J.J. Kolesar - Redemption!

Well, if you have tuned into Dream Season 6 Redemption you would have witnessed Kyle and I flying a remote control airplane to help take pictures. Needless to say, it didn't work very well, but it was fun. However, it did force us to look at a 2-acre piece of timber in a new light.

Last Halloween Kyle and I had an encounter with a buck we call "Redemption", but when he sauntered by our stand we were out of legal light. We never saw him on stand again. The Reconyx picked him up for the last time on Dec. 12th. We feel the buck might be one of those monarchs impossible to kill due to his minimal daytime movement. The bad news is we have taken only 1 picture out of 12 in which he is moving during the day! The good news is HE'S BACK FOR MORE! Here are some cool pics in which we have him in velvet and hard-horned, and accompanying it is a pic of him in velvet this year. Hopefully the next picture has one of us sitting behind him.

This is where you come in!! Please comment on this thread on how you might hunt this deer. We hunted him hard last year and didn't get it done. We have some new ideas this year, but would love to hear your suggestions. Remember, its only two acres, which is pretty much surrounded by fields. Good luck getting your game-camera pics and be safe while food plotting. -Team Illinois (Kyle and JJ)

Kyle Lamore - ...If it Weren't for Bad Luck...

Well…October is slowly slipping away and one of our goals for this year was to finally put down a good deer in October. To accomplish this, we tried incorporating several deep timber Biologic food plots this year….well, the Reconyx camera was stolen, along with the stands and ladder stick, so… needless to say it has been a bust. The clock is quickly ticking towards November and with only two hunts left..…no big buck has yet to meet the Rage. However, we have seen and encountered more big deer this October than ever before. I think Jared Lurk said it best one time with “When filming, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.” The following examples have occurred since season has begun!

1. The month started at Hadley Creek and we saw a ton of deer, shot a doe, but just couldn’t seem to find a buck that would meet the new 140” minimum. We even had an ancient buck come to within 30 yards that would have been in deep trouble back home, but had to give him a pass because he didn’t have quite enough inches on his head.

2. We have been watching a deer that we nicknamed “Redemption” since mid summer. We have tons and tons of pics of this deer and finally laid eyes on him Oct. 19 at only 22 yards from the stand. However, JJ called me off of him b/c it was very low light for the camera and so he got a pass without an arrow released.

3. Saturday, Oct. 25th was the first time we had hunted our new lease in the morning. Well, the morning was full of fog and drizzle, since an inch of rain had fallen the night before. Things started out rather slow, but by mid-morning we had several does moving in. I was filming them and trying to decide if JJ was going to shoot one when my camera starting flashing “CONDENSATION DETECTED”… the words any cameraman detests having pop up!! I told him not to shoot when he tells me big buck coming, a big nine pointer then follows the does right by our stand at 26 yards broadside. JJ’s asks me what is going on, while I currently have a doe staring at me from under the stand b/c the tape is being ejected in and out of the camera. I had to return the favor as he did a week earlier and call him off of the beast b/c the camera couldn’t boot up. Ten minutes later, the camera is working fine…go figure!!

So...we are trying to close the deal of one of these bucks in the near future and hoping our black cloud leaves us alone for a while! Good luck this fall to all!

Kyle