Long, Hot Days Offer Few Options For Hunters Until Time To Put Out Trail Cams
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By mid to late August, the bucks’ antlers are almost done growing. They remain soft until September when the velvet comes off.
DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
Summer time is upon us, the long hot days that we wait out for better times to come. It seems like any outside activity involves lots of swearing. Cutting the grass, soaking wet; running the tractor, soaking wet; working in the garden, you get the idea…
My regular readers know I like to hunt and write about my outings occasionally. Summer means there is little to do until food plot time, and that doesn’t come for me until October. I have learned (the hard way) not to plant until fall is really here. I also look forward to putting out trail cameras next month, hoping somehow to see the early antler growth on a monster buck. Truth be told, the nice ones always look like monsters when their antlers are in velvet and it is always exciting when they first show up on camera.
I have been running trail cameras for almost 20 years, starting with the early ones that were basically a little 35 mm camera inside a box. It worked the same back then, a sensor would detect movement and tell the camera to take the picture. But boy was it expensive, it seems like it cost almost seven or eight bucks to develop a roll of film with 24 exposures. Back then you were lucky to get a few decent pictures from one roll of film. It wasn’t long until digital trail cameras came along, and although the early ones were bulky and required lots of batteries, it was a great upgrade. Nowadays we have trail cameras that run off cell signals and the picture is instantly sent from the camera to your phone.
This funny looking buck captured on a trail camera had a splash of white on his face.
I thought about 20 years of running these cameras, and like to look at my old pictures from time to time. I have some good ones over the years, cool pictures with unusual scenes. One of my favorites was a coyote toting an aluminum can, not sure what he was planning with that. Another favorite is from my step-son’s camera. He was way young back then and didn’t realize he put it across the fence on our neighbor’s land. The look on our neighbor’s face was priceless when the camera snapped as he was looking directly at it.
Another is a video taken in July of a doe chasing a coyote. The old doe and coyote made several rounds through the pasture and she was hot on his trail. I’m sure she had a fawn nearby, and I had read where one coyote will lure a momma deer away from her fawn while another coyote sneaks in for the kill. I guess that is why they hunt in packs. Stop by the office and I will show you this neat video.
Another favorite is my only picture of a piebald deer, unusual because his face had a funny streak of white along his nose. I only saw the little buck one time when I was hunting, and I thought it was a goat at first. That was a few years ago and I figure someone shot him, even though he was only a spike.
A trail camera picture of a coyote carrying what appears to be an aluminum can in his mouth.
I will close with a tip for all you deer hunters out there who enjoy putting out cameras. For years, my preferred spot in the summer has been a salt lick. I will put a camera on the same salt lick from July until September every year.
We get a picture of just about every buck we kill later in the fall on that salt lick.
