From This, in May ...

To This in July !!!

Scouting & Photos, July 31, 2001:
This morning I snuck over to one of my treestands on my own property. A good number of deer moved through before there was good light. Two 6-ers browsed by and then changed directions toward the Rolled Wire area. The gray-faced buck and his companion doe and a fawn were next. The sun got higher and the gray-face and fawn back walked by. If the doe was with them I didn't see it. A 6-er that was probably one of the earlier ones walked by and a lone doe came through. Afternoon: I got a pic as 2 does faced off. One reared up on it's hind legs but that pic was blurry. The funny shaped 7-point came in. A doe stood in the shade for half an hour. A young 8-pt and a 6-er approached a browsing doe, a gash was on her left front leg. She moved clear of the buck, there was also a cut on her ribs. Deer get injuries in the wild, it would be interesting to know what happened. To Pics
BUCKS - The July 23 Buck Returns, And Brings His Buddy Group Along
Right from the get go, I saw bucks as soon as it was light enough to see clearly. A young 6-point that has a nice start on it's first rack. A 7-point that stopped and streached out its neck. Then 3 different 8-points showed, #1, #2, #3. The sun rose a little higher and 2 Big Boy Bucks came walking along the fence. All Right!!! One was the buck I got the pic of on July 23. It was a 6-point with a wide rack, its right brow tine makes a U-turn on the end. Here's a closer side view pic. Two big bucks joined the big 6 and I got the group's pic as they browsed. One was a great looking wide racked 9-point bomber. 
To July's scouting -- plus lots of photos of 8-Points, Fawns, Does, & Deer Wallpaper. GO
Don't Loose Your Head!!
As I've said many times before some pictures are cooler than others. They're special, they have a unique "one of a kind" quality about them that can never be duplicated. Here's one I call "Don't Loose Your Head" in Wallpaper format. You may have to look at it for a few seconds to get the connection! (1024x768) (800x600) (640x480)
Scouting: Hammer Hole Report July 27 - When I arrived at my tripod overlooking the woods road to the Hammer Hole, and got settled in, it started raining. I sat in it a while to see if the rain would last. Once I got a little wet I figured it was here to stay so I walked back to my truck. The rain stopped when I was almost home.
Scouting: This morning went a lot better - The buck from July 17 was the first to show, and leave. Next, were Gray Face and a Doe. Another doe came and before long I saw the white spots and tan body of a Fawn at the wood's edge. Gray Face walked over to it. The Fawn walked out and joined the other deer. They groomed one another and interacted. More deer came but eventually one doe and a fawn were all that was left. When they exited that was it for the morning. I also put this up as a Thumbnailed Series that has several additional pics, lots of folks tell me they love seeing young fawns and deer interacting. 
July 24 Scouting: Series Of Pics 8-Point with Long Brow Tines
I completed this series of pics I took of the long brow tined  8-point in velvet. He returned again and this time he was indeed Mr. Photogenic. The pictures are all thumbnailed and show him walking around and checking out the area. Several other deer, both bucks and does were already there and the buck aproaches all of them.
July 23 Scouting: Several does and young bucks showed up during the afternoon. When the light was just about gone I spotted a buck standing in the shadows. This bad boy is considerably ahead of the other bucks -- in terms of antler development. Because of the low light I had to max the camera's exposure and incoming light settings. I managed to get 3 pictures of the buck before it got too dark to get a pic. In two pics he was moving, so they were blurry. But this picture is ok. Lets hope this buck comes back so we can get a look at him in the daylight.
Buddy Group: Some pictures turn out to be better than others. Here is a very cool one of a 3 buck buddy group that were on the scene this morning. (1024x768) (800x600) (640x480) 
July 19 - An 8-Point With Long Brow Tines
Several does arrived and a spike buck appeared in the brush on the edge of the trees. The spike came over to the food plot area. Then the Eastern morning light illuminated antlers on the edge of the trees. An 8-point with long brow tines stood watching the other deer. He started walking toward them. And stopped in the clear, yes, and stood still stared intently at the spike buck. Then he left. Note: I've been checking all the pictures I've been lucky enough to get, looking for the "Eyespot Buck" from last year (he's the one on the right) but so far, no luck.
July 18 - Twin Fawns! More deer. And a New Buck. Cool New Wallpaper, too.
Again, the first deer I saw were the GreyFace buck and the doe he hangs out with. Soon they both looked off into the brush and stood motionless, staring for quite a while. Surprise, 2 fawns joined them. One of the fawns went to Grey Face and began licking his face. (Grey Face needs lessons in how to act like a buck.) Several other deer came up and I soon noticed that one of them had antlers. He was browsing and his head was down but soon he raised his head up. It was another buck that I haven't seen before. Then he turned his head and I could see the antlers better. As he moved around a Spike buck came up near him. He moved around and I got a good pic of him by a doe. And then I got the "killer pic" of the day of this buck, here it is as wallpaper. Enjoy: (1024x768) (800x600) or (640x480). 
July 17 - First Fawn! More deer. And another promising trophy buck
The first deer in were the GreyFace buck and the doe he runs with. 4 more Does and a spike soon arrived. Movement back at the treeline grabbed my attention. Great, it was a Fawn. It stood at the edge for awhile. Then itwalked toward the other deer. The fawn walked directly to a doe and joined her. Istarted seeing a few fawns in late May and June, but this is the first one to let me get my camera on it. Meanwhile, an budding 8 point buck had come up by the H-Post of my barbed wire fence. I got the8 point's pic. It moved further ahead and watched the other deer. But it didn't join them ... today.
July 16 - B.U.C.K. -  I woke up a little late and immediately went to see if there were any deer in my food plot area. Two does were there. I got my digital camera and mounted it on my tripod. But just when I was about to take pics of the does I noticed something browninsh red in the tall weeds at the woods line. The deer's head was down but as it moved it's I noticed an object out in front of the deer's head. A familiar object, antlers. He turned into the woods and as he made his exit into the trees he raised his head. I acted quickly and got a 2nd pic. Check this growing boy out! Afterward I drove into town and bought two more bags of deer chow. I want to be sure this buck gets all the nutrients he needs.
Jyly 13 - The Deer Are Back!
I was beginning to wonder if the Deer Chow pellets and their dispenser hadn't scarred the deer off my place. Daytime deer traffic in the area came to a halt. Those fancy nutritional pellets were piling up on the ground. But, bingo, a group of deer have decided they like the chow and have showed up the last two days. Thats good, they oughta bring more, too. 
July 8, 2001: First Bomber Buck Of TheYear
Two buzzards flew up! A 3rd was perched on the nearby barbed wire fence. I stopped and got out of my truck to see what was dead. The remaining buzzard launched into the air and flew further down the fence. Something caught my eye in that direction, the fanny side of a deer was disapearing in the trees. Another deer was behind it. A buck. A big one! It popped out of the brush 50 yards in front of me and spread out as it cleared the fence. The main beams were wide and it already had times. It's still in velvet, of course, but it's antlers are lots further along than the deer I've been photographing.
Then I continued on to the Hammer Hole and moved my tripod 5 yards, where I think I can get better pictures -- and also have more shot opportunities if the wild hogs show up. It was mid afternoon and 101 degrees and, surprisingly, I saw over a dozen deer driving in and out.
July 6, 2001: Friday, myself and Brent Jones and Mike Hyles of Bosque Bowhunters went to Dallas to meet my buds Robbie & Cathy Cramer and Texas music Icon Tony Dukes (along with the very cool Carol Galt). Ted Nugent gave us all tickets to his show and back stage passes. The Nudge rocked his 15,000 Starplex attendees. Backstage, Nugent circulated and  pesonally greated everyone. A group of grade schoolers were there and he gave them extra time. Afterward, my buds and I went to one of my favorite Dallas haunts, Adair's, in Deep Ellum. We had a fun time.
July 5, 2001: Part of my food plot has seeded and dried up so a couple of days ago. My bud Greg Weber told me that he uses the Purina "game management system" and gave me the low down on how to use it at my place. First, I bought some bags of Purina Deer Chow for suplimental nutrition. Deer Chow can be feed from an automatic feeder so I set one up where I've been photographing the deer. Greg's instructons were to mix Deer Chow and corn, half and half. So I loaded the chow and corn into the feeder. The Chow is pellets and it looks like this. This particular feed enhances fawn development. Plus, it improves lactation and replenishes the "body stores" the does loose during pregnacy. It also increases antler development. So this is a timely thing to do.
So what did the deer think of it this afternoon? Well, they avided the area, but I made a big disruption there, so that is a reasonable reaction. 
July 4, 2001: This afternoon I filled up the water barrel and scattered some corn and nutritional pellets for the deer to eat. An early bird doe came at 4:30 and drank from the water barrel. Then she went to the stuff I scattered and, surprise, her and a squirrel munched it, side by side. The doe left and 5 deer came in around 7:30. I got several more pictures and when I looked at them l saw two that were good find the deer type pics. (Tomorrow I'll tell you how many were in each one.) Here's Find Em' #1 and Find Em' #2.
July 2, 2001: A Mountain Lion? Coyotes? Or Barbed Wire?
This morning the same deer were in my food plot again so I went to the Hammer Hole this afternoon. Before long a young buck appeared 15 yards away on the edge of the cedars. It waited awhile and then walked toward me. It stopped and looked back. Then I noticed something unusual about the deer. It had bad cuts on it's leg and neck. Did it get caught in a fence? Did it escape a mountain lion or coyote attack? No way to know. Later on 5 more deer came up but the light was too low for pictures.

July 1, 2001 - Bucks with starter antlers.
July 1, 2001: I did some work around my food plot area, the main project was tearing down the fence that interferes with the focus of my camera. This morning it rained and later on I noticed a doe drinking from a wash tub that was near my corral. So I filled the tub up, if they want water there they can have it. Then I chopped up a bunch of prickly pear cactus to see if they would eat it. This afternoon the first visitor was a young doe. A couple more came and they browsed around. A Longhead trotted up and almost ran inside my camera. A young Buck with a reddish coat joined them. Soon a gray Buck walked out of the trees. (He looks pretty thin.) It walked up behind the reddish buck and stood still, apparently waiting to be acknowledged. When the younger buck saw the gray buck it walked away (towards me) and the gray buck followed him and goosed him on the butt a couple times, and I got a pic of the 2nd one. Finally, here's a solo pic of the gray buck. I did it in wallpaper. Since he knows where we are, if we're lucky we can get pics of his antler development in the coming weeks. (1024x768) (800x600) (640x480).

June 30, 2001: My Summer food plot efforts seem to be paying off. The deer are hanging out in it. Here is a pic I took Saturday afternoon ...  from my back door.

Next item:  is a buck with starter antlers, the deer is easy to find, can't say the same for the rabbit that got in the pic. (Would you have seen it if I hadn't told ya?)