I went into work last night after I got home so I could make some time up to allow me to leave a few hours early on Thursday. I figure that will give us a good bite into the trip to the Midwest. It’s always nice to put a lot of road behind you when you’re going a long way.
I got out of work early enough to run into the woods and hunt for a few hours. I also wanted to change some batteries in my cameras and pull a few others so I could bring them on vacation.
When I stopped at my first camera I didn’t expect much. The camera has been there a week and it’s not in the best place I could have put it. I chose the place because it was fairly open and appeared to be in an area that was being used quite a bit by deer.
When I viewed the card I was surprised to see a lot of pictures on it. I got a nice little 6-pointer in the daylight. He looks like a healthy deer and the color of the pictures is great. I’m very pleased with the quality of DLC Covert cameras. After I deleted quite a few pictures of does I came across a picture of No-Brow 8. I’ve got pictures of him all over the mountain. It’s hard to tell where he’ll show up next. Based on his activity on my cameras I’d imagine he’ll get killed before the end of rifle season. I could be wrong, but he tends to be a wanderer.
Finally, I got a picture of the moose that lives on the mountain. As I suspected it’s a very large moose, but it’s not a bull. It’s a cow and she’s very well developed in the shoulders and chest. I’d imagine the muscular definition is from the terrain she’s spending most of her time in.
After I reset the camera I headed to the knob where I killed my first buck. As I got close to the knob I heard some leaves shuffling on the flat below me. A glance that way revealed a nice buck trotting up the hill. He didn’t have a clue what spooked him or why he was running. He stopped and looked my way. As I looked at him through my binoculars I thought about shooting him. He was a really good buck without much headgear. He was a mature deer. I applied some pressure on the trigger a few times before deciding he wasn’t what I wanted.
After he disappeared I made my way to the camera. To my surprise I found the same buck on camera three different times in the last 4 days. Every time he was in a scrape doing his business of advertising. He was in the scrape just before daylight today. He couldn’t have moved much during the day if he was back there again tonight. If I see this buck on Thanksgiving I’ll shoot him so we can relive the old tradition of shooting a buck on that day. I guess I was right yesterday when I felt like I was close. I could have easily taken this buck tonight. It must have been his lucky night.