No Shortage of Does

Awesome weather this weekend. I had three perfect evening sits. The first night at the driveway stand.  There was almost no wind.  The turkeys came out first.

Then the does started to bleed in.

Then more does.

And more does.

And the turkeys and the does mixed it up a little - here's a video. Does and Hens

Finally someone got a little whiff of me.  That was then end of it.  Getting Busted  No bucks spotted that evening.

The next morning I tried the pond stand with no success.

I saw these turkeys on the walk in for breakfast.

The maples seem to have skipped the pretty phase this year.

We had some good fetch sessions.

I had an impulse buy from a FB ad for this t-post camera mount. It seems ok but the tree mount brackets from the same site were junk. I got a refund on them.  

There are a few colorful maples.

This is the brassica field.  we could have used the rain sooner. It's still attracting attention from the deer.

View of the same field from the pond stand.  I had 11 does out this evening.  There were two bucks near last light at 440 yards.

I had does out on the other side of the stand too.

A couple had the audacity to just bed down out there.

I took the plunge and bought Swarovski range-finding binos to replace my old-faithful Nikons.  They can do ballistic solutions etc but so far, I'm just ranging with them.

Still some storm remnants to deal with.

There were a pile of these pretty mushrooms under the pine trees.

The last evening I went to the barn stand.  The wind had picked up ahead of a cold front.  I still had 9 does out.  Does coming out

Not much of a harvest this year but I loaded it up.

A few more photos from the Lucy and Charlie visit.

Fisherwoman on the hunt.

Persimmon tree with fruit drying up.

The clover at the driveway came back nicely.

The bobcat was back!

Coyote count seems to be down for some reason.

Lots of turkeys.

The bucks are stating to warm up for the rut.

A hawk I think

And, the does.

Visit From The Grands!

 Lucy, Charlie and Amy were in town for the weekend.

It was beautiful weather so we did some fishing.  An additional 2" of rain fell this week.

Lucy caught the first and the most fish.

Charlie caught the biggest - this isn't it.

We had multiple Ranger rides.

This sometimes involved mugging for the cameras.

It was nice to have some assistance for the harvest,

In spite of the deer breaching the plot tape, we managed to get some stuff for us.

It wasn't like a normal year since I only planted about 10% - but there was still quite a bit.

I snuck out to a stand in the morning before anybody else was awake.

I didn't see a deer.

But it was a lovely morning.  Brassica plot is coming along.

And then we did some more fishing.

With more success.

And more Ranger rides.

Our friend Dan lives in Jackson WY.  How's this for a DIY, public land, trophy mule deer (in grizzly country).  Awesome!

The usual suspects were on camera.

The pears are still a big hit.

And the licking branches are getting some activity.

It was a glorious weekend.