First night out

[petey]

Just got a new camera for my b-day on Friday. I put it out last night right behind my rifle range backstop about 120 yards from the house. Actually I drove the lawn mower down and cut a nice path in the woods yesterday. I just walked down and checked, 12 pics in about 14 hrs. Nice way to break in the new camera.

We had a major rain storm all last night and this morning, thus the "hazy" appearance. Caught this small 7, he'll need a year or two...but I see they are still using my property as a travel route. I've been seeing some real brusers, so hopefully they'll give me a pose here this week.

P.S. I need to check my time on the camera. No way this was 10:30 at night. I'm thinking 10:30 this morning.

[petey]

After further inspection, I believe this buck to be the 1.5 yr old 5 point I had hanging out on my property last year. I have pictures of this buck in velvet and with 9 different pictures taken last night of all different angles, he fits the same frame as this buck last year. This year he looks to have a crab claw 7th point on his right beam. Obviously a descendent of the buck I nicknamed crabclaw 3 years ago, that went from a 14" 7 pt to a 18" 8 with almost 10" G-2's. Crab claw was killed last year in gun season by a neighbor at 4.5 yrs and he was a good buck. I can see based on the body that this was no 1.5 yr old and assumed he was a 2.5 yr old. After looking through my pictures last year, I believe this to be him....He may carry on the name of "Crabclaw". We'll see what he looks like after he shed's his velvet.

Here's what an extra year did for this buck.
2008
G1's 1" and less than an inch
G2's maybe 4"s
Spread - just inside his ears with no mass
Beams swoop upward

2009
G1's - 2.5 and 3" (this was one of the give-a-ways and what made him a 5pt last yr)
G2's - 3.5 - 4"
G3's - appears to have grown and extra point on his right beam
Spread - hard to tell b/c his ears are always laid back but he may have added an inch or two..mass still in velvet, so again too early to tell.

I'll have to get some pics once he's shed the flesh. Pretty neat stuff. See 2008 pics below. And yes these pictures are from the exact same tree 13 mths apart...just different cameras

[petey]

See picture below 09 and 08 comparison. Can't wait to see what he looks like next yr!

[Catfish]

Arn`t those trail cam`s nice. I`ve got 1 up and it told me went to go hunting. I got ther 1/2 hr. before the deer had been showing up, but it was early that nite. I was on stand 10 min. before I got a shot. That`s the good part, the bad part is that I was zeroed with 100 gr. points and I shot a 140 gr. broad head. I got some belly hair, all white, but after 6 hrs. of looking I am satisfied that deer is still out there.