Late October Card Pull- Good News!!

Well I have been out a few times since the doe kill and long range binocular encounter with the Mule and things are picking up.  The bucks are chasing but the biggest buck I've seen is a solid 75 inch 8 pointer.  I pulled a card from a cam I have on the edge of a plot and I got a pleasant suprise.  I got a new mature buck on camera!  That brings the grand total to 2 bucks that are of shootable age class that I have on camera which is a pretty dismal outlook as the rut kicks into gear.  He's a solid 130 class 10 point which is exciting because in my area there is a complete domination of 8 point genetics.  Hopefully he's getting after some hot does and passing on his legacy.

My camera was watching a mock scrape with a scrape dripper over top.  I had made it in a spot where there is ALWAYS a scrape every year without fail.  It didn't look too hot but the card pull proved otherwise.  The lack of scraped ground led me to believe that it's more of a licking branch than a scrape.  I've heard they are two different forms of marking territory and I guess they are right.  I got a lot of other bucks on camera but they aren't worth publishing.  However almost every buck was getting his face all up in that oak branch.  

I did find a mega hot scrape on the ground about 50 yards away so I relocated my camera over there.  I have the 7th of November off to hunt as well as the 9th-12th.  Statistically the most bucks are killed on the 7th and the 11th however statistically the first two weeks of November suck in my areas.  Late October and the last week and a half of November seem to be the times that I have had the most opportunities to kill a mature buck.  We'll see what happens this week.  I'll leave you with some photos of the new buck working the scrape and a few paint-brush-beard-dragging limb chickens.