Scouting For Deer 2014
My favorite time to take pictures of deer is the morning. True, things can start out when it is still too dark to take pictures, but every minute that passes brings more light and with it better pictures. This morning I didn”t see any deer until there was good daylight  out.
An 8-point caught my attention and as a doe walked by it I took the first picture of the morning.
As the 8 walked around he abruptly stopped and looked to the South.
And so did I. Another 8-point walked into my view from parts unknown to the South. He approached a young buck with a get outta here attitude.
Right then I noticed that the first buck was coming in.
I expected some posturing in a show of I’m the boss type. But they didn’t do that. They milled around each other.
Actually, I’ve seen at least three 8-pointers that are very similar. These are two of them.
I like to identify the different bucks that I see. Sometimes it’s easy and other times it is a challenge. In this case these two bucks are very similar. They both have antlers that are outside their ears. And the basic shape of their racks and length of their tines is very comparable. Have a look at this buck.
He walks around and we see how he looks from the side.
Here he gives us a cool picture. The other buck is browsing nearby but we can’t tell much about his rack because of the side view.
I zoom in tighter and we get a clearer pic of his antlers. He’s very uniform and it looks like a small kicker may show up on his left G2 point.
Here is a similar sized picture of the buck that showed up second. Besides a couple of kickers this bucks antlers have a very distinguishing characteristic. See it?
Buck number two has brow tines that angle in and nearly touch. In my experience, a bucks brow tines are a distinctive, individualizing characteristic of a buck’s head gear. This buck has brow tines that angle in toward each other. The brow tines on the other 8-point are parallel. Again, scroll back and forth and  have a look.
The 8’s didn’t hang around very long.
And the two of them walked into the woods to the North and soon were out of my sight.
Yep, it’s August and the picture taking is getting very exciting. There is still a little antler growing time left too.
