KEN'S LAST MINUTE BUCK

The 2008 deer season is now over and the projected kill was pretty much right on the money. The DNR had predicted a kill of around eight thousand deer and the tally is around seven thousand eight hundred,with two stations yet to turn in their numbers. The accuracy of the projected numbers means that the DNR has a good handle on what is happening with our deer herd and this translates into better management of the herd. We were blessed with a snow-fall the last day of the season and many hunters across the province hit the trail hard and were rewarded with some nice bucks for their efforts. As you can see from the photo in this post,Ken was amongst those lucky hunters to harvest a buck on the last day,actually in the final minutes of the season.Now many of you are probably thinking Kenny tracked this deer in the snow and bagged him on the trail. Not so. In the previous post I said the best way to get one of these Big Woods bucks is to wait for him to cross when he gets running around and thats just how Ken got him.Now if you know Ken at all,you know he has trouble sitting.But he played himself out the two weeks prior to the final day,so he decided to sit on a crossing where this buck had been travelling with some consistency during the season.I had told Ken that this buck would be killable when he got running and sure enough,Ken had only been there for about ten minutes and he blew his deer call and the buck walked out about ten yards from where he was standing.What a great way to end the season! The other photo is of Jamies buck he got this year.Now both of these bucks were the same age and weight,but Ken's had a little bit bigger rack,but they both were nice bucks. The biggest buck entered in the local big buck contest was two hundred and twenty -four lbs. Although this is not huge by New Brunswick standards,it is still a pretty nice buck. I'd like to congratulate all the successful deer hunters and hopefully this year our winter will be kinder to the deer and us two legged critters,too!