December, 2003. Here's a great photograph of a deer someone saw from their bowhunting stand this past season. The hunter passed on this dandy buck and ended up getting a wider one he had been scouting.
November, 2003. Jason Lamppa provided these photos from northern Minnesota. An excellent variety of bucks of different calibers. These are all huntable bucks, but the big guys tend to be fairly nocturnal.
November, 2003. A friend of Minnesota Bucks sent in these great photos. The camera is positioned in a natural bottleneck in the woods, providing consistent action along this trail. The last two photos are of the same dandy buck.
October, 2003. Here's some trail photos from our camera up north. The first one is a black bear, up close and personal. This bear left a few hairs on the camera straps and many scratches on the tree itself. The next series is of a small bull and cow moose. The last one is a dandy 50+ inch bull moose, squaring up to the camera. There was a nearby alder bush that was surely a favorite thrashing station for this bull. On another interesting note, I found a moose shed antler that same day, not more than 200 yards from where this bull is standing. It's tough to tell for sure, but it shares similar characteristics to this bull's rack. Moose season closed that day, so chances are he's still roaming the woods.
October, 2003. Jason Lamppa sent in these trail photos from up north. There's a few nice shots of some does and twin fawns, along with a series of photographs of the same seven point buck. It's a great sequence that shows his antler development from velvet to rubbed to polished and brown, all within a time frame of a few days. There's a good shot of an 8-pointer approaching the salt block and the last photo is of a dandy eleven pointer. Jason found this buck's left side shed antler last spring. This buck probably goes 145" or 150"; a real trophy buck.
August, 2003. Here's a couple nice trail photos sent in by a friend from Stearns County, Minnesota. The first buck was seen on five different occasions during the 2002 season. Each time he was either out reach or it was after legal shooting hours. The fifth time, he was seen dodging bullets from a neighboring hunter. The second buck is 'Whitey'. It may not look like it from the picture but his antlers are very white. This buck was seen twice and a friend has is 2001 shed antlers. Even though no one found his sheds this year, there's still reason to believe that 'Whitey' is alive. These three pictures were taken from the same lone tree in the middle of a CRP field, 100 yards from the nearest cover. The next two bucks are both alive and show some real promise for the future. The bottom 3 are a female coyote, a uniquely patterned adult doe and a newborn fawn, a classic springtime photograph.
June, 2003 Update: We went out to check our cameras up north and discovered that one of our cameras was attacked by a bear. The birch tree that it was tied to was thoroughly scratched up by bear claws, six feet up. The heavy plastic housing had several large tooth punctures in it. The door of the housing was ripped off and the pieces were laying around on the ground. The camera wasn't totally destroyed, but was left on the ground, exposed to the elements. The film inside was used up, but was damaged by spring rainfall. Needless to say, we were disappointed not to get any photos of this owly bruin in action.
March, 2003. Here are some samples of what we've been getting on our trail cameras. Mostly does, young and old. There is a smaller, lone buck that has a visible pedicle. Time to shed hunt! The shot of the running buck was taken moments before I moved that camera. I remember seeing some deer as I walked out to the tree that day. It looks like a decent buck with good brow tines and nice spread. His left side looks a little beat up, though. The last two photos are of the same very curious buck. Basically some abstract antler art. Looks like his rack is in good shape with some fairly heavy beams, all the way to the tips.
February, 2003. The photographs above were contributed by Jason Lamppa, a friend of Minnesota Bucks. A nice collection of this year's trail camera results, including a dandy 13 point monster. These are photos from a variety of different locations around the state. An interesting side note: he found the droptine shed this past winter.