these videos and pictures and I am really narrowing down where he is living.  The other good news is that he is spending a lot of time on the property.

Also, here is a picture of my food plot I planted 3 weeks ago.  Its looking good.

Summer Fishing

Jacob and Nathan are quickly becoming very good fisherman.  It has been a great summer watching them learn how to use certain baits and different kinds of rod and reels.  Nathan has got the casting thing down with no practice he just did it right out of the gate and it didn't take him long at all to catch a fish on his own.  Jacob has been improving and catching some great fish this summer.  I can see the fire in his eyes that he just loves it and wants to go every day.  Luckily our new house is so close to my Grandpa's house.  I've also started to talk to Jacob about going to Canada and I can tell he would absolultley love it.  So maybe in the near future we can make that happen.  Why do I see a fishing boat in our future as well?

It has made me so proud to watch them this summer.  Here are some pictures of them from this summer.
 

"The Wide 9pt"

My previous post I talked about a big buck and showed pictures from last year and this year.  Well here are some more pictures and videos of him.  He is an absolute stud of a buck and the biggest buck we have seen down there yet.

I know I preach it all the time but passing smaller bucks works and the proof is in the pudding.  Even on smaller parcels of land.

Here are links to the videos.

http://s863.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0056_zpsd24b63a0.mp4.html

http://s863.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0063_zps119b195f.mp4.html

http://s863.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0042_zpsc213f31f.mp4.html

Here is a great picture of him with a little year old buck.  Look at the difference its unreal especially when you look at body size and obviously antlers.

First Check = 2 shooter bucks

Yes I know its July.  Yes I know I usually have my cameras out around Memorial Day but this year has been exceptionally busy for our family so I did not get my cameras out until July 5th this year.  Well I got to check them this past Friday.  I went to the farm to do some clearing of shooting lanes but more than anything to cut up some storm damage trees.  They had a really bad storm about 3 weeks ago and lost some big trees, a lot of Oaks and Cherries and a lot of them snapped off so it was a pretty impressive wind.

So anyway, I know it had only been a week but I was in the woods anyway so I pulled my cards and was very pleasantly surprised.  If you look back at posts from last year especially later you will see posts about a Wide 9pt buck.  I got video of him in January so I was really excited to see he had made it.  More than anything I've been really curious if he would be around this summer.  Well its a little early but from what I see he stayed around.  Here are a set of pictures I got of him.

Here are pics from him last year in early August.  I put him as a 3.5 year old last year so 4 year old this year.  To me it looks like he put on more width, more overall mass, his mains are starting to curl in and he should put more tine length.  The next month or so should be interesting if he keeps showing up.

Here are links to videos of him and a new buck that is a main frame 8pt with split brows.

The first ones you can see how big the 9pt really is when with the 8pt.
http://s863.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0003_zps4c09d956.mp4.html

Here the split brow buck is picking the wrong fight
http://s863.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0007_zps2962f36c.mp4.html

Here is another of those two
http://s863.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0008_zps8ddc15a6.mp4.html

Now just so the spit 8 doesn't always look like the smaller buck here he is with a 1.5 old buck.  Or a perfect example of a shooter vs a non-shooter
http://s863.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0011_zps5dc150af.mp4.html

And one more for good measure
http://s863.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0012_zps55efe144.mp4.html

So you can see we are pretty excited. 

Here is a video of Coyote Pup.  I would shoot it if I saw it but they are cute non-the-less.  I have another video of 2 of them wrestling but it won't download.

http://s863.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0019_zps29bc1d2e.mp4.html

2012 Recap and 2013 Preview

I usually write this post early in the new year but its been a pretty hectic new year already.  Having sold our new house and moving into a new one, that pretty much ate up the first 2 months of the year.  Anyway, I have been able to run my camera over some different minerals and have been getting some great videos.  In fact we just went down a week ago and I changed batteries, sd card and put out a new block for them to munch on.  I have been using this block from Big and J and boy am I impressed.  It really attracts them but it also last a little longer than the bag of minerals.  You can get a good 4-5 weeks out of one and that is with it getting hit 3-4 times a day by multiple deer.

So 2012 was a challenging year.  Somehow, I personally had one of my worst hunting seasons and my best hunting season at the same time.  Yes I was able to harvest a dandy buck but the month and a half leading up to it were tough.  The deer numbers were way down where I hunt and I had numerous sittings where I saw zero deer.  In fact, I saw one deer all the way until the evening before I shot my buck.  3 years ago I would of seen close to 100 deer in that same time frame.  So what caused it?  I think its a combination of things.  One, EHD, I am pretty positive we lost a good amount of deer to this disease.  Two is the growing amount of "business" on the farm during Sept and Oct.  Its good because my brother in law is doing great and getting busier but it does affect the deer with all the extra activity during those months.  So that is why this year we did not add to that business and held off on hunting until the end of Oct.  This year(2013) we might wait until the first week of Nov.  Since we started hunting down there 5 years ago, every single mature buck encounter from the stand has been from the last week of Oct to the middle of Nov.  So it only makes sense to wait until that prime time and not put any unnecesary pressure on any of the stands until that majic 3-4 weeks. 

One big thing I believe I learned this year is that this property is still attractive to these bucks but they are not living there for the most part.  It seems to be more of transition area between bedding and food, which is why I believe the big bucks show up more frequently during this time frame.  This is when they are scent checking for the does that are using it to move from bed to food and visa versa.  This is also when you get bucks that don't frequent the property often but the do come in to check for the ladys.  Perfect example of this is the deer I shot.  I had zero pictures of him.  Julie believes to have missed him the last week of Oct.  Those were the only times we saw him.  Interesting both times it was in the morning, in the same area, and S to SE wind.  Another perfect example of one of these "traveling" bucks is a big 8pt that showed up Halloween night on camera.  Below is the link to the video.  I never saw this deer before or after just this one time.  You can see in the video he was either fighting, picking a fight or dogging a doe.  One of the coolest videos I have ever gotten. (note the deer running across the back about a quarter through)

 In case the one above doesn't work below is the link.

http://s863.beta.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0003_zps7ddc902b.mp4.html

Another big thing I learned is mornings have become the time to hunt down there.  It used to be evenings but that has changed.  Why?  Again not to sound like a broken record but its pressure.  These deer are arriving later in the night so in the mornings we are still catching them as they make their way from their food and night time beds to their daytime beds.  Honestly if you see a deer at night there its going to be in the last 10 minutes of light.  The one spot that should be good at night which is the SE corner of the property hasn't been and I believe its because I am hunting it on the wrong wind, so I am going to move my stand to allow me to hunt that spot with N, NW, NE winds and we will see if that makes a difference.  This spot is adjacent to a large bedding area and its a great natural funnel so there is no reason it shouldn't be good.

So 2013, what do I expect, what are my plans?  I expect 2013 will be a little light again as far as deer numbers go, with EHD last year and a very tough winter I think it will keep the numbers down.  However, I know for sure that a very nice buck made it already so I do expect to see some more big bucks this summer like last year and hopefully we can tag another one.

With my brother in law's permission I really would like to try a food plot down there this year.  I am glad I didn't last year because with the drought it would of died anyway.  My plan is the NE corner, same corner we regularly see these big bucks traveling.  I don't know if it will help a ton but it surely won't hurt to plant one. 

Otherwise, my plan will remain very similar to last.  We will lay low until late Oct. and hopefully that will yield the same results as this past year.

"The Wide 9"

I went down to the farm on Saturday the 12th and was able to check my trail camera and also replenish the attractants in front of it.  Just like last year I moved my camera into the pine trees, an area of overgrown firs and spruce that really holds deer during the winter months, especially if it snows.  Like last year I used an attractant in front of the camera, not only to get them to stop but to keep them coming and hopefully keep them coming all year.  I moved the camera on New Years and when I went to buy some attractants they didn't have what I wanted so I tried some new ones.  One was an apple flavored mineral mix and the other was accorn.  I put them in seperate piles just so I could see how each did.  It was amazing every video of deer, rabbits, raccon, and even the farm cat has them eating the accorn mix or at least checking it out.  There are a couple of videos where the deer will check the apple mix but hardly touch it.  The accorn mix was gone when I got there Saturday.  I had over 150 videos in 2 weeks.  So I had another new product this time its a block of the mix I really like but formed into a cube so we will see how that does. 

Anyway, out of all those videos I got one with a buck that was still holding his antlers.  The rest were does, button bucks and a couple of deer that had dropped already.  A pretty cool side note here there were a group of triplets born last spring that hung around all summer giving all of us some pretty cool encounters because they would just show up during the middle of the day a lot and they liked to visit the corn maze.  The kids saw them quite a bit while playing around.  Anyway, I think they are all still alive and hanging around there again because I have video of 3 button bucks all together numorous times.  Wouldn't that be something if each of the triplets were bucks? 

Here is a link to the video of the button bucks
http://s863.beta.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0044-1_zps727fee1a.mp4.html

Now on to the good stuff.  The deer with antlers was a very nice suprise.  It was a deer I call "the wide 9" simply because he is wide and he has 9pts.  Original I know.  Well I had video of him back in August in velvet, then he showed up in Oct and then again this Jan.  So he has not been real regular as far as sightings and trail camera pictures go but he does keep coming back.  So there is some promise there. 

Here is a link to the video I got of him in October.  When I saw this video I really got excited because you can see he was a very big bodied deer and his rack was pretty awesome too.
http://s863.beta.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0009_zpsa866eaf6.mp4.html

And here is a link to the video I just got of him.  You can see he busted off his G3 on his left side from fighting and the g4 on his left side, even though its tiny, is why I call him a 9pt.  This is a great video of him because he is so close to the camera and you can really get a good idea of his rack.  I pegged him as a 3 year old this year and I hope I get to see what he becomes next year as a 4 year old.
http://s863.beta.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0141_zps2146e7f7.mp4.html

Hopefully he starts to come back to this site with the attractants I am putting out and I can get him to bed nearby and hopefully lose his sheds nearby.

Here is a funny side story.  Myself, my father in law and two brother in laws went rabbit hunting the day after I moved my camera.  And the pine trees hold a ton of rabbits, especially when it snows, sound familar?  So I walked by my camera and figured I might as well check it.  While I was checking it, it starting recording and my father in law kicked up a rabbit.  You can see on the video below I hear him yell and shoot three times missing all three shots.  It was pretty funny that i got that on camera though.
http://s863.beta.photobucket.com/user/chad182nd/media/WGI_0005_zps2e4405c7.mp4.html