Kyle Lamore - Summertime Scouting!!

With summer vacation in the rear view mirror and fall quickly approaching it's that time to start putting our game plan together for this hunting season!   For the first time in a long time, we will actually be hunting the same lease that we bowhunted last year. The good news is the  same property means that a lot of the legwork is already done such as hanging sets, food plots, trimming lanes etc.  The bad is the landowner does not allow any gun hunting on the farm so we have  had to focus our attention elsewhere for those three Illinois gun  weekends. We started hanging Reconyx cameras a few months ago and were pleasantly surprised to see alot of familiar faces as well as a few new ones. One deer in particular that stands out is a deer by the name of "niner". Although "niner" doesnt really seem to fit anymore because he is now a "tenner"; he still remains very high on our hitlist. However, the problem is that last year we found this deer almost un-killable. Despite being one of the most photogenic deer on the property getting pics of him on literally almost every camera, we never saw him one time from the stand. His pattern proved very unpredictable and for the most part was a nighttime mover. So...the question we have to ask ourselves this year is:

 

How much time should we spend trying to kill this deer? ?  ? ?

What would you do?

On one hand I feel since this deer was almost impossible last year, being a year older at 5.5 now he will be even elusive and nocturnal. However, it is very difficult to just ingore a 160" deer that is living right on your farm. 

Do we just mount our efforts on another hit-lister?? Mabye just wait until the rut?  I still am unsure on what we will decide, hopefully the Reconyx can help us with this decision in the next month before season opens. 
 

 















We also had the opportunity to take care of the missing piece of the puzzle (no gun hunting our farm) by meeting up with Shawn Lucky at Illinois Extreme Whitetails in Pike, Adams and Brown county recently. From the looks of the lodge and farms so far, we are going to be in for a treat with  the accommodations and hunting.  I have been fortunate enough to stay at alot of nice places, however this lodge without a doubt is the king of all. Shawn took us around for the weekend giving us some different options and had the opportunity to see some great deer while we were out scouting. Both quality and quantity of deer seemed evident and I cannot wait for November to get here to head north and try our luck! Good luck to all this fall!

Kyle Lamore
JJ Kolesar