A blogger pulled his cam card and sent this killer photo. I love the look and feel of it, the sleek, summer-red bucks out in the fields, doing their thing. Cool lead buck, check out the heavy bases and the split brow. Think he saw the camera? BTW, that's your typical boy's club, 6 bucks or so of various age/size. It's fun to watch them grow, send me a cam image anytime. First person to post a velvet rack with drop tine gets a free BIG DEER blog T-shirt :)
Dan sent this cam picture titled “First Good One.” He’s gonna keep his eye on this buck, whose antlers will grow up to a quarter-inch per day for the next 2 months plus. Send me a cam picture anytime.
Here are 4 more facts about the antlers that are growing now:
(1) Antlers are bone, consisting mostly of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and other minerals. Although some of the minerals are taken from food, a lot of them are sucked from the buck’s skeleton, causing him to develop osteoporosis during the summer.
(2) Because the velvet is rich with blood vessels, growing antlers are hot to touch.
(3) Tiny hairs on the velvet stick out and make the antlers look bigger than they are. The hairs also act as a radar system so the buck won’t bump into trees, fence posts, etc. and damage his soft antlers.
(4) Sebum (a semi-liquid secretion) on the hairs gives the velvet a shiny look. Sebum also acts as an insect repellent to keep biting flies off the buck’s rack and face. Cool, huh?
Just got this: These photos are reportedly from a camera set up over a bait barrel meant to draw in black bear. It is located somewhere above Meeteetse (near Cody Wy). Quite interesting. Pack your grizzly bear spray next time you go elk or deer hunting around there.
Ever wonder what happened to some of those trail-cam giants that I posted on my old blog last summer?
Mike: Remember the huge double drop NT I sent you pictures of last year? Well, I found him dead last week while shed hunting. The carcass was completely gone, but the antlers were in tiptop shape without a tooth mark to be found. I'm not sure how he died. We had a report of a person shooting with a spotlight in the field close to where I found him, but we got there fairly quick and waited for someone to return with no luck. Another Officer and I went back the next day and scoured the area looking for blood or any sign of a hit by the poachers, but came up with nothing. I took off most of November to hunt that buck and never saw him. He's a giant. I scored him today at 208 gross. Take care, John Deem, Conservation Officer, Indiana DNR
My friend and colleague Bill Winke posted this incredible photo and text on mossyoak.com:
…back in 2003 Doug Lovstuen, Mark Murphy and Steve Angran (three cousins from the town where I live) used trail cameras to pattern and ultimately kill the hunter-shot world record non-typical whitetail. They had literally hundreds (probably thousands) of photos of this buck that spanned three years. They knew almost everything about him, from where he liked to drink to where he took a dump. They learned all this even though they rarely ever saw him in person.
Ain’t it amazing how photogenic some monsters like this one are, while a hunter might only get one or 2 cam photos or none at all of another giant buck that roams his property? Big deer fascinate you and me.
BTW, Doug's son, Tony, killed the cam giant (amazing 307 5/8") in Monroe Co., IA in the fall 2003.
Reprinted verbatim from an email I just got messaged, "Dead Deer Walking":
This picture is from Montana , where someone set out a motion sensor camera to see if any big bucks were passing in the area where he was thinking about bow hunting. When he downloaded the pictures, this was one of them. It's wild to see that cougar sneak up so close. It doesn't look like the deer knows he's there yet.
