LAST UPDATED: May 8th, 2015
Once again it's been a long hard summer when it comes to getting good trail camera photos. For some reason my hunting spots close to home just don't seem to hold the big boys during the summer months. As usual that theory has held true as I haven't gotten any photos to speak of in two months of running my cameras. With fall coming up and the bucks starting to shed their velvet I'm finally starting to see a few bigger bucks.
This first batch of photos comes from a spot that I've only hunted 2-3 times over the past several seasons. It's a hard spot to hunt with a single patch of super thick woods and not a lot of places for a stand. I know this spot holds some good bucks so I'm going to spend some additional time focusing here come October.
This photos is really deceiving. At first glance he looks like a nicer buck than I think he is. Short beams, short tines – I think he's only a 2 1/2 year old and may be the same buck as the one below. Another year or two and he'll be worth another look.
What's up with the plethora of 7 pointers this season?
This guy and the other bucks above are at least a year if not two years away from shooter status, but they're fun to look at. I'm sure once the scrapes start opening up I'll be getting a lot more pictures of them! These photos are all from a Cuddeback Capture IR which does a pretty decent job with trigger speed and photo quality, but leaves some to be desired in the way of battery life.
These next two batches are from my main hunting grounds about 2 miles from the photos shown above. I've gotten several pictures of a shootable 9 pointer in velvet who is now hard horned. Given the history of this area and the 1/2 dozen bucks we have photos and sheds of that look EXACTLY like this guy, I don't think he's going to put on too much more antler in the coming years. Needless to say if I get a shot at him, I'm taking it.
I call this guy "Multiplicity" since he looks exactly like a bunch of other bucks that have lived on this farm over the past 5-6 years. They're all 4×5's that never seem to get much bigger than 130" no matter how old they are. Ahh….the joys of a crappy gene pool!
Do you think he spotted the camera?
This big 7 pointer just showed up recently on my cameras and is another buck on the brink of shooter status for me on this particular farm. From the couple photos I've gotten of him I can't make up my mind if he's a 2 year old or 3 year old buck. I'm hoping to get some better photos of him before October rolls around.
I think this is the same buck as above taken last fall.
I will probably get back out on Thursday night to replace a few cameras whose batteries had run out, refresh my mock scrapes, and let things settle down for awhile. Most likely my next foray into the woods won't be until the weekend before the season opens to check cameras one last time and do some final trimming of two sets that I want to hunt that first weekend.
Check out the long face on this old doe! She's been around for awhile, that's for sure. If she makes the mistake of walking by me, her reign as queen of the local woodlot may come to an abrupt end.
