Missed the Big Ones!

[Marmot]

While I was watching a movie with my twin girls earlier today, one of my daughters bends over and whispers in my ear, in typical four-year-old English, "Daddy, we saw two deer while you were sleeping. You need to go hunting!" I did not pay much attention to what she said until my wife came home from taking our golden to vet and told me that there were two very large mature bucks grazing in the alfalfa field across the street from our property. She said they both easily went 250+ pounds, and looked like they were going to have huge racks (my wife is from North Eastern PA and has been around deer hunters all of her life; hence, she’s pretty good at sizing up deer). I have been tracking a large buck for last couple of years, but have never seen him (he loves multiflora rose and briars and I do not). Now, that I know that there are two, it explains why I always find sets of disjoint fresh tracks. I think that I may invest in a couple of deer cams so that I can track the movements of this pair. They vanish like ghosts when the season arrives.

[Guest]

They vanish like ghosts when the season arrives.

Welcome to the world of the mature Whitetail Buck. They don't get BIG by being stupid. These are the most cunning game animals on the continent.
IMHO, they go nocturnal as soon as the pressure is on. Even during the rut, these big deer seldom make mistakes during hunting hours. They also seemed to pick some of the nastiest briar and slash areas for bedding.

[Marmot]

One and two year old deer routinely cross our property; however, this was the first time the "big boys" came out to play during daylight. My wife said that they were going to cross our property with our eighty-three pound golden retriever out in the yard-- a deer has to big to not be afraid of a large dog. However, they stopped dead in their tracks when she went to get the dog.

Last year, the owner a four-acre lot that adjoins our property, which is also four acres in size, let it grow all season. We had four fawns, two mature does, and a spike bedding down in that field until September arrived.

Deer are incredible at adapting to the environment. We have very little edge habitat in my county because it is the least forested in the state, but somehow the deer seem to thrive. They bed down in corn and hay (when it is high) fields. Heck, they even bed down in a few of the poorly managed fields that are overrun with Canada Thistle--ouch! Deer are kind of like the Scots; they make do with what is available.