Harvesting a Bull Elk is one thing I would like to check off my bucket list someday! For a few of my NDSU friends, they were able to make that a reality on their September Elk hunting trips.
Mike Svaleson and Nathan Housey were able to take down some nice Bull Elk while bow in Wyoming. Mike is a former NDSU Track & Field teammate of mine and is an avid outdoorsman. Congrats men!
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| Mike Svaleson (left) and Nathan Housey (right) stop to take a pic with their Bow Bulls |
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| Side profile with Mike Svaleson (left) and Nathan Housey (right) |
Mike Vipond was also successful on his Elk hunting trip. He was able to make good use of his once in a Lifetime ND Resident Bull Elk tag by Harvesting the nice 5x5 pictured below. Mike graduated from NDSU and is a Co-Worker of mine at Houston Engineering Inc. Congrats Mike!
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| Mike Vipond with his ND Bull Elk |
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| Another angle of Mike Vipond and his Lifetime ND Resident Bull Elk |
After sorting through several weeks of trail camera pictures/videos (felt like a kid on Christmas Morning), I was excited to see appearances from the Bent Horn buck and the Big Eight! But what was even better, is that they were caught on camera during hunting hours! Granted they will likely become more and more nocturnal, daytime pictures of nice bucks are a bit of a rarity during this time of year and provides some hope of harvesting one of these brutes mid-October. Most of us know that once the rut begins, then all hell breaks loose... but that's not for about another month. So lets get to the fun part and start looking at some of the Pictures/Videos that September threw our way!
You may recognize the photo on the left as the Bent Horn buck from my last post. Well, he is back and has his signature "Deer in...Trail Camera... Headlights" pose.
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| The Bent Horn Buck does not have much mass, but the unique characteristic of a bent G3 lands him on my bow hunting hit list. |
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| Bent Horn Buck Makes an October Appearance during shooting hours. |
Along with the previous pictures of the Bent Horn Buck, I have my Cuddeback Attack IR rigged to first take a picture, then a 30 second video clip. Both of the videos below correspond to the pictures above.
The Big Eight makes his first post-velvet appearance on 9/21/13 during shooting hours. The grazing picture below does not do him justice... which is why you will want to see the video that follows. The mass showcased by the Big Eight has landed him atop my 2013 hit list at the No. 1 spot.
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| Big Eight post-velvet |
Now, if those videos didn't have me excited enough, the addition of an October Turkey hunt definitely put me in the hunting mood. Not to mention, several Toms & Jakes have been making appearances on all three trail cameras.
Stop Turkeying Around! In addition to the pictures, the following videos made for another surprise. In what appears to be a turkey sumo wrestling match, Toms are going beak for beak in shoving matches. I'm somewhat of a novice when it comes to turkey hunting... 0 for 1... but I thought it to be somewhat odd that they would "fight" in this manner rather than using their spurs? If anyone has a better explanation, please feel free to reply below!
Turkey Fight 1
Turkey Fight 2
Turkey Fight Royal Rumble
I hope you enjoyed this post! Good luck hunting all!
