Season Finale - Skunked!

What a disappointing season.  The cameras are showing lots of deer.  We saw young bucks on virtually every sit in stand.  But both does and mature bucks just disappeared (during daylight). Not one deer taken by hunters on this property this year.  Dave, Grant, John and Creigh were in camp this muzzleloader season.

This is typical of what we were seeing.  This photo was taken while Dave and Grant were in stand watching the flash go off.

There were actually 3 small bucks out in the field in front of them.

I was over in the pond stand.  This is my typical Iphone photo.

Here's the same shot with my new telephoto lens on the phone.  Santa brought me this because he thought I needed better close ups.

So this is what I was seeing - two small bucks out in the field.  No does.  No mature bucks.  We had seven total immature bucks in the fields on Saturday night.

Grant earned his keep by preparing the cheese tray.

The last of last year's venison went into camp chili.

Dave and I flew the drone on Saturday.

This is before the weather started to change.

I had a slight mishap on landing. The drone tilted over and hit the ground with the rotors still turning.  One broken blade.  It's a good thing they gave me spares.

Making the camera tour on Saturday.

By Sunday, the weather had changed.  I went for a walk mid-day to try to push some deer.

I found this buck carcass.  My guess is he was a casualty in gun season - no arrow with the carcass.  He was still a little ripe.  That's the second wounded, unrecovered deer that I found on property this year.  I think hunting pressure from neighbors is contributing to this year's lack of success.

I pulled him up on this log so I could find him later to recover the skull.

I left the skull in a tree for nature to continue its work.  Hopefully it is out of coyote/dog range.  I'll boil it up for a European mount when I get time.

This is what I found when I went to stand on Sunday evening.  Brrr.

Sunday evening in stand.  23 degrees, 20 mph winds.  Feels like 10 degrees.  Not many deer moving.

Sunrise Monday morning.  From the cabin.

I didn't feel like heading out with wind chill of -6.

Creigh and I did go out eventually.  This is one of his trips up from the ridge stand.

Another one.  Clock is wrong on this camera.

Creigh took this shot from ridge stand.  He had a chance at some does on the move but couldn't get a shot off.

Monday night Creigh had 3 different young bucks in the barn field.

This Christmas gift was put to good use.

Ice on the pond already. Only open at the aerator.

The one little 4 point that I saw Monday evening.

Creigh and I did get the drone out for another flight.

There we are.

I took it up to about 250 feet and did a 360 rotation.

Snow on the ground and leaves off the trees give some pretty good visibility in the woods.

I wanted to upload some of the video with the snow cover.  It turns out that the files were too big.  I'll try to figure that out for the future.  Anyway, here's a short one from when Dave and I were flying it.

 

Panoramic above taken by Creigh.  Here we are on the last camera tour. 13F.

I heard from a neighbor who got this photo of the beast on 12/28.  He's a survivor.

He also had these shed antlers already.  Some of the bucks have already dropped.  That's his barn below - nice paint job.