Toxie Givens

Any whitetail deer hunter knows how tough deer can be from wounds, to all other types of injuries. Now I have witnessed a 3 legged deer a few years ago on a trail camera photo but his fourth leg had been broken from most likely an automobile hit and was bent up under his body. Last week, I got photos of a buck that has his leg completely missing. You can see the stub where it is supposed to be. Now the debate is whether he was born that way, or did it fall off due to some type of injury? I am guessing that he was born that way since the stub is clean looking. Kind of like what you would see from other of God’s creatures that were born without a limb. I have a video below of the multiple trail camera photos I got to show you that he has really good movement on 3 legs. I have not seen him in the woods but I would bet anyone if you saw 2 deer running and one was him and the other had 4 legs, you would not be able to tell which one had the impairment. You never know what you are going to get on a trail camera.

 
 

I have discussed how much I enjoy filming my past turkey hunts here on my Website. So going into deer season, I decided to upgrade my Canon HV40 camera with some add-ons. I have previously written about the Primos camera arm (View Article) that I purchased to use this fall. Now let us talk about the new gear.

I love my camera and the only complaint I have is the built in microphone. It is not good. It records all the camera noise and do not get me started about wind noise. So I bought a shotgun microphone that is built for my camera. This will take care of my sound issues.

I also bought a lens hood to help shade the sun while filming. Another item I bought was a lens filter to go on my camera that filters out UV light. This will make my video have more realistic colors.

The final product I bought was a new tripod. I used a cheap one during turkey season and every time I set it up I wished for a new one. I bought a really good one, so no more complaining. This tripod is perfect for filming out of tower stands, yet it can fold up in a smaller package for those turkey setups.

Shown below is my new pimped out camera and tripod. Bring on the deer now.

 

Back in July, I got trail camera photos of a fawn that has some skin removed. My buddy said the fawn got hit by a car but I say it is some kind of disorder or maybe a predator got after it. From the photos, the fawn looks like he/she is getting around with little problem. I then got pictures in August of the same fawn which showed that he/she had removed skin on its other side also. After discovering this, I sent Dr. Grant Woods from GrowingDeer.Tv an email asking him what his opinion was. He was nice enough to respond and here is his response.

“I agree with your buddy, the hair loss pattern appears to be caused by the deer sliding on an abrasive surface, etc. There are several possibilities that could have caused this including, but not limited to glancing a tree while moving fast or sliding on pavement while dodging a car. No one will probably ever know what caused those scars. The fawn appears healthy in the images and I suspect will regrow hair in those areas. The hair may be a slightly different color and provide you with a way to identify that deer as it ages.”

This is the kind of stuff you can capture with a trail camera on how Mother Nature works in the wild. One more side note, visit Dr. Grant Woods’ site (GrowingDeer.Tv) for great management tips. His videos are always insightful and informative.

 
 

Last weekend, I planted 5 food plots specifically for bow hunting accounting for about 4 acres. These plots consist of buckwheat and iron and clay peas (cow peas) and are strategically placed in front of our bow stands. We have witnessed that our bucks love the buckwheat when it comes to flower about 30 to 45 days into the growing season. Look at the buck photos below to see one of our past mature bucks chewing on buckwheat.

 
 

The deer love to eat the green leaves of the iron and clay peas. We plant these for the green plant not expecting to ever make any actual peas. Hopefully these two mixtures will get some rain and attract some deer within bow range during the upcoming season (September 11).

  

I recently got some more pictures of our turkey poults on various trail cameras around our GA lease. These photos are shown below.

One thing to note is the different size of the poults. It looked like one of the hens got her nest broken up during her 28 day nesting cycle and she had to been re-breed. Her poults look like they are a couple weeks behind the bigger ones in the other photos. Either way, it looks like the best hatching group we have ever had.

 
 
 

My family and I were home in Mississippi this summer to visit family where I met with the owner of Millennium tree stands (Visit their Website). Really nice group of people and they make a great stand that we have used for many years. The owner made me a great deal on stands and we bought 5 new stands and 3 sets of climbing sticks for our lease.

When I got back to my parent’s house, my wife asked how I was going to get all that stuff home back to Jacksonville, FL. I told her no problem, as you can see my packing job below. That is 5 Millennium tree stands, 3 sets of climbing sticks, 1 new Primos Camera Arm, and 1 bow case plus all our luggage for a 17 day trip, 2 dogs, 2 kids, and a very loving, understanding wife. It is amazing what you can do when you are determined.