After putting out trail cameras for two years, I've had the chance to get to know a few local deer. The 9 pointer on the right is a big bodied deer that posed for many pictures during the 2007 season. I had the opportunity to shoot this deer one snowy evening around Thanksgiving of that year, but let him walk hoping he'd be bigger in 2008.
Here he is in 2008, you can see he's lost his right G4, but put on some tine length and quite a bit of mass. His body is also huge this year. He was a big-bodied deer in '07, but even more so in '08.
This buck was showing himself during the daylight quite frequently in late September and early October of 2008, and I was giving some serious thought
to putting an arrow in him if given the chance.
I didn't spend any time in this treestand during October of 2008. I was hoping to shoot a true monster and thought I had a better chance of that in another stand.
This last picture reveals a very disappointing occurrence. The bucks left G3 had been broken in battle sometime around October 20th. I never did see this buck out of the stand, although I only hunted it 2 or 3 times during November. I have more pics of him after rifle season so hopefully he'll show up for the third year in the fall of 2009!