I had pretty much written him off as goner since last year he showed up in January and was a regular visitor to my protein feeder pretty much all spring and summer. This year I still didn't have a single picture of him until last week. I had a few that looked like him and then I have one that is pretty much unmistakable.
He doesn't look like anything special there, but he is pretty easy to identify since he is blind in his right eye and his right ear is messed up and droops down. He was #2 on my hit list last year but he disappeared in August and was never seen again, in person or on camera. There's a good chance that will happen again this year but at least this way I know there is a chance, however remote it might be.Here's one of the last pictures that I got of him last year and maybe you can tell why I'm somewhat excited to see him around again this year!
I was guessing him at 4 1/2 years old last year so that would put him at 5 1/2 years old this year and that should be close to his peak year of antler growth. Last year he had about a 5" sticker coming off his left antler that ended up dropping off right before he started shedding velvet so it will be interesting to see how he develops this year.
My trail camera setup on that feeder went on the blink last year in late August early September so I'm not sure exactly when he quit coming around, but by the time I got another camera up and working on that feeder in October I didn't see him again. He hung around with Double Wide last year and Double Wide is gone now, so maybe his patterns will change and he'll stick around longer into the fall.
Lot's of other things to post on from the weekend, but no time to post them right now. I'll try to get it updated soon.
Nathan
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