Month: March 2017

Trail Camera

At long last, a conclusive trail cam pic

Glenn Griffith

I’ve been running trail cameras for many years.  For me, checking trail cams to see what has been captured is akin to a child unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning.  It’s a ton of fun, it keeps me connected to the outdoors and it always has me wondering what I might see next.

Over the past few years I have gotten numerous night pictures of a dark, mysterious creature.  Here is an example from 2013:

That’s a fisher, right?  I’ve seen similar photos many times and that’s always been my belief.  All of the photos I have are very similar to this one and, while I’m almost certain it’s a fisher, I’ve always had some doubt given the rare number of sightings and elusive nature of these small mammals.  That is until now… check this out:

My friends, all doubt has now been erased.  I love this photo and I was thrilled to retrieve it off of my camera.  In 5+ years of getting night photos of what I thought was a fisher, this is the first daylight photo I have seen that makes it conclusive.   Good stuff!

Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Hunting, Scouting, Trail Camera

A Promising Deer Property 

Glenn Griffith

Hunting deer isn’t easy, and all over the U.S. whitetail deer hunters face challenges unique to their region.  And that’s the way it should be; if this were simple it would be no fun and without the challenge this pursuit wouldn’t be so addicting.

I believe there are two primary challenges to hunting deer here in the northeast.  The first is hunting pressure.  New England is a small geographic area that is maturely developed, and thus there is a small amount of deer habitat and it sees high hunter densities.  The second challenge is lack of land to hunt near agriculture and predictable deer feeding areas.  Generally speaking, we’re hunting hardwood forest areas where it’s difficult to pattern and predict deer activity.

I’m excited to report that I’ve gained access to bowhunt a promising piece of property that will likely resolve the second challenge – predictable feeding area.  Here’s a satellite image:

Over the last few weeks the sunset has been getting later and I’m now commuting home from work while it’s still daylight.  Several times now I have witnessed deer feeding in the small field located just above the property outline in this photo.  After doing some research and asking a few questions I’ve secured the ability to hunt the property outlined in orange.

This discovery has me pretty excited.  This wooded parcel should be a good travel corridor and staging area that the deer will use on their way to and from that field.  Soon I will walk the property to begin learning what’s going on and I’ll get a trail camera in there to begin surveying the deer activity.

The biggest question on this property will be the answer to challenge #1…hunter density.  I hope I don’t get in there only to find signs that other hunters are already all over it.  If I do, it certainly won’t come as a surprise!