Trail Cam Tuesday - November 5, 2013

With the rut starting anytime the deer are starting to go nocturnal. This along with the time change is all something to keep in mind while trying to plan your peak rut hunts. I have not been seeing a lot of movement on the select days I've managed to get in the woods this fall. However, after checking my trail camera this past weekend, I found at least one reason to keep myself glued to my stand a little longer. 

A new 8 Point that showed up on camera this week!

It does not matter what size bucks they are, they have all gone nocturnal. 

That is unless they are a yearling button buck still hanging out with their mothers. 

Day Late and a Doe Short

The first dusting of snow on Foggy Mountain this year.

Due to unseasonably warm weather earlier in the season, last weekend (10/19) was the first weekend I made it out to hunt. With that first day filled with rain and a lack of movement due to a full moon; my first hunting trip of the season wasn't great. That in mind and a cold front was moving in mid-week, that had brought the first snow of the year, I took off Friday and planned to hunt all day Friday and Saturday.

Without having my trail camera running I did not know what to expect. Slightly exciting, but really unnerving to not know what time to  expect movement. I went with that I knew from years previously and went to get into stand a little before day break. I knew the only issue I would have would be if deer decided to bed down in the thicket to the right of my stand. 

As I walked in it was a very cool (28º) and calm morning, the kind where you could hear a bird's wings flap. I made it within eye sight of my stand when I heard what I had feared, a deer stand up. I heard one stand then multiple deer run, at that time there was nothing I could do. I continued to make my way to my stand in hopes they had not went far. I ended up seeing the doe, across the hillside, that I believe that was bedded by my stand. Once it was light enough to see everything, I could see the beds of where the deer had been in my stand. They were bedding in a different location normal, but still not out of the ordinary. I continued to hunt all morning without seeing another deer. Around lunch time I had plans to meet up with Jared and hunt the double set we hung this year for an evening hunt, but we decided to change locations and have another type of adventure.

The property that I was invited to hunt ended up being two huge green, lush hay fields right beside the river, a virtual honey hole. This property is located next to Jared's wife's grandparents and had produced great deer for decades. The one catch, you knew there had to be a catch to make this an adventure, they normally only rifle hunt this area and adjoining hillside. That means no treestands, no ground blinds, nothing. We were going in blind and trying to hunt from the ground with a bow. This is something I had only done once but loved; so I figured it was worth a shot.

After a brief discussion of where we were going and how we planned on hunting it we took off. We went across a creek and headed towards the road that ran parallel to the fields. We were going to walk the road to were the two fields are divided and and cut across the 75 yards of swampy woods that separate the field from the road. We managed to jump up two different does walking in the road and knew that it was going to be a good evening. We needed to find a location and get set up quickly. We went into the field and started walking the fence line down to find the best location for a possible shot and adequate cover to hide us from the deer. We found a spot that had a large tree that I could stand behind with decent brush cover on both sides and two shooting lanes. Jared was 15 yards away with similar cover.

Can you spot Jared?

It didn't take long after settling in to start seeing deer. Around 5:15 PM we spotted two deer slowly feeding across the other field. It was not to long after that I spotted four deer feeding 150 yards away off a point in fence line to my right. We watched them for more than half an hour as they slowly began feeding up to our location. I could not believe it, it was going to work, first night at a new location, a new style of hunting and we were seeing deer walk into our shooting range! This would be a great first story if it were not for the farmers that tended the field needing to get hay for their cattle. They ended up almost pushing the deer into shooting range but the deer ran off to the opposite side of the field.

Jared and I had a conversation while setting up (in the field/swamp area) about how well we blended in to the surroundings. Our questions were answered quickly. The farmers drove within 40 yards of us with a tractor and a truck and did not see either of us. That made both of us feel better about hunting that location and the ability to blend in, but it did nothing for having our deer scared completely out of the field. After they left, we still have 45 minutes of shooting light so we sat tight to see if we could get one back in range. We stuck it out and have a handful of does and yearlings come back in, but none were in range. Still this was a great night and a confidence booster to keep trying to hunt from the ground. 

Trail Cam Tuesday: June 25, 2013

With the first day of summer only a few days behind us and my Facebook and Twitter blowing up with trail camera pictures, it made me want to revive an old favorite of mine. If you have been following this blog for awhile, you know about Trail Cam Tuesday (TCT), a series of posting regarding interesting trail camera pictures I have been taken and am currently receiving from Foggy Mountain and the surrounding areas. Though I had not been writing with the same frequency recently, I have not forgotten about my trail cameras. I still run them religiously; the only difference is they are not getting checked as frequently, yet this could be good thing. Over winter a few interesting pictures had surfaced, but nothing that made me think I have to post a new TCT. This past week, I found the set of pictures that made me think I needed to revive this series.

The potential for checking your trail cameras less frequently gives the animals less of a chance of patterning you and your behaviors while checking your cameras. This lets them move more freely and naturally throughout the given area without fear and or scent of humans. Yet and this this a big one, it also can have a counterproductive reaction if your camera(s) is placement wrong, is not seeing the activity you are trying to capture, the batteries die, or the overall pattern of movement has changed.  That’s where I was over a month ago; I have gone from checking trail cameras from at a minimum of once a week to now possibly once a month. I knew that the pattern of deer movement had changed some due to downed trees and other obstruction in the normal routes since last year’s “Super Storm” and surrounding properties recently being timbered. Finally a few weeks ago I decided I needed to move one of my cameras from a location it had been at for multiple years, since before the creation of this blog. Granted it only moved 50 to 75 yards away, but did it make a huge difference.

As I said before, my Facebook especially has been flooded with picture of potentially great looking bucks in velvet. I won't lie, I was hoping to find a few of those in my pictures since moving my main trail camera set, but that was not the case. As I switched out my cards and threw the old one into my camera to view it, I saw a lot of doe movement on this trail at various hours of the day. This was good to see, but still not what I was hoping for. I did not think much of and threw my camera into my backpack and carried on with my plans for the rest of the day. Not until I got home that night and transferred the pictures to my computer did I look at the pictures again and see what I truly had. One of the does that was walking though had something following it. Something small enough that I couldn't pick it up on the small camera screen. It was a small fawn, with its vibrant white spots. Although this is not a giant buck I can chase this fall, it might been in another few years or it may be just another doe to help repopulate the mountain top and keep the great deer herd thriving.

It’s not always about the antlers, sometimes you have to step back and enjoy the simple things in nature.

Don't Call It a Come Back: My First Archery Buck

It's no secret, I have been an absentee blogger the past few months. Marriage, school, work, all the normal excuses; not to sound like a broken record but I am going to try and get back on track. It is after all, my favorite time of the year.

This past Saturday was opening day of archery season in West Virginia. For the first time in five years, I was completely unprepared for  archery season. At this point I had ran my trail cameras all summer, but that was it. I had a few very nice bucks on camera and the majority of them were coming in during the morning hours. My hopes were as high as they could be for this season. Little did I know this opening day would be one to remember.

After finally getting my first deer with a bow,  I was hoping to get another deer early in the season. After knowing I had deer, especially buck coming in between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM, I was planning on holding out until at least then. That was a lot easier than I thought it would be, the fog set in early and finally lifted around 8:15 AM. By this time, I was sure I had heard deer milling around but still hadn't seen any. At around 8:45 AM I was scanning the area when I thought I heard something  but still hadn't got visual conformation of the noise. A little before 9:00 AM I finally saw what was making the noise, it was a buck using a licking branch. I couldn't tell which one it was, but it seemed to have a nice body and decent main beams. I was wanting to wait for a decent buck, but at the first sight of this deer I grabbed my bow just in case... By the time I got my bow the buck had closed in from 115 yards to 85 yards. At this point there were two trails this buck could have came in on, one would have allowed me to get a perfect broad side shot, but that didn't happen. The other trail he took, lead him on a string to within six yards of my stand. This didn't allow for me to draw on him, at this point I thought my chance was done. At that point,  he turned to walk away and and this allowed me to draw back on him. This caused him to spook a little bit, but this actually allowed for a better shot. He spooked out to 22 yards with a quartering away shot. This took a millisecond to get my sights on him and release, it felt like a great, solid shot but I didn't see him drop in my sight.

As the rule goes, at least with the guys I hunt with, if you don't see them go down, you back out and give them time. Not more than five minutes after I shot my buck a spike came in on the same trail and worked its way through the area. I watch this buck for a while and finally got down from my stand a worked my way back to the truck where I was meeting Jared. At this point I wasn't sure, but was feeling good and just wanted a cup of coffee, funny I know, but Jared and I even discussed while waiting to go recover the deer about how great that cup of coffee is after taking a deer. Needless to say, I was ecstatic to see the truck door already open and Jared working on perking a pot of coffee. As I was walking up the trail he caught side of me and I gave him the thumbs up I got one, but then the conversation of what happened ensued. After telling him this and a discussion of previous deer shot like this we decided to wait a minimum of two hours. After waiting over two hours we went back to track if from my tree stand. I was worried about finding blood, because I did not get a pass through, but this was not an issue. After finding the first spot of blood 10 yards from the shot, it looked like the trail was painted with blood. we proceeded to track this deer 50 to 60 yards over top the ridge and a quarter of the way over the side. At this point we lost the blood for a second, at that same time we heard twigs start to snap and my stomach sunk, we saw the deer and it went another 25 yards over the hill before we lost sight of it.  We held tight there to make sure it didn't advance any further and we backed out again. This time we back out and went to make/eat lunch and wait another two hours. After a great lunch and a little fretting on my part we went back to where we saw the deer jump up and we found the spot where it bedded down, then in 10 feet from it was another bed covered in blood with my arrow, still fully intact. At that point we heard something crashing and trashing down through the woods and finally come to rest in the creek. We held tight for 20 minutes to make sure it didn't get out of the creek, then we slowly progressed toward the creek. Over this four hour period and bumping this deer twice it still only traveled 150 yards roughly.

After looking at the shot placement and gutting the deer, I had got a double lung shot, but I missed the heart as it was a little high. All in all, this was a great day and an even better opening day and not bad for the first buck I was able to take with my bow. Now for a picture of the buck, it is a 2.5 to 3.5 year old 8 point. This is the same buck as pictured above on the bottom right.

Trail Cam Tuesday: June 5, 2012

If you remember a while back I said that I would be altering TCT slightly to incorporate more about trail cameras as a whole, not just pictures. This post will be the first taste of something different. I have done a Trail Cam Tuesday pretty much since the beginning of this blog. I have received numerous questions about trail cameras. Some of the questions I could answer easily, others I would direct them to look at their owners manual or sometimes I just wouldn't know. I don't claim to be an expert by any means, but I do know a good bit about trail cameras from my many years of use, but that still doesn't get all the questions answered. Someone that has a few more answers that I do is Boyd of Moultrie's Total Game Management Podcast, I managed to get a few great interviews with him a while back. For more great information that wasn't covered in those interviews you can change out Boyd's interview on The Will to Hunt Live, I was in attendance and was able to ask many of the questions I haven't been able to answer or wondered about over the years.

Old habits die hard, It wouldn't be much of a Trail Cam Tuesday without at least one picture. This is one of those bonus pictures that was just to beautiful not to share....

The Real Foggy Mountain

Trail Cam Tuesday: May 29, 2012

In comparison to the last few weeks of having some exciting trail cam pictures it slowed down a little this week. With the heat and lack of minerals/ feed I didn't think I would have much luck at all. But I  still managed to be a decent round of pictures. They are actually kind of heart breaking for Cassie, but I'll talk about that later on.

Tune in tomorrow to find out the winners of our giveaway!

This first picture (of a buck) didn't leave me awestruck like the last few weeks did, but it still makes me happy to see the growth of any buck around this time of year! It is showing that the deer are healthy and there are more than a few bucks making to the following year as we try to allow for more mature deer to grow.

For anyone who has followed this blog for any amount of time knows how much I enjoy getting pictures of bears, but this pales in comparison to how Cassie feels about the pictures. In reality she wants to see one in person in the wild, that something she's never done. Everyone told her it is only a matter of time living in this region of WV, but it still isn't true. When we went to flip the cards this past weekend, she was so close to accomplishing this goal without even knowing it. With in a six hour period, we missed seeing not only one, but two different bears in front of the trail cam.

Trail Cam Tuesday: May 22, 2012

Like I said in yesterday's post, there are many things that can make you a bad or good turkey hunter, but sometimes it comes down to dumb luck. I am not sure if it is by pure dumb luck of the turkeys or bad luck on my part, but here they are strolling in just an hour after legal shooting hours.

I'm not to sure why I like this next picture but I do. It's an interesting view / snap shot of a raccoon perched on top of the stump feeding on something.

After last week's pictures I was hoping to catch that same buck on camera again. I didn't have much luck doing so, but I was able to get a nice picture of this one. From the looks of it, it seems that this will be another decent buck. I can't tell, but from the way the brows are growing, I think this might be "Slick" or an offspring of Little Brow but only time will tell.

Trail Cam Tuesday: May 15, 2012

This past weekend I attempted turkey hunting again, I say attempted very loosely, but that's another story for any other time. Normally up until this point, every Saturday morning I just went switched my trail cam cards and then dove into my blind to wait on some turkeys. This past Saturday I decided to take a different approach, head to where I'd been hearing some gobbler coming off the roost. Well, they weren't there but I still held tight there until 7:30ish AM. At that time I knew it was time to head to my blind to catch the hens that had been coming in for the past week or two. Come to find out, by me deciding to head away from my blind, I missed the shot of videoing this great looking deer.  Here is the first shot, that I go tin the series.

As you can see from this picture, this buck already has decent antler growth for this region and time of year, but that's not the interesting part. If you look closely, you can see (from the rear) that the left antler looks normal, where as the right one looks a little larger and club like.

With this next picture I was hoping I would get him to stop. He did, but with his head right behind the stump. At least he was stopped I had one more shot at getting a good picture and it...

... paid off! He stuck his head up enough to get his antler growth into this last picture. By the looks of it, he already has nice growth on the right side with the split for a brow tine and main beam, but the left side is what had me interested. Looking at it closely on a camera in a blind got me to think I was seeing things, but I wasn't. After looking at it on the computer for a few days now and getting a few opinions, I think this buck has the starts of what looks to be a double main beam! Who knows, he could be the offspring of this buck from last year or just another Foggy Mountain Freak!

Trail Cam Tuesday: May 8, 2012

What would Moultrie Week be without a Trail Cam Tuesday? I couldn't let you guys down, so here is a few great shots from the past week or so on Foggy Mountain. From the pictures you might think I'm pulling a few out from this winter, but if you remember a post last week about an interesting opening morning, you'll know these pictures were from that 24 hours period. Yet again, as I said yesterday, without Moultrie this segment would have never made it off the ground. Thank you to Moultrie and their great customer service for helping me with any and all issues.


So I wasn't able to take a turkey on opening day, it was suppose to be a slow day with the weather. It didn't help that I was only able to hunt until 7:45 AM  or so and even at that I was still a little late. Of course, when I check the trail cam, it was only half an hour after I left that this long beard walked in.

A snowy long beard.

A cautious doe and yearly walking in during a snowy late April day.

A beautiful gobbler fanning out his wings.

A slightly blurry shot of a sow and her yearling making an appearance for the first time this year.

Trail Cam Tuesday - May 1, 2012

Normally this time of year you'd expect to being seeing trail cam shots of turkeys. As much as I wish this was the case, it is not. They seem to be a little camera shy this year than last. But no worries, if I can't get some great shots, I'll at least get some funny ones. This collage of pictures isn't anything new to people that have deer and raccoons frequenting the same area, but it is still really funny. The raccoons seems to be infringing on these does turf a little to much and then the deer react.

And of course what would a Trail Cam Tuesday be without a bear sighting...

Trail Cam Tuesday - April 17, 2012

It has been a while since anyone has seen a Trail Cam Tuesday. I have contemplated changing it a bit or even ending it as a whole, but I just couldn't do it. I have decided I will no long be releasing it weekly, it will be directly linked to the active pictures being taken, trail cam pictures that are being submitted, and lastly will be a new twist I am adding. This new twist will have everything to deal with trail cameras still, it will just be more informational, it will consist of new products, information and how-tos/advise, and anything that involves trail cameras. Feel free to leave your comments below on your thoughts about the new change(s) to TCT,  love or hate, I want to hear it. If you have a suggestion of your own leave it and I'll gladly take it into consideration. Now what everyone is really here for though, the pictures. 

Even frozen does need to eat.

Not sure what this fox was looking for but
made multiple laps sniffing around.

This isn't the big sow with the white patch on her chest from
last year, but it is still a decent size bear for April.

Looks like these does are getting a little feisty.

Trail Cam Tuesday - January 10, 2012

Wow, it's back to reality! We got back from a great vacation with a surprise this past weekend and school started yesterday. That means it's time to get back into the swing of things including blogging. After a two week absence TCT is back. I got my main trail cam back from repair this past weekend also so be looking for more pictures again soon. I did have a secondary trail cam running in its absence, it doesn't have the same range at night, but still did a good job in its absence.

And I couldn't find a doe in Doe Season.

Looks like this button buck is getting a little ahead of himself.

Even after a few reports of bucks dropping their antlers early this year, it looks
like there's still a few running around with both sides intact. 

Trail Cam Tuesday - December 20, 2011

With today being one of the first days since the semester is over and tonight being the first night of Hanukkah (Happy Hanukkah!!) I've been a little bit relaxed to say the least. There are no new pictures and I'm actually a camera down at the moment, but that won't stop TCT. It seems like today is the perfect day to do a blooper edition.

Not so much a bloopers, but just interesting pictures.

An up close and personal hello from a young buck.

This doe isn't having any of this coon.

After the doe decided to leave the coon decided to King of the Hill 

with the stump and taunt the doe

Trail Cam Tuesday - December 13, 2011

Just as luck would have it, there are more and more bucks starting to show up now that rifle season has come to a close. Hopefully most of these bucks will make it until next year, all they have to do is make it through this week of muzzleloader season then the select few that are still bow hunting. Here are a few pictures of of the bucks that have shown up over the past week.

Here is a nice looking buck that I wouldn't mind still getting a shot at this year with 

my bow, but he's still on a nocturnal patern. By the picture it is hard to tell

but he is an 8-point that broke it's brow tine early in the season.

Here is a thick main beam 5 or 6 point. We haven't been able to tell from any of the 

pictures if he has both brow tines, but either way for such a young deer

he has decent mass thus far. 

Here is another 8-point that we haven't had any pictures of this year. It

looks like he has one side that is either dwarfed or busted up. 

And last but not least, my little buddy from two previous posts (Rifle Season Review and Doe Season Review). The interesting fact about this picture is that it was taken with me sitting only 20 yards up the hillside looking down on him feeding.

2011 Doe Season Review

This past Saturday ended West Virginia's rifle season as a whole,although the last week was doe only. Today it moved onto a week of muzzleloader before heading back to bow for the final two weeks, but as for myself I'll be headed back to my bow. But for now, I'll share a little bit about last week.

On Monday, the first day of doe season, I caught something out of the corner of my eye before I even made it to our property. If you remember me talking about the new pair grouse I had jumped back in the first week, I got a picture of one of them. At this point, my day was already made from getting a few great pictures. As I made my way into the stand, I managed to spook a flock of 10+ grouse and doves from my stand area. We went from thinking we only had a pair of grouse to now having at least a handful or more. The morning was slow from then on out but a trip to check one my trail camera let me see a doe with it's two yearlings cutting up over the hillside at the top of the property. After not getting a shot at these deer, I decided to head over to a spot that I hunted a few years back and have been thinking about hunting next year. After radioing with Rick and deciding to call it an early day, I headed over there spot just to see if I could have any luck. Within 12 minutes of sitting down, in the location I want to put a blind up,  I saw two does walk through, two more run through, and then a buck I'd been waiting to see all rifle season, but that wasn't it. Soon there after I saw two more does run through with another little spike trialing them. It was a great day to be in the woods, even though I wasn't about to get a deer in my cross-hairs.

It wasn't until Friday that I was able to make it back out due to the start of finals, but it was a great be back out there in all the fresh new snow. That morning had to be one of the most beautiful morning of the season so far. I didn't get to see anything that morning but, I was hoping again to take a deer that afternoon and I knew there where a few around from the massive amount of track marks in the snow. After sitting most of the morning and not seeing anything, I decided to go for a walk, I knew there was a spot where a lot of deer like to bed in bad condition. I took off for a little walk, as soon as I made it across Heartbreak Ridge and into Fisher Hollow, I looked up to see the flicker of two little tails and then I saw two more start trotting behind them, it wasn't a long to take a shot, nor would I have wanted to take a shot at that angle, but I did what I wanted to do. I tested out how well I knew the area and figure out where the deer where, I didn't get to harvest one, but I was happy enough I knew where to be expecting them next time.

Saturday was my last hope and a half day hunt at that, with family coming in on Sunday and dinner date planned, I thought it couldn't hurt to go for another hike. Who would have thought, on my way into my stand to check the trail camera, I bumped up that same doe and fawn that is always around my stand, they took off and I didn't even attempt to take a shot, it wasn't worth it at this point. After a little deliberation, I decided to take the hike I took the day previously, it didn't pan out the same way. I didn't see any deer, so I decided to sit at the top of my food plot on a downed tree for my last half hour I had planned to hunt, within a few moments a little spike walked in, the same one I let walk on the last Saturday of Buck Season. I watched him for a while, but nothing was spooking him. My phone began to buzz so I looked down and Jay was calling me so I decided to take it, figured I wasn't going to shoot the spike and I was ready to leave. During our conversation that spike proceeded to walk within 10 feet of me. A crazy way to end rifle season for sure.

Now to leave everyone with a throught,  I was tweeting with Michelle (@sdo_mlt) during my final hour of rifle season and we were talking about just being happy to be out and see deer, she said something that I can't agree with more, so I'm going to share it with everyone.

Trail Cam Tuesday - December 6, 2011

As you read yesterday buck season came to an end this past weekend. Here's a preview of a few bucks that have made it this far. Who knows if they'll make it until next year, but here to what I'm looking forward to. That is saying I don't get one of them in front of me in the remaining few weeks of bow season.

This is a new buck to the area, he looks narrow, but tall. 

Not a bad looking deer. He's got some mass and is polished up nice.

This is the same buck as above and the preview everyone got in yesterday's post.

And here's one for the future. A little button buck that hasn't even have his nubs pop through.