I went out to check my wood pile after the few days of rain to make sure everything was still in place and that the drainage I had set up was working the way I wanted it to. Then I was looking up into the woods and I noticed a strange looking dark brown tree trunk, or at least that's what it looked like at first glance. Then a few feet away I noticed some movement. It was the head of a buck and the tree trunk moved. Yep, that was his hind legs. It ended up being a 6 point buck! Since I don't shoot bucks, I let him go about his business, and he worked his way to the edge of the woods and into a grassy area on the hill. He kept going back and forth grazing along the way and ended up about 18 yards from my position. He would occasionally look directly at me, and I swear one time he winked at me. Most of his attention seemed to be over towards one of my neighbors, and in a way I was hoping it was, and that he would shoot the buck. I was debating whether or not to go retrieve one of my guns and kill it, but I ultimately decided not to. Not that it has a free pass, because I may end up killing it anyway since I haven't shot a single deer this year. And since I haven't seen any doe for about a month, I'm figuring my neighbors probably shot them since I do hear the occasional gun shot. Just a single shot usually indicating someone was successful at killing something. I didn't want to scare the buck in the event I do decide to kill it. That way it will come back! I watched him for a good 45 minutes. Though I didn't have a camera with me, I did have a cheap motion sensitive camera set up to see what varmints pass through at night and during the day when I'm not around. This picture was taken at about 5:00pm which shows both the buck any myself. That was the same position I was in when I first spotted the buck, just kind of leaning on the deck railing and certainly not trying to conceal myself.
Very cool! They can sense if you are a threat or not. It's neat to see them while working wood too. Looks like you will probably see him again.
All I know for sure is I stood still for the entire time, my breathing went from deep to shallow, and the only actual movement was my eyes. I'm pretty sure even my body temperature may have dropped a few degrees lower than it usually is. Sensing if I'm a threat? Welllllllll, probably not. Last year (2014) I was angry these deer had decided to eat my plants so I shot and killed 18 doe. Dressed, aged, skinned and processed them, then gave away the majority of the meat. If I saw one, once I made sure it wasn't a buck, it was dead. Of the 18 I shot, most were from the porch, a couple from the deck, and two from across the kitchen through the patio doors which were open a few inches. Me, not a threat? Maybe they don't detect me as one, at least until the last second when it's too late! They always seem to have that "Oh S***" expression on their faces in that last moment.
" through the kitchen through the open patio door that was only open a few inches"!!!! I hope you live alone!!
Don't imagine you hunt from the house or porch dressed in anything but your self-described "minimalist" apparel...
Ahem,..cough,..cough.. Those aren't cars. Re-purposed metallic, elevated ground blinds. Fixed it for you.
I did finally see him again two weeks later. Sorry about the poor video quality. I just installed the new system and hadn't gotten all the settings the way I wanted them at the time.
That's hunting? I have found though, the less I wear, the better the chance I have of getting a short range kill. That includes groundhogs at between 14 and 20 yards.
