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   We have been seeing more deer in the area as the temperatures cool and we get closer to fall. Last week we saw five bucks in one group on the dam. They were sparing and play fighting, getting ready for the real thing. My wife and I decided to put three cameras back out on various places around the farm. We have not had them out for most of the summer as the deer do not have impressive antlers during the spring and early summer. As we get closer to fall, it is always exciting to see the big bucks that are moving as they get ready for the rut.

   There is one trail where we always have a camera. It will get a hundred pictures or more in a week’s time. This location is a major crossroads where everything seems to travel at some time of the day or night. My wife suggested we also put one at the Top Gate, overlooking the lake. When we are sitting on the porch having our morning coffee, we usually see deer or turkey coming and going through the gate. The third camera was placed about three quarters of a mile away near the thousand-yard shooting bench. We usually get a different group of deer moving in that area.

   We went out yesterday to switch out camera discs. We exchange discs and I bring them back to the house to review pictures. The sun was shining, there was no breeze, and the temperature was about seventy degrees. It could be no more perfect weather for a ride around the farm. We stopped at the thousand-yard bench camera first. There were twenty-nine pictures on it. This is about average for this location. It never has a lot of pictures but usually has a big buck or two captured on the pictures. We then drove across the dam and up the hill to the Top Gate. There were forty-five pictures on it. That was more pictures than I expected and I hoped for some good ones with the lake in the background. When we got to the last camera, I saw a lot of deer tracks in a muddy spot in front of the camera. I knew we would have a lot of pictures but was shocked when I opened the camera and it said there were one thousand, nine hundred and fifty-three pictures on it. That is never a good sign. Either there was a camera malfunction or something like a leaf or weed blowing in the breeze was causing enough motion to trip a picture every thirty seconds. While working on this camera, we could hear a chain saw off in the distance over past Twin Sluices. Enjoying the nice day, we decided to take a ride over there to see what was going on.

   Damon, Zane, and Pat were busily clearing brush from a large area that had become overgrown with rose bushes, elm trees, and assorted other plants we could live without. They had decided to clear everything in a couple of acres except the mature oaks and hickory trees to make a large food plot for the deer. Last spring, they planted a food plot on the edge of this that was about a fifty-yard circle. Things were growing nicely until the tender little plants got two inches tall. One night, all the deer in the area came in and ate everything they had planted. Next year’s food plot will be large enough; it will take a concerted effort for the deer to wipe it out.

   After a leisurely drive back to the house, I started checking camera discs. There were several nice bucks on all the cameras and some unique pictures at the Top Gate. The disc with almost two thousand pictures were mostly of a weed blowing in the breeze. We made a quick trip back out to chop that weed down.

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