This morning it was 30 degrees with a SSW wind where I was sitting. I felt pretty confident on my way in. I moved right along to get to where I was going. I stopped once for a breather. When I stopped I clicked my head-lamp off and stood still. Just as I clicked the light off a deer bounded down the hill. He was on the low side of an area where I killed a small buck on Thanksgiving many years ago. He ran a little way and it sounded like he stopped. I continued on my way.
I sat until a little after 10 o’clock. There were a few shots that echoed off the mountains in the distance. I saw only one living creature and that was a gray squirrel. I heard a few airplanes overhead which is (for some reason) a sound that I love to hear when I’m hunting. I didn’t wander around much after I got up. Since I was in an area where a nice buck is working I didn’t want to tramp around and contaminate it.
A few weeks ago my buddy Doug was waiting for me at my truck when I came out of the woods from hunting. He was just out and about so he decided he would check in with me when I was done hunting. As we chit-chatted we covered a lot of topics. One of the topics came up was a few of the deer that I had passed up over the years in that area. I told him I couldn’t believe that I never saw them after I passed them up. It would seem that I should have run into them again at some point, but I never have to my knowledge…………until tonight.
Since the wind was blowing in every direction and with quite a bit speed I decided I would go check on my trail camera. I’ve had it out for a few weeks and I’ve left the area alone. I’m after a pretty good buck that was tearing the joint up last year. Two years ago I jumped what I thought was that same buck but I couldn’t get a shot at him before he was gone. That same night I sat down and passed up a basket-rack 8-pointer.
I got to my camera around 3:30pm, a solid 3 hours before dark. I slipped the cover off the bottom and plugged the remote into it. When the remote lit up it told me I had 67 images. I was quite surprised. Since I’m in what is considered big woods that number of images seemed odd. As I stood there I figured I had quite a few squirrels and a lot of does. Does tend to feed there a lot which makes it good during the rut.
I took my camera out of my backpack and slipped the SD card from the trail-cam into it. As I started scanning the pictures I noticed I had a lot of empty pictures. They might not be empty, but I couldn’t see anything through the viewfinder on the camera.
Then I came across a few pictures of a doe and a fawn. When I was done scanning through the pictures I had identified 5 different bucks. The amazing thing was that every buck except one was there during prime hunting hours. They all showed up between 9:30-11am and 3:30-6:30pm. The only one that showed up at night was a buck that I have named “Tank.” I’m pretty sure that Tank is the same small 8 pointer that I passed on a few years ago. He seemed a little camera shy but I got two pictures of him. His rack is nothing special. I’m guessing he will score between 90-100. His tines are really short and he doesn’t have hardly anything for browtines. He’s very wide. The amazing part is that this deer looks like a friggin’ Tank. There’s no doubt that he’s a mature deer, but the spindly rack would have you thinking otherwise. He looks like he’s an offspring off the buck in my book called “The Grunter.” Actually he looks almost identicle to him. His body shares the same genes as a buck my buddy Jason killed in that area a few years ago.
I also had a buck on the camera that I will call “Special K.” Special K has a crotch on one side (I couldn’t tell if there was a browtine) and the other side has a spike that turns down and goes under his jaw. It’s definitely from an injury to his opposite leg. The deer looked healthy.
I had two small spikes. One of these had one antler and the other one was normal. The last buck was a nice little 8 pointer with a tight, narrow basket-rack. I’ll call him “Basket.”
The even more amazing part of all of the images is that the majority of them were captured in the last 3 days after the heavy rains stopped. Heck, when I got up to walk out this morning, but camera was taking pictures of deer in this place. I guess it’s all about timing.
I’ve attached a picture of the small buck I shot on Thanksgiving day many years ago. I jumped that deer this morning right in that area. I’ve also attached “The Grunter” so you can see what Tank’s headgear looks like. His body dwarfs the body of “The Grunter.”
