Trail Camera Photos - July 28, 2013

These guys appear to be the lowest quality of antlers seen so far.  Think they will grow much more?

Do you think this one will develop into anything since he has no brow tines?  I think probably not.

Friggin Cows!

Man thats a nice rack.  10 Point!

I hope this one grows some more.  The end of his tines are still round.

I think these are going to grow pretty tall.

I'm gonna keep my eye on this one.  Hopefully that spot will make him easy to ID.  I'm curious how much his antlers will grow.

Another 10 Point!

Tall and still growing!

Need I say anything?

Yep, your seeing that right.  DOUBLE BROW TINES!  And 12 points!

Coyote!

Turkey!

I bet that this will be the view I get of this one during hunting season... as he is running away.

Deer Feeder Maintenance

Nothing sucks more than to show up for a weekend hunt after a hard week at work only to find that your deer feeder has quite working. Too many times have I sat in the stand watching the sun come up and the feeder never goes off. Talk about a ruined hunt! Coons can be one problem, causing all sorts of damage, but that is usually obvious. The not so obvious problems are the ones you can't see. Mostly it is a dead battery. I always keep a voltmeter in my repair kit and leave the repair kit at the hunting cabin. A volt meter can help you diagnose all kinds of problems when it comes to debugging a feeder. However, the easiest way to avoid feeder malfunctions is to keep those batteries charged. I keep my batteries on a battery maintenance device all year when the feeders are not it service. Even if you charge your battery to 100% after the season is over, the battery will deteriorate just by sitting. Its important to keep them "maintained" all through the off season. Since I have more than one feeder, I have multiple batteries. In the 2nd photo you will notice that they are wired in parallel by jumping all of the positive (+) terminals together and all the negative (-) terminals together. By doing this you only need one charger to keep your batteries maintained in the off season. If you use Solar Panels to charge your feeder batteries during hunting season, see the video below. I will show you how to test those Solar Panels to make sure they are still functioning.

Trail Camera Photos from July 2013 - Protein Feeders and Coon Deterrents

Here is some photos from my trail camera. This camera is setup on a custom protein feeder that I made in hopes to deter these pesky raccoons. However these little critters seem to not be phased by the amount of sharp edges I presented them with. Lots of bucks are showing up at and eating the protein. This is a good sign because as mid July approaches, the grass has already dried up here in Central Texas and food sources for the deer appear limited. On a side note, I've had multiple questions why I place fences around my feeders. The simple answer is to keep the cattle away from the feeders. As you can tell from one of the photos that task is not as easy as putting up a fence.