Daily Deercam

 Two little bucks hanging around but alarmed by coon in the trap off to the left.  One coon down, a sow.  Used the 10/22 and some 60 grain "sniper" ammo.

  Very warm out.  I paused at the creek and worked my nose all around without a trace of snake stench.  Always something.

Daily Deercam

  This doe may look goofy but she's going to be a hot ticket in about five or six days.  Bucks will be fighting it out over her while she runs all over the Butler Creek watershed.  The twins will be on their own for a bit.

  This buck looks big, but notice his horns aren't wider than his ears- about 13 inches.  This year they ought to be.  Nice tines.  Great genetics.

  Scrapes still untouched since the rain a couple days back.  Big tracks crossing the creek back and forth and along various woodlines.  New rub, the first one, in the pasture.  Glitchy Moultrie shoots three frames of nothing, probably during the set-up/card swap.  

  Doc Sneed drove up to shoot his rifles at 300 yards.  We did, along with Wilson's 1903A3 he hasn't seen yet, plus a AR carbine and K31 with unzeroed scope.  The K31 scope, (a nice Leupold 4-12), ran out of elevation and left windage while I was bore-sighting it.  Not good.  Brownells K31 side mount doesn't point the scope anywhere close.  I shot it with open sights and it's OK.  Hoping to shoot does with all those rifles, plus a few more.

  We went to the lake a looked at tracks and deersign and talked deer hunting tactics and Whitetail biology.  The green Walmart chair got modified (arm cut off on one side and jammed into a tree fork 15 feet off the ground) plus a few saplings mysteriously disappeared opening up sight lines up an abandoned road and back toward the camera and scrape.  Nice to have help.  Hoping to rattle up a big buck in there 12 days from now.  The one in the photo is standing at the cam site last year.  He wasn't ready to be shot then, at 2 1/2 years, but this year he's probably just about right.

  Still can't figure why I'm not seeing bucks on the cams.  First time ever for that in four years of camming.  Oh well.  God's will.  I'm going to sit in a tree with a rifle anyway.

Daily Deercam

  Across the creek to screw a few metal cleats in a likely tree and check the cam.  Creek still up enough to make a dicey crossing.

  Creek cam as nutty as ever.  Crazy exposures and glow-in-the-dark deer.  I wouldn't bother posting a pure white file.  How hard can it be to make an auto exposure on a closed system?

Last night at Academy I looked at a bunch of cams.  Most of them take D batteries.  I don't want to get into buying batteries.  You spend a fortune, even if they do promise 60 days.  I doubt that.

  Scrapes untouched since the rain.  They tore them open, used them, then took a break.  One big deer print on the closer cam.  They are around.

Daily Deercam

 She didn't bring her fawns but she did stop by for a bite...in the middle of the day.  The other frames show her looking back often to where she had stashed the fawns.  Smell of catfood in the trap may have put her on caution, or the raccoon blood.

  I wear cheap rubber boots in the woods around the lakehouse.  Good protection from nearly everything at ground level, plus they cut the scent way back.  Nothing worse for scent than an old pair of worn, sweat-soaked boots.  When I'm rattling I spray my rubber boots with deer scent going in and have had bucks follow me to my blind, sniffing every footfall.  

  They are also soft enough to feel the ground beneath your feet.  Not as good as mocassines but better than a harder boot.

  Alan loaned me another Moultrie to put across the creek.  Slightly different bunch of deer over there.

Daily Deercam

 The woods are tinder dry and the yard burnt at the lakehouse.  It's suffering, though it had a little kiss of a shower sometime today.  Need more.  God drinks, I think.  Otherwise the weather would make more sense.

  The spiderwebs are gone from the trails.  Those black and white spiders that look more like crabs than spiders have cycled and the big red fat ones are next.  I wave a twig as I go down the trail.   Right now, it was clear for the 200 yards through the woods.  

  Twigs, leaves, shifts...the forest is very dynamic.  I have to readjust my trail in a major way when a treetop comes down.  Happens more often than you would think.  I cross water twice on this trail.  All dry.  Plenty of open water in the creek for deer, though I would hate to drink it.  People used to though, this whole bluff is a Caddoan Culture village site.

  The Moultrie took my photo when I walked up.  It's been 12 days on a rechargeable lantern battery.  Big card.  Good cam.  Wouldn't the Caddoan Witch Doctor have loved this?

  148 incidents and nearly 300 jpegs.  Eight coons.  Does.  The two fawns.  Zero bucks.  They ought to be out of velvet by now.  Haven't seen a one for the first time in four years of monitoring.  Usually I have them all identified by now.  Don't know what this means.

  The neighbors aren't seeing any deer.  They are here.  I see hoofprints cutting through moleruns in the pasture.

  This is a big, mature 4 -6 year old doe.  You can see just a hint of ribs showing, though her backbone is still flush.  She's experienced and able, developed chest and hindquarters, long face, grey and nearly rubbed bald along the top of her nose.  She's not putting on winter coat yet.  She's nursing two fawns with spots.  The rut starts in about 90 days.

Daily Deercam

 Via the old Moultrie.  It said it's memory was full but there were only 46 images on a 512 card that had been cleared.  Maybe the camera memory is not erasing.  It said there were 298 photos.

  This doe has two fawns with her most of the time.  Range conditions are good but she looks a little worn down.  I can see her backbone and ribs in some of the other views.  Not extreme and probably normal for feeding two fawns.  She's an older doe-look at that long face and developed body.  Lots of experience.

  She was really going at the corn on the cam.

  I jumped two young does coming back from the cam.  I THINK they were laying down in the tall grass in a field.  I had the wind and they didn't bolt until I was close.  I went and looked but couldn't convince myself that I was finding beds.

  Not one buck in velvet yet, and they are growing horns by now.  Odd year.  Normally, I have seen most of the bucks by this point in the summer.

Suicide Saturday Afternoons

  This week was a scenic tour.  My nephew's ex-girlfriend, who maliciously caused much legal grief...shot herself.  About a year late, if she was going.

  A guy I knew of, and had photographed for a major client, killed his wife with a baseball bat and then hung himself.  In the storage shed.

  The Redhead's classmate in an Austin Pilates seminar had a fight with her boyfriend and hung herself in the house they were housesitting.

  Much drama.  Kids.  Dogs.  Families.  Patients.  Students.  Neighbors.  Churches.  Clients.  All left behind.

  I get in from the range, the Redhead gets in from the health food store and we make a deercam run, hit the gas station.  Dairy Queen for chocolate dipped cones in the slanty late light.

  Kill yourself in the workweek and miss.... the gift of a nice lazy Saturday afternoon. 

  God preserve and save us from next week.