Wildlife 2021/2022 Deer Season

[Wildlife]

The future looks bright with regards to deer hunting in my local area this year. I have maintained trail cameras all year around at two different locations near my home and created one more feeding location since we have more deer in the area, more bucks and does this year. The does are about to have their fawns anytime now.

In the following video you will get to see both THUNDER’s and SHYBUCK’s return along with a newcomer that I believe will be bigger than THUNDER based on what I have seen so far. This is THUNDER’s third year making his presences known in the area and SHYBUCK’s second. You can check out the very beginning of my last season journal thread and see where THUNDER stacks up in his antler growth at this point which is about on par. I do believe he will have split brows this year from what I can tell. The other newcomer buck seems to be slightly bigger both in body size and antler growth, which I will not complain at all.

This video is not of all the deer in the entire herd, just a small sample which includes a young buck that already broke off an antler on his right side, just dangling as you will get to see in the video.

The video is 55 minutes long of mainly the two bigger bucks feeding over the course of the past few days. The deer visit regularly, a few times a day throughout the entire day, both in daylight and night times.

On a side note, we still have other wildlife newcomers in the area this year as well such as a male bobcat and a female fox. The bobcat attacked my cat ‘HANK’ right behind my barn about two weeks ago and lucky for him, I was right there to save him. The bobcat took a big chuck out of HANK’s shoulder and a couple of deep scratched lacerations as well. He is mending well, and I expect a full recovery. I believe the bobcat was protecting his territory mainly and not looking at HANK as food. The bobcat is a regular visitor in our yard during the last hour of daylight almost daily and has been since I first posted photos of him on the forum about a month ago. The wife wants me to kill the bobcat because she is afraid that he will kill one of pets sooner or later. He has made a home right here on our property and does not seem to be afraid of humans all too much because I have been within a few feet of him a couple of times. He does not run off; he just slowly walks away like he owns the place. I have noticed less cottontails this year, most likely due to the bobcat. The coyote population seems to be in check nearby too, so I am blaming the decline of rabbits on the bobcat for sure. Our wild turkey population seems to be slightly on the rise, but not as much as I hoped for at this point.

Anyhow, I hope you all enjoy my sharing on what is happening in my neck of the woods. I am already looking forward to getting back out there with the bow in my hand chasing tail.

Expect more of my sharing each month as the season draws closer.

Take care all!

 

[Dannmann801]

Good luck this year!

 

[Dustinb80]

Good luck Denny

 

[Big_Holla]

Good luck this year Denny! Looking forward to following along!

 

[Isaacorps]

Good luck, Denny! I’m sure you won’t leave out any details

 

[Wildlife]

"Jukebox Friday" TOO style with a little daylight action of three different local bucks at two different feeding locations during 6/1 & 6/3:

The song popped into my head when I was creating this short video and it does take me back to a time when I was young and totally care free:

"The Boys of Summer" is a song released in 1984 by Eagles vocalist and drummer Don Henley, with lyrics written by Henley and music composed by Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The lead single from Henley's album Building the Perfect Beast, "The Boys of Summer" was released on October 26, 1984.



Video - https://www.bitchute.com/video/c0FkodiAxyOW/

I had to replenish one of the feed locations this afternoon and while doing so, I pulled a couple of SD cards. Hope you enjoy!

 

["J"]

Denny where you been hiding the last few months?

 

[Wildlife]

Sunday 7:30 p.m. - June 6, 20201:

The following is ‘24-Hour Time-Lapse’ video at one of the feed locations near my home. Approximately 50 different Whitetail Deer visits during roughly a 24-hour period. I estimate over a dozen different local bucks and approximately a half a dozen local does captured on the one trial camera at this location, from early evening on 6/4 thru 6/5.

After I compiled all the data, there was nearly 4-hours of deer activity captured during that time. I sped up the video by four times in consecutive order by time stamp so, the video is now approximately 45 minutes long. If you wish to further increase the speed even more, you can do so through the YouTube settings however, I think it is just fine the way it is, otherwise you may just miss out on all the different bucks.

Out of that 24-hour period, THUNDER never did show up at that location and I have not checked the other TCs at the original feed location yet. I will do that sometime tomorrow.

With regards to my hiding @"J" , quite honestly, I have been down right busy with life.

This weekend I moved my youngest son from Athens to Columbus. I spent most of the weekend with him, helping him get settled into his new home. He just graduated from OU with a Business Management/Administrative & Computer Science degree and now he will be working for JP Morgan full time. I could not be prouder of him! He graduated at the top of his class with high honors, plus recognized for a ton of volunteer work for a couple non-profit humanitarian organizations throughout the region. He is good young man with a promising future no doubt!

I also recently taken on a medical/health educational training course of study at OSU in Chillicothe. So, between that and maintaining all things around the homestead, including a couple of newer projects just waiting in the wings, I will be pleasantly busy for a while.

What I have shared on here lately is pretty much all I can squeeze in during my waking hours, which I genuinely cared to do. I should be able to participate more, or intend to anyways, as the deer season draws closer.

Other than that, I hope everybody enjoys what I have shared already. I will share more as I go along in this journey of mine, chasing a respectable Whitetail Buck.

Take care all!

 

[Big_Holla]

Congratulations to your son Denny as well as your continued education. Check in when you can and keep on going in life!!

 

["J"]

Congratulations too the son on his graduation and new job @ JP Morgan!!! You have a right too be proud of the young man….

 

[bowhunter1023]

Good update on all fronts, Denny. Good luck keeping tabs on the Boys of Summer!

 

[Wildlife]

Well, here is a deer that raised my eyebrows this afternoon while going through my latest TC card pulls. I believe he is a deer that I never captured before on camera but, I have seen him a couple of times with my own eyes during bow season.

He absolutely towers over the other deer when I first observed him. The first time was during an evening bow hunt, I watched him track a doe just before the rut and then again in the lower CRP field twice, and in each case, he got no closer to me than 60 yards roughly. He truly is a tank of a deer and if given the opportunity, I will let the air out of him just because of how big he is, body wise that is. I recall during those times, he was just an eight point, and it was NOT his rack that first caught my attention, it was the fact that his body size was so obviously bigger than all the other deer he was around at the time, including other decent bucks. I described him to others back then as if he were a horse rather than a deer because his body size.

Anyhow, below is a short 10-minute TC video of him feeding early yesterday morning. It truly is what I believe is the very first and only time I have ever captured him on any camera of any kind. He has got the big roman nose and some serious brow tines going on this year and hopefully, a couple of more tines coming in. I hope he sticks around for the long haul. We shall see…

Hope you enjoy!

 

[Wildlife]

4:00 p.m. - Saturday, June 12, 2021:

The following short video clip is TC captures of our very first 2021 fawn. It is approximately seven minutes long showing two different angles of view of the fawn and its mother.

Nearly every morning this time of the year when I step out of the house at daybreak, I usually witness several local does bedded in the nearest corner of our alfalfa/hay field, roughly 40-50 yards away from the back of the house.

Below is a photo collage of that field where a good number of the ladies and whatever young ones they may have with them tend to stay at night nearly every summer. I suspect mainly because of the coyotes. In fact, I just heard a few coyotes the other night for the first time in a month or better, pretty close to our property.



Now that we have at least one verified newborn in the area, I will be getting my coyote rifle back out that is topped with a thermal scope and over the course of the rest of the summer, I'll try my best to shield those young ones from any threat in the area. As some of you may already know, I have shared several cellphone and TC photos & videos of the past of coyotes in the area either hunting, stalking, killing and/or killed vulnerable young deer. Over the course of the past three years, I have hunted coyotes specifically with decent success. Last year was far better with regards to minimized predation than from the previous three years and I intend to see that trend continue. Our local herd as grown exponentially the last two years, which pleases me to no end! Definitely more bucks and does than ever before since I have lived in the area, since the fall of 2015.

That is all I have for now. I do have other TC footages to go through from today's SD pull at the other feed location. It does appear initially though, from that location, the buck activity has not let up at all since I posted my "24 hour time lapse" video. The 64gig SD card was full. So, I'll be studying those captures for the rest of this afternoon.

Hope you all enjoy this latest update?

Have a great rest of the weekend everybody!

 

[Wildlife]

7:45 p.m. - Monday, June 14, 2021:

The following video is a collection of just a few of the better caliber bucks in the area during the last 48 hours.

The collection of TC captures is in consecutive order by timestamp, and I sped up the 60 minutes in total capture by 4x to get it down to 15 minutes. I am sure I missed some other good bucks as well over the day because the deer activity has not let up since I have started this month’s series, and a couple of my SD cards within the TCs was already full since I checked them last two days ago.

I will also share that I generally have been getting more daylight deer activity than the evening dark hours all month. Also keep in mind, there are three TCs at the original feed location and only one at the latest feed location to the West.

At the current rate the deer have been going through all the whole-corn I have over the last two months, I will be shutting down the latest feed location at the end of June. Reason being mainly, they are simply going through corn like it is going out of style, nearly 1,000lbs./wk. combined divided between both feed locations. It’s getting a little bit over the top for me to keep up with that pace so, if they want corn in July and beyond, they will have to travel a bit further to get to it, approximately 300 yards further to the East at the originally feed location I created right behind our cabin two years ago. Plus, it is far easier on me to replenish that location, being much closer to my corn storage area. I always intended in shutting down the corn at that western location, just not quite so soon.

So, just to be clear for anyone that may be wondering or may have missed out what I shared previously, I created the second feeding location for a few reasons this year.

• To get a better idea of just how many deer I have in the area this year, which has at least doubled of both bucks and does, and
• To see what previous season bucks may have returned to the area, which appears to be all of them.
• And finally, what the health status is like of the herd based on visual observations, food intake and deer interactions.

Now that I have what I consider to be a fairly solid understanding of what is going on with our local deer herd, I will be shutting down the corn supply at what is mainly considered my ‘Western Stand’ and/or ‘PLB’ #2 location. I may leave the mineral block nearby, we’ll see, but I will certainly hang for sure, a fresh new pine licking branch at the end of the month when all the corn is gone at that location.

With regards to ‘PLB’ #1 that blew over last hunting season during a major windstorm, I still need to get over to that area and saw up that tree that the pine branch was hanging off. I will haul away all the good wood for the shop woodstove to burn this fall. I will also need to clean up the area and attempt to jury rig another brand new ‘PLB’ to hang, hopefully at the exact same spot due to how that particular spot correlates with my ‘Northwestern Stand’ for easy target opportunities. Plus, there is a large tree vine right there that the bucks tend to rub on right along the ‘PLB’.

______________________________________________

I have another update with regards to a pet I mentioned before in this year's journal.

My cat, HANK, got attacked once again by our local newcomer I think, Mr. Bobcat. It happened sometime this morning. Yep, he got his ass handed to him again and he has a few puncher wounds in two different legs, one in the right front shoulder area and two in the rear left lower leg. Both were bleeding when he returned to the shop midmorning. I scooped him up and handed him over to the wife. She cleaned him up and tended to him, then made another soonest available vet appointment for him, which is tomorrow morning at 8:45 a.m. He is a little lethargic with some tender soreness in those bitten areas but seems to be doing okay for the moment. He is currently sleeping it off in well air-conditioned room inside the house where nothing can bother him.

Perhaps some you may recall, he is the cat I started off just babysitting for a supposed month, for a wife’s friend while she moved to Florida last year, before the pandemic was declared. You can read about it in the following hyper link if you wish;

Show us your wood (pile)​

Well, he is permanently mine and totally my responsibility now. He mainly hangs out with me in the shop along with the dogs. During the better weather type conditions, he heads out to roam the property. He is a good friendly cat, and I never had any problems with him right from the beginning.

The area where he seems to get himself into trouble is a trail that I carved out in a wooded area back in 2016, right behind the barn, near our creek. I did that trail clearing for the wife mainly so we could take some nice nature walks together from time to time. The wife named it ‘Leaf Trail’. I made the sign for her that you can see in the photo below.



When HANK first got attacked a month ago, I was right there to save his butt and scared off Mr. Bobcat. What happened today, well, I was not there to see what happened, so IDK what or who exactly attacked him. HANK just showed up at the shop door and was not walking quite right from what I could tell.

After the first attack, the next day, I hung my ‘Lone Wolf Alpha Stand’ in hopes of meeting up with Mr. Bobcat again, but I ended up having our local female Fox cruise though right underneath me on the trail instead. I just sat there for a few moments and watched her head over the creek to her home just on the other side, up the creek bank and into her home. I see her often as well around our place. I do not think she would aggressively attack HANK, but I am not necessarily certain of that either. She could have I suppose.



Anyhow, ‘Leaf Trail’ is roughly 150 yards long in length with openings that go in and out of the wooded area at both ends that HANK clearly needs to stay away from going forward. I hope at least, he has learned his lesson by now. I thought I’d share this wildlife story with you all as well since I mentioned him before about his first encounter with Mr. Bobcat, and now, I'm just not sure what attacked him last.

So, that's pretty much it for now, my latest update. Hope everybody is taking it easy out there in ‘crazyland’? I’ll keep you all posted on HANK’s condition the next go around, plus anymore significant deer stuff.

Take care all!

 

[Big_Holla]

I'd be surprised he got away from a bobcat, those are relentless and those claws.... My guess would be something without claws and maybe the fox you saw. Never know though.

 

[Wildlife]

I'd be surprised he got away from a bobcat, those are relentless and those claws.... My guess would be something without claws and maybe the fox you saw. Never know though.

Yeah Chuck, after speaking to the vet this morning, he mentioned that his clinic does occasionally get some cats that have been bitten by other Foxes so, based on that and after sharing with him that we have one in the area, plus a thorough examination of Hank's wounds, the vet does seem to think that is what most likely caused Hank's injuries to both the front upper leg shoulder area and his rear lower leg. The wounds were not nearly as server as his first attack by Mr. Bobcat. Mr. Bobcat actually took a small chuck of meat out of Hank's back and scratch the living shit out of the front of his nose. Hank will have permanent scares from those inquires.

(His morning ride to the vet appointment today)


Hank is expected to make a complete and full recovery though from his latest injuries. No broken bones, which is good because that is what I was kind of worried about based on how he tried to walk yesterday. He's currently pumped full of drugs and sleeping them off in a dark room in the house. He has a follow up appointment in two weeks. I have to admit, Hank is probably the most expensive animal I think I have at this point. Two somewhat emergency vet visits within two months and they were not cheap by my standards. I suppose I'll have to try to keep'em inside for a while, which I'm sure he's not going to like, at all.

Just so you know with regards to Hanks first attack from Mr. Bobcat, like I mentioned previously, I was right there when it happened, just yards away. Mr. Bobcat had Hank by the upper front back area, carrying him for a brief moment when I first heard Hank scream, right near the woods. I immediately rushed to Hanks aid. Mr. Bobcat dropped Hank and stood over him for just a moment. Hank just laid there, motionless on the ground. Mr. Bobcat then slowly and quite casually walked into the wooded area, the same area I shared in my previous post.
When I quickly scooped Hank up right afterwards, Mr. Bobcat was standing about 10' away, looking straight at me, just inside the wooded area. He did not immediately run off until I returned right afterwards from putting Hank back inside the shop. That is when Mr. Bobcat realized that I was in hot pursuit for him.

That was my forth and final close encounter with Mr. Bobcat.

My very first encounter with Mr. Bobcat was when he walked right in front of our cabin, between the car and cabin. The wife & I just returned home that evening from dinner with her parents and we were sitting in the car briefly talking. Then I seen Mr. Bobcat approach the car while sitting in it, right in front of it. Both the wife & I remained calm and quiet while Mr. Bobcat headed towards our other smaller creek to the South end of the property, leaped over it and gone into the woods. I posted that encounter on the forum where I tried to take some decent photos of him while in the car, but I was slightly buzzed at that time having a few beers in me from dinner. The wife and I watched Mr. Bobcat momentarily mess around our wellhouse and then sprayed piss all over one of our pine bushes.

If some of you have not seen those pictures I shared of that encounter and wish to, you can click the thread hyper link right below to check them out.

Called one in.​

No doubt our local Fox is an aggressive creature as well. If anyone were to also checkout the video below of a TC capture at the original feed location for deer, it's apparent that Mrs. Fox is a wild one too.

I have a few others of her as well that I have posted on my YouTube channel and one brief moment of Mr. Bobcat. Those were captured throughout April & May of this year. I have captured additional images since then, but I did not posted those due to poor quality.

If I ever get a better photograph and/or video of Mr. Bobcat, I will post those here within this journal.

So, good call Chuck! The vet agrees with you.

 

[Wildlife]

11;55 p.m. - Wednesday, June 16, 20201:

The following videos are from both feeding locations that clearly shows deer activity over the last 48 hours roughly, since I last pulled TC SD memory cards. Both are time lapse videos from each of the feed locations. I sped them up by four times. Feeding location #1, which is the original feed location created two years ago, had nearly four hours of deer activity within roughly 42 hours captured since I last pulled the SD memory card, and Feeding location #2 is pretty much the same where there was just over two hours of deer activity captured within basically the same 42 hours roughly. All four cameras did not make the entire 48 hours because the SD memory cards were full.

When I pulled the SD memory cards from all the TCs today, they showed a full status, which means that I missed out on approximately 6 hours of any potential deer activity from this mornings. Due to that fact, and since it has been that way since the beginning of this month with the current camera configuration of capturing videos rather than snapping photos, I went ahead and changed each camera to snapping photos going forward. That change should hopefully allow my tail cameras to capture all the deer activity through at least a two-day period without completely filling the SD memory cards.

These videos just go to show just how much of an increase of deer activity I have going on in the area this year, which is far more than the previous years, or ever before.

Within each video, you will get to see a few familiar faces of a few returning bucks from last year, that is if any of you have been paying attention.

THUNDER has begun his regular feeding schedule, which is the very same as the previous two years at the original feed location, #1.

In the second video, feed location #2, you will get to see one of the top potential shooter bucks in the area. He has no name currently and I will wait and see if he continues to stick around before I decide to name him. He is filling out quite nicely with regards to antler growth.

If anyone wishes to view the other time lapse videos of camera #2 & camera #3 with different angles of view of feed location #1, they will be available on my channel, listed within the following playlist called – ‘Whitetail Deer 2021 Entire Playlist’.

Going forward, most all created deer video creations of 2021/22 will be available on my YouTube channel and may not be posted here on the forum. I will continue to share on my journal any significant TC deer photo captures though.

The reason for the late post today, I had other priorities going on this afternoon after I pulled those SD cards from all the TCs earlier.

I have been averaging every two days visiting both deer feed locations because of the amount of corn all the deer have been eating and my SD memory cards limitations. Now that I changed the TC capture configuration of each camera and laid out more pounds of corn today, I am striving/trying to stay out of those feed locations and get it down to once a week. It will be a trail and error thing for me and may take me a little longer to figure out the right combination to get it down to one day a week feed replenishment schedule.

Like I said previously, I will be shutting down the corn at feed location #2 at the end of the month and covert that location to having a (PLB) pine licking branch only. Any deer that wants corn in July and beyond will have to make their way to the originally feed location, right behind my cabin on the southeast side of the property.

That is all have for now, and I hope most all of you appreciate my sharing this month? I’m trying to get everything down to about once a week update more or less.

Take care all!

 

[Wildlife]

3:00 p.m. - Saturday, June 19, 2021:



I had to replace batteries in the trail camera at feed location #2 this afternoon. While doing so, I swapped the SD cards. The following photo collage of just over 1,000 deer photograph captures at that location was prior, during and after yesterday’s summer thunderstorms is attached below. There are 3 second intervals of each photograph taken. The photograph above was taken when I replaced those batteries today. The one below the cottontail that was in the yard while heading out to that location looks like something you would see in a cow pasture with regards to heavy animal foot traffic.

_______________________________

There are also four more additional videos that I uploaded yesterday to my ‘Whitetail Deer 2021 Entire Playlist’ - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX-1JMYXAH9OAT8gR6nFbpGntR_Aqn4_f

that are more of the same, which are trail camera time lapse video captures taken by each trail camera during 6/16 through 6/17/ showing all the deer activity in the area.

_______________________________

Tomorrow, I hope to share something rather special for all the 'Deer Hunter Dads' out there. To make it happen, it will take some rather unique ingenuity on my part to pull it off.

Regardless if it happens or not, I want to wish every father out there, ‘Happy Father’s Day’ tomorrow! I hope your day turns out to be very special for you!

 

[Wildlife]

10:15 a.m. - Sunday, June 20, 2021 - 'HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!':

Well, it went as planned.

The following is my LIVE broadcast from my YouTube channel of FEED LOCATION #1. I have never done this before and I have no idea how well it will pan out, however it did not cost me a thing to set it up.

I want to again express my best wishes to all the fathers today and may you have a wonderful and peaceful day with your loved ones. I am about to go to my father in laws and spend some time with him. I'll be sharing this broadcast with him, which I am certain he will enjoy.

So, to all you Dads - HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

 

[Wildlife]

3:00 p.m. Sunday, June 20, 2010:

My bad folks!

Just a little technical difficultly. I forgot to turn on the extended battery for the camera so, I ran home real quick to turn it on. Now the LIVE broadcast should be good to go for the remainder of the daylight hours. If anyone is interested in watching the broadcast, just click on the LIVE feed below.

I will say that it is awfully warm and muggy out today so, I do not expect the deer to be all that active until the evening hours. None have showed thus far since the beginning of the first LIVE broadcast.