WNY Bowhunter

I ended up taking the head to a local taxidermist and had a euro mount done. I would have rather done it myself but the temp. barely made it into double digits that week and I didn't want to screw with it. The carcass got tossed out in the back field for the yotes and crows to eat...

I wanted to check but the carcass was a block of ice and never really thawed out with the frigid temps that we had during the first week of January last year.

So far, I've found the remains of 2 dead buttonbucks and also a doe fawn on a farm where I shed hunt. I wouldn't mind coming across a nice buck or two. Congrats on the pile of cottontails!

I have her skull and a couple of pics of her backside showing the "doe parts" as evidence so people don't think that I'm crazy when they hear about it...

Actually, she did appear to have shed her antlers from '08. I forgot to mention in my post that I saw this deer once in late March or early April of '09 and she had new antlers sprouting, they were like big velvet clubs coming up from her head. There were two mature bucks feeding in the field with her at the time but their new racks were just staring to show. If you look closely at the rack from '08, it is very similar to the one from '09 but there are a few little differences. I contacted the local Region 8 DEC sub-office in Bath about this deer a couple of days after finding it but they didn't seem too overly interested in coming to check it out.

I was extremely fortunate that she ended up dying in the creek where she turned into a solid block of ice. If she would have ended up in the woods the scavengers would have picked her clean and I never would have known it's true sex.

Things are kind of slow around here so I thought that I'd post the story of a very unique deer that I found dead in the creek next to my home on 12/27/09... I first discovered the deer which came to be known as "The Freak" out in a small alfalfa field one night a week prior to the bow season opener in 2007. Initially, I thought it was odd that a buck would still have velvet that late into the fall. After gun season closed in mid-December I spotted this deer out in my aunt's field once again...still in full velvet. This really got me wondering what the heck was going on here? Fast forward to 2008. I saw/videoed this deer several times throughout the summer and fall. With every Freak sighting I was becoming more and more convinced that "it" was in fact an antlered doe. No one in my family wanted to believe me. Gun season came and went and I wondered if this oddball had been killed by the orange army. Then, right before x-mas one night I spotted her out in the same alfalfa yet again. She had made it through another choatic NY gun season! Her antlers were fully velvet clad with tines that appeared to still be growing and were curling over at the tips. In '09 I only manged to lay an eye on The Freak one time back in July and then she went MIA until one fateful afternoon a couple of days after x-mas. I was taking laundry off of the line right before dark when I happened to glance down into the creek below me and noticed a dead deer hung up on a big rock. Apparently, it had been laying frozen in the creek upstream and came floating down. It hadn't been there when I hung the clothes up a few hours earlier. I spotted antlers on its head so I went down to check it out. Right away I noticed velvet on the rack and quickly pulled its head out of the water. It was the Freak!!! She was laying dead 30 yds from my bedroom window! Upon pulling the frozen carcass out of the creek I saw that her left hind leg and been nearly shot off and was only hanging on by skin/tissue. The bullet also grazed the hock on the right leg. Her knees were worn down to the skin as she had apparently been crawling around on them for some time before finally making it into the creek and drowning. I'd guess that she had been dead for a couple of weeks but had been perfectly preserved in the icy water. It wasn't a good way for this deer to go, but at least I finally got some closure to the mystery of its sex...a once in a lifetime discovery for sure...

Congrats. What a monster!

Well, found my first shed of the year this afternoon...a decent 4-pt. side that appears to be from a 2.5 year old buck. I wan't out of my truck for 5 minutes when I spotted it. I looked for a couple more hours with no luck. I think that a majority of the bucks are still wearing their antlers. The deer have been hitting this alflafa field hard, it's just a matter of time before there are more sheds out there. The neighbor saw two monsters out here the other day, I don't want to pressure them out of the area before they drop their bones. My goal is to find 15 sheds...one down...14 to go!!!

It's intended to show the size comparison with the doe... : !

This one was pretty healthy looking until I put a Rage broadhead through him... .

That yote looks a little healthier than the last one that I got pics of...

Here's another good one... http://chasingame.com/

No sir. His beam was broken off sometime in late Sept. or early October. He won't have to worry about me until he becomes of shooter age @ 3.5...but the neighbors are a different story.

In the background of these pics you can see how tore up this field is with deer tracks. There are patches of bare ground all over the place where the deer have been digging to get to the clover. I'm hoping that 'Lil Nasty will drop his antlers out here so I can add them to my shed collection.

Hopefully, a couple of the 2.5 & 3.5 year old bucks are still alive and will show up soon!!!

Here's another young buck with some great potential that has been a regular visitor since July...he was a beautiful little 8-pt at one time. The last pic that I got of him was on Nov. 19th, the night before the gun opener. I am happy to see that he had found a good hiding spot too...

Last week, I move a couple of my cams to a field that the deer have been hammering just hoping to see a couple of the bucks that I'd been watching all summer/fall. As I scanned through my first set of pics I couldn't believe my eyes; although no longer a 10-pt, "Baby Freak-Nasty" had survived the orange army and still hanging around the farm! Man, I can't wait to see him as a 2 year old this coming summer. This little guy looks like he has the potential to be a real STUD in a couple of years...

This awesome little yearling 10-pt started showing up on my trailcams during mid-October. I got pics of him a few more times over the next couple of weeks and then he disappeared before gun season. Knowing the wandering tendancies of young bucks, I was certain that he would end up in someone's freezer...

The worst thing that I've read about the Primos cameras is they have an audible "clunk" when the filter arm drops upon taking a picture. I may try one this summer if they make them a bit smaller in size.

I've got 3 Scoutguard cameras. They are very reliable, and have excellent battery life.

I moved a couple of cams last week to do some post-season scouting. Checked it x-mas morning and ended up getting several bucks, including one that is shed out already that I believe to be a 2.5 year old 8-pt that I got pics off all summer/fall. There was a nice, wide buck in the alfalfa field across the road from the house that I saw several times last week too. On monday he had both sides, on tuesday the left antler was gone. I looked for it around the field with no luck. So, there are sheds on the ground but I think that I'll wait a few more weeks before I go looking for some...

Yeah, I believe that's where a guy on another forum said that this deer was taken.

Anyone know anything about this monster? The first pic is posted on the NY Outdoor News site. The only info given is: 194.5 inch 19-point shot in Broome County NY. Looks like a basic 7X7 typical frame, you don't see that too often. I don't know if the score is gross/net or typical/non-typical. He appears pretty typical to me with only a few small abnormals...

Where-a-bouts in Yates? I hunt pretty close to the Steuben/Yates line...