wooly

I was watching "Finding Bigfoot" the other day. They had a guy on that "saw and heard" a squatch breaking sticks in the woods behind his house one night. He fired a couple shots at the monster in the woods but unfortunately never hit him. Maybe both these guys eyes were playing tricks on them seeing what their minds wanted them to see.

Nice ATL's! Good luck with the mate! Hope that big dude stacks them monsters close by for ya!

I like that first buck! Tall, tight, and a nice rack....same qualities I like in my women! Hope you can find them horns John.

No worse feeling than running out of time and not making the final run through all your spots. I think green up will be here early this year. Already seeing leaf buds looking to pop on some of the sapplings. Could be a lot of lonely antlers spending the summer out there this year.

Super shots Dave! Where's Notch???

Thanks for the step by step....I'm determined to make one of these wall worthy some day!

That last coon shot would be a great pose for a mount! Always enjoy your crick pics!

For once I'm really satisfied with my choice. The more I run this thing the more I like it! There's always something I don't like about a cam, but this one is deffinately different than the rest I've ever owned. Here's a few day pics from a ridge beside the cornfield. I bumped up the contrast and sharpened #3 and #4 just to experiment a bit. I set the cam in 15 second vid mode today so I'll post a clip soon as I check it again. A 6 legged doe,lol ...and I thought this shot did a nice job showing the fast trigger and shutter speed. (1/1350ss for this pic) No way my Moulies would have even caught this. One more note worth mentioning: Approximately 700 pics so far on a fresh set of Dollar Store batteries and cam is reading 85% yet

Looks great Steve! Did you have to lay out and glue the feathers individualy or cut off a clump of the rump and treat it with borax? My fan mounts always got hung in the barn and never made it to the house that's why I ask. My taxi skills aren't anything to brag about,lol

Sounds like a couple of great finds...get them pics up! I wish every day was a multiple antler day like yours, but I'm struggling with a mess of dead deer finds my last few hikes. Grats on getting the first 3 out of the way...when's the next hike?

Good to hear you're making time to keep yourself hydrated! Those paint fumes will make you tipsy after a while,lol

Yeah it's overated and honestly quite boring! I tried it once and it did nothing for me. Quality time spent at home with loved ones is much more rewarding than some stinky old horn,lol

I hear ya Four Seasons. Didn't mean to sound like you were misleading him in any way....just that there are some intentional lies and deception going on in the antler hunting community. Sometimes makes it hard to seperate the fact from fiction.

Disagree. Any serious shed hunter already knows the #1 rule of shed hunting. NEVER DISCLOSE YOUR LOCATIONS! So my opinion is first to consider the sources. A newbie shedder in the park may slip up and tell you where he stumbled on an antler or two but a seasoned veteran is probably gonna send you on a wild goose chase on the other side of the park away from his prime locations,lol. Yup, serious shedders can be a deceiving bunch to protect their antler grounds from competition. Often times their reply to a post like this or an update to a journal is purposely intended to be 99% fictional...not for fear of the original poster moving in on their locations, but maybe the lurker down the road or one town over looking to capitalize on a honeyhole. Plus, who doesn't like a good story to go with all them pics! It's a good thing I don't have to worry about that as I only shed hunt POSTED PRIVATE propperty that even I'm not allowed on so don't even bother trying to get permission to my hot spots! ...not to mention the video surveillence, pitbulls,rottweillers,and police patrol 24/7! Your best, most reliable source is you. Get back in the park and learn it inside and out. It could take you a couple years of hiking it to narrow down the locations your seeking or you may get lucky and fall right into one as soon as you slam the car door behind you. One general bit of information you will find all over the net is shed hunting tips. VERY general guidlines to start your search shared by everyone from the greenest greenhorn, to several hundred antler a year professional shedders...all useless information untill you put the boots to the ground and find these spots for yourself. That's the way it is folks.... Don't hate the playa..hate the game!

What's a library...?

That first guy is right behind my house so I'm in no hurry to rush him to drop. I can get after them horns after I cover some of my other spots that I don't get to spend as much time in or need to travel to. Worse case scenario, I'll have his set of oldies laying around close to home to kick off an early start to next shed season!

I had the monkey tails put on about 2 months before season. Time for new ones already. Dry rotted and cracked where they tie around the string. JMO but I don't think you can beat the connection method of splitting the string like you do with the leeches. I'll be making the switch back to them this year.

As quick as they clean up them carcasses that guy sure seems to be doing a lot of tip-toeing around!

Things have really slowed down for me in the antler department so I'm taking advantage of the down time to get caught up on some pics. Maybe more bucks then I expected are still carrying. Here's a few I caught back on Feb 5'th. Last night I got a shot of this little uni-horn up at the cornfield. Todays hike was another uneventfull one. I'm really scratching my head as to where my next shed will turn up. I did come across another fresh dead buck today(6'th of the season), a little 6pt. ...and here's a shot of all my little skull finds so far this year taken before the last 2 dead bucks.

Understood why you prefer the green signs but I think the yellow appears more public friendly. To me it just seems like a universaly accepted sign even non hunting public can easily identify...kinda like the recyclable triangle symbol is farmiliar to everyone.

I'm a color freak too G-man... but I'm thinking if this works as good as I suspect it will, I can wait till the field photos before I really need that!

Finally getting around to loading a few pics from my new cam. Not very often I'm impressed with an IR cam for several of the obvious reasons but this Blackout deal seems to be on a whole different level. Flash range is exceptional reaching right out to 50ft and beyond with all 60 LED's on. This thing is virtually unnoticeable to my eyes even knowing exactly where it is when it triggers at night. Only a VERY low glow can be detected and ONLY if you are looking for it Very closely. Daytime color is true and the quick shutter speed (1/750ss) should freeze daytime action in it's tracks. Seemed to do well on some in flight jays anyhow. Nightime is pretty typical at 1/30ss with some motion blurr on moving subjects, but nothing I would consider unacceptable for an IR cam. Out of 246 pics last night, only 5 shots had deer looking at the cam. Maybe they were looking past it as I had it set pretty close to the road, but overall impression is that the Blackouts flash does not alert deer whatsoever. Of course I'll have to experiment with video mode to see any reactions more clearly so this is just my initial observations over approximately 1000 pics so far. I was also impressed with the burst mode. Walking perpendicular to the cams sensor @ 15ft, quickly triggered the cam in normal detection setting and captured 3 shots of me passing by at a pretty decent clip. One entering the frame, one centered in the frame, and one leaving the frame. That's nice! Nightime burst was a little sluggish and took approximately 6 second to record 3 consecutive shots. Anyhow, here's a few pics. Sorry no horns here and I'll have to work on some daytime pics and vid clips soon.

http://www.saveourcountryfirst.com/ Here's a local shop that sells only US products. Sorry, but I refuse to pay $25 for a t-shirt or hat, not to mention a few of the other outrageously priced doo-dads they carry That's just the way it is.

For anyone interested...."The Bodyguard" is airing on Lifetime right now. Looks like they altered their programming fro what was intended.

Congrats Pygmy! Better practice up on your Kumbaya lullabyes! A grandpa's duties can be quite demanding!