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Wildlife 2022/2023 Deer Season

Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
Sunday, June 19, 2022: HAPPY FATHER’S DAY 'TOO'ville!

Officially kicking off this year’s hunt journal of mine, which is my fourth consecutive year in a row of sharing my hunting season with you all.

Basically, anything to do with my deer hunting will most likely be documented right here going forward for the remainder of the year.

For those that don’t know, I have been maintaining a deer feed station area at the back corner of our property ever since 2019.

This year, I built two feed troughs and placed them at the feed station during the first week of May.

Three weeks ago, the very first deer fed out of a feed trough for the very first time. Today, there are approximately a half a dozen of deer that feed out of those troughs regularly, daily and I expect to see even more deer feed out them regularly throughout the remainder of the year.

I plan to phase out the whole corn as food for the deer this year. I wish to feed them better quality food with higher nutrition value, so, it will be a trial-and-error type of thing this summer until I find a food product that the deer like that’ll be much healthier for them.

I just purchased two new replacement trail cameras that will be placed later this coming week.

I currently have seven trail cameras for the entire year. Occasionally, I may move one or two of them throughout the hunting season, but for the most part, each one generally stays in place all year long.

3-@HOME FEED STATION; 1-@HOME WESTERN STAND; 1-@HOME DRIVEWAY; 1-@OTHER FARM FEED STATION; 1-@OTHER FARM CORN FIELD

With regards to the number of deer nearest to my home today, the herd size has increased slightly this year, which is consistent to what I have observed over the past three years.

Many of the same bucks from the previous years have returned once again this year, such as; ‘THUNDER’, ‘VEGAS’,‘SHYBUC’, ‘JR’, ‘NINER’, and ‘LEFTY’. There are many others that I’m currently trying figure who they are and if they’re new or not. I should have a much better idea of what I actually have in the area on a regular basis by the end of July.

To the best of my knowledge, this is ‘THUNDER’s fourth year living within the immediate area, ‘SHYBUC’s third, ‘LEFTY’s third, ‘VEGAS’s second, ‘JR’s second and ‘NINER’s second year.

TC captures of the mentioned bucks just over the past 24hrs. I expect the new TC to provide much better quality images from that location next week.


BUCKS.jpg


To date, from what I have seen just over the past two weeks, there are four new fawns within the immediate area however, I do suspect that there are even more because of the numbers of does within the immediate area have also increased since last year. At least one set of twins and two singles so far that I have actually seen.

At the other farm, I placed an automatic programmable corn feeder back in late April of this year, which is something new for that property. The number of deer on that property appears to be quite healthy in size as well.

There’s a buck that visits that feeder regularly with a unique rack coming in. Still not sure though if he’s a returning buck or possibly a new one.


Last season was the first time in over a decade I hunted that property in the early archery season, and I harvested two good size antlerless deer last October.

This year, I’ll most likely do the same for that property, hunting the early archery season, then transfer over to gun and muzzy, hunting from out of the blind, intending to harvest two good size deer from out of that county this year.

With regards to what buck I hope to be chasing and/or targeting for the new season, ‘THUNDER’ and ‘VEGAS’ will most likely be at the top of the list, but that may change as the season progresses, such as any roamer that makes their presence known.

I'll share as often as time permits of any relevant content or information of any of my hunts with you all, as usual.

Please feel free to jump in anytime throughout my journal and I totally look forward to following along anyone else’s that decide to do much the same this year.

I truly wish all members tremendous success this season! May you all return home safely after each hunt.

Best of luck to you!
 
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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
Tuesday, June 21, 2022: FEED STATION/TROUGHS UPDATE

I wanted to include the following information within this journal, mainly for future reference purposes. It's much easier for me to keep track of what I've done over the years through these journals when it comes to deer stuff, thanks!
____________________________________

The newly built feed troughs for the feed station at home this year. More information regarding them can be found at -
What did you do for the deer today?
20220502_174511.jpg


May 15, 2022 is when I fully completed both feed troughs with added modifications.

WGI_0355.JPG


The very first deer that fed out of feed trough was shared in a follow-up video that was posted in the What did you do for the deer today? thread as well.
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This latest video below is what's happening at the feed station, more specifically, how the mature deer are handling the new feed troughs. None have fed out of any of them yet, but I'm confident it'll happen eventually. More and more deer are showing up there everyday, just like the previous three years.

Tomorrow, I have a meeting with a distributor/supplier/owner to purchase deer feed in bulk and to hopefully have shipped directly to my home. I'll follow up in how that goes in the next update.

Video description:

Some deer activity that took place in daylight last evening and this morning at the feed station right here at home. Basically, things are slowly progressing in the right direction. The mature deer are still trying to warm up to the newly placed feed troughs. Both 'JR' & 'THUNDER' showed up and you'll get to see them within this video; 'JR' at last light yesterday and 'THUNDER' for first time this year at the feed station earlier this morning, but they did not eat from the troughs. It's just a matter of time when they do and it will happen eventually I do believe. Other deer activity does occur at the feed station during the dark night hours as well, however the majority of the deer activity typically occurs at first and last light of the day pretty much all year long. That's how it's been ever since the fall of 2018 when I first established the feed station area for all the wildlife in our area.


 
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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
9:00 p.m. Wednesday, August 17, 2022:

'Quick update'


I purchased 3 Tactacam cell-cams last month. One for each feed-station and one for a hunting setup. I hung each camera back in mid July and all of them have been working flawlessly ever since. I really appreciate the instant notifications directly to my cellphone anytime something happens in front of any those trail cameras.

Today, I received in the mail a brand new bow scope for my oldest Mathews compound bow, which is the replacement for of the one that I sold off of it that was a single pin HHA. I bought the latest version of the HHA Tetra Max 4519 model, which has the .019 - 4 pins and micro adjustments capability on the fly.

Last week, I had Mathews NoCam compound bow restrung and tuned.

This weekend, I'll be setting up arrows. I fully intend on killing deer with each bow this year. My Mathews Rezeen 6.5 SoloCam will be equipped with the NAP 125g fixed three blade Thunderheads and the Mathews NoCam bow will have the 100g RAGE NC X-TREME COC.

Much yet to do still for this new season, but everything seems to be is coming along quite nicely.

So, more to come in the very near future...
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Video description:

This is the third year for this buck visiting the feed station regularly. I have no intensions of hunting this buck this year but hope that he makes through another hunting season. I've encountered this buck several times throughout the past three hunting seasons and shared a few of those encounters while in the stand. He's had countless free passes over the years and will most likely get a few more this year.
 

Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
Was hoping to see a THUNDER update..:unsure::cool:

'THUNDER' has been a no show since late June. As soon as he shows up once again on camera, I'll share. I suspect that a few of the most mature bucks have moved further on within the creek valley right behind us. There's approximately 750+ acres right behind the house where he could be laying up at, or possibly staying within the 200+ acres of mature hardwoods on top of the south hill?

Either way, I'm not too all concerned about where he's at at the moment as long as he's among the living still. If he's still alive, I'm quite confident he'll show up during the rut.
 
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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
10:00 p.m., Sunday, August 21, 2022 - 'Quick update':

Yesterday, I replenished the corn feeder and swapped SD cards out of the two trail cameras at the other farm.

Today, I put together a couple of videos from the data collected off those SD cards.
_______________________________________________

This is the follow-up to the last two posts of mine within the 2022 Velvet Bucks thread;

My last two post if interested in viewing;

1: 2022 Velvet Bucks
2: 2022 Velvet Bucks

Video description:

A good buck showed up this past week.

I replenished the feeder and pulled SD cards yesterday at the other farm. This is all the trail camera data associated to that deer plus a couple of others that happen to be with him during the first visit.
His first showing was on the 16th during the predawn hour just before the feeder was about to dispense for the morning, and stayed in the area for nearly an hour, then showed up once again on the 20th in the very early morning hours. He stayed in the area for about 45 minutes during that visit.
There are two trail cameras that cover the deer feeder location. One cheap 12meg camera configured for photographs only and the other is a cell-cam that is configure for both video and photo.
This video will start off with cell-cam video in the HD format when he first appeared, followed up with any of the still photographs captured that are in consecutive order by timestamp from both trail cameras during each period of time when he was in the area.



This video should serve as an example of some of the deer activity that has occurred and continues to occur at that location daily. Since the beginning of the month, I have noticed a slight up tic in the amount of deer activity at that location as well.

Video description:

Daily occurrences at the feeder in late August. More specifically, it will show a couple of small groups of antlerless deer during the morning of the 16th and the 18th for approximately an hour each time, and in some instances, you'll get to see tempers flair.



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I really like the three Tactacam cell-cams I purchased last month. Each of them continue to work great!

This is a video I made the other day.

Video description:

Yes, this video will show a small group of resident adult does captured on cameras while feeding at dawn, which has become a regular/daily occurrence now at the feed-station right here at home.
This will also show the difference between trail cameras that have audio capturing capability, and those that don't because there are three different trail-cameras that cover the entire feed-station area.
So, turn up the volume at the part where it's nothing but nature sounds because you will hear why the deer cut their food intake short yesterday.
Spoiler Alert|!| - The Whitetail Deer around here are not big fans of ducks and geese, and we have more of them this year than ever before that have been utilizing our nearby creeks. Duck usual feeding times are much like deer, they too tend to show up at first light and last light of the day, which if they're within the very immediate area of the feed-station, they tend to frighten off the deer until they leave, then at times, those deer that were scared off, sometimes return soon after, but not always.
The larger main creek is approximately 25 yards away from the feed-station here at home.

Hope you enjoyed and thanks for watching!



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A couple of TC captures of 'JR' from the last 24hrs here @home.

JRCOVER2.jpg


Video description:

Here's a resident buck that went A.W.O.L. all throughout July. He recently showed back up the first week of August.

It's nice to see him once again.

Listen carefully for coyotes.

 
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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
10:30 a.m., Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - 'MUST BE TURKEY DAY|?|'

The past couple of days I've been seeing quite a few wild turkeys at both properties. Below are just a couple out the many captures that I received already today.

@home


3c8cc5e2-fb37-4840-a81a-6ef8dac494cd.jpg


@theotherfarm

e6f8f473-ffbf-4960-acd2-64ca9b05acf1.jpg


And then, there was this one from the other farm much earlier this morning that got a good laugh out of me when I first woke up.

0c6782fd-ff9f-4e39-b5bd-4437dbf15ad1.jpg

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Last night, I created this video, which are trail camera captures of some very familiar sounds that I don't typically hear until I get in a stand someplace during the fall.

Video description:

This video consist of yesterday's group of deer at the feed-station, right here at home. The video starts off with 'SHYBUC's second visit of the day already as others slowly funnel in for breakfast too. The video ends with a young buck and a mature doe during the noon hour. This video does not include all the deer that appeared at the feed-station that morning or throughout the entire day. Two distinct deer sounds can be heard within this video. A mature doe and a young buck made some familiar sounds that I thought was worth sharing. This is my first year using trail cameras that have the capability of capturing audible sounds. Just one of the features about the new cameras that I really like.


 
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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
Monday, August 29, 2022 - 'A WEEK IN REVIEW'

I created this video last night so it could be apart of this year's journal.

Video description:

This video consists of trail camera photography from August 18, 2022 through the morning of the 26th of a Whitetail Deer that has lived in the area over the last three years and visits the feed-station regularly.

His timid demeanor observed over the previous years is what got him his name, 'SHYBUC'.

He visits often, mostly alone, for approximately 20-30 minutes at a time. 'SHYBUC' fed at the feed-station 7 of the past 8 days. He usually makes an appearance everyday at some point or another as long as the weather is semi-decent. We received a couple of severe thunderstorms throughout the evening of the 20th, which negatively impacted the amount of deer activity at the feed-station the very next day due to flooding in the nearby creeks. The tremendous amount of rain we received that night swelled up our creeks, which prevented some of the deer from being able to cross to get to the feed-station. Hardly any deer showed up at the feed-station on the 21st, and 'SHYBUC' was a complete no show as well. The following day of the 22nd, in the very early morning hours, soon after the creek water levels have subsided, everything seemed to go back to normal once again at the feed-station. I could tell that 'SHYBUC' tried to make up for the missed day of eating after reviewing all the trail camera data collected that week for that location.

This video shows what was documented during each of 'SHYBUC's visits over the past 8 days, at the feed-station, and whatever else occurred during his time spent there.
_____________________________________________________________
Final thought:

After two in a half months of both feed troughs being built and placed earlier this year, I'm truly happy to see the many deer from the area utilizing them now. The troughs are a snap to replenish with food, and they're also very easy to maintain and clean compared to the commercially built corn feeder that I have @theotherfarm. I'd build more if I I had a use for them, but I don't at this time.
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Final note:

I will not be hunting 'SHYBUC' this year. I truly hope that he continues to stay very healthy and survives another year.

Hope you enjoy and thanks for watching!


 

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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
3:25 p.m. Thursday, September 1, 2022 - 'NEED A LITTLE HELP'

Alright, something rather neat happened this morning at the feed-station and ever since then, I've been trying to figure out the exact name of this wild bird. I believe it's a Merlin but, I'm not so sure.
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SYEW0781.JPG



Merlin

The merlin is a falcon, smaller than a peregrine but slightly larger than an American kestrel. Passes through Northeast Ohio from its breeding grounds in Canada and its wintering grounds in the southern U.S. Preys on birds in flight. Formerly called pigeon hawk.


21552933-standard.jpeg


Source: __________________________________________________________

We get all kinds of birds of prey in the area and I usually know the exact name of each one that I see, but this one, I'm not certain, so any help to clarify would be greatly appreciated, thanks! I intend on redoing the video in 4k HD, then I'll share that version to the whole world.
 
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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
11:00 a.m., Sunday, September 4, 2022 - 'MORE BIRDS OF PREY'

Yesterday, I went to the other farm to replenish the corn feeder and swap SD trail camera cards.

When I first arrived, once again, I quickly discovered another antlerless deer right along the ditch of the road on the property. I drug that deer as well to the bottom of the closets ravine, further on in within the property.

I'm currently working on another video update for that location and hope to have it available by end of day today, but in the meantime, I just completed this one, which shows the latest encounters of mine over this weekend.

Please enjoy, and any feedback regarding any videos of mine would be greatly appreciated, thanks so much!

Have a great Sunday!
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Video description:

While leaving the house this morning, I encountered my second hawk in the yard this weekend. One yesterday and one this morning, and these are cellphone images I captured of the two.

The Turkey Vulture & hawk was yesterday's encounter right when I pulled into our driveway after returning from replenishing the other farm's deer corn feeder.

The cover image of the video is one that fell out of a big pine tree on the property and hurt a wing a couple of years back. I tended to the bird until it was well enough to fly off on its own. Who knows, perhaps one of these two within video just might be him.

Anyways, I'd like to think so.
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More videos to come everybody, so stay tuned!


 

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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
7:25 p.m., Sunday, September 4, 2022 - 'Bye, bye Velvet'

Future reference type of an update:

Bucks at both properties (Ross & Fairfield Co.) have started shedding their velvet ever since Friday. Now I'm just waiting on the more mature bucks to show up.


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Good times are just around the corner.

Looking forward to it!
 
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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
2:15 p.m., Monday, September 5, 2022 - 'SHYBUC's' Velvet Status Update'

Just now.

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And then :LOL::ROFLMAO:

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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
6:15p.m.-Tues; September 6, 2022: 'Both Properties'

Shybuc still in velvet.

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Edit @10:20 p.m. same day.

I forgot to include the hawk encounter my wife had yesterday when she pulled into our driveway.

F.Y.I. - After I pull SD cards tomorrow here @home, I believe I'll have my best bird of prey capture on camera to 📅
.

 

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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
1:10p.m.,Friday, Sept. 9, 2022: 'HE'S BACK'

Just now...

7c40b79a-44d4-4b31-af5c-cb35b67bb413.jpg


Deer were at the feeder moments prior.

Hour 20 minutes later, next deer shows up.
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EDIT: 1:15 - Just so folks know, our ISP router failed the other day shortly after the thread I created. We were without cell service, TV and internet for the last couple of days, right up until I installed the replacement. I'm now back on-line as of this morning.

Boy, I tell ya, I was chopping at the bits too because I wasn't receiving any of my cell cam pix either. Yeah, I'm totally addicted to my Tactacams now
:LOL:

Anyhow,,,

A few more additional photographs were taken from my cellphone, also attached from when I was completely isolated from the world, via the internet.

Another bird of prey encounter while mowing. Just never know if it might be the one that I helped because I see it quite often around here, and what was attracting the others was found in the yard that I had to get rid of, and finally, while returning home with pizza yesterday evening, I captured the full moon before sundown.

Working on other videos when I can that I'll be uploading hopefully soon. I've got a lot going on right now so, I'll get back here when I can.

Hope you all enjoy my sharing, and thanks for following along!

Have a great weekend 'TOO'!
 

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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
And,, then there's 'SHYBUC'. He's still carrying around velvet, but it looks like he won't be by the end of the weekend possibly.

Just now.


756b2204-85bd-4c5a-82d5-241eeff7653f.jpg


That night, he shed his velvet and finally went hard antlered, which is attached below.
 

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