October 27th: Things are heating up, right?

Another slow day for me, but not for others as the friend report has been heating up all week.  This cold front has paid off great for most hunters I've been exchanging information with.  Fresh scrapes are showing up, aggressive rubs, and I've heard two reports of grunting and chasing.  My area remains quiet, I sat my bucks core bedding area for 4 straight days in 3 different stands, not a deer in sight not a picture on the cameras.  My attitude is still very positive after a mid day scouting mission today to make my rounds and check the cameras and stands I haven't seen in two weeks since before the season began.  The sign is still light in my area overall, only a few satellite scrapes, barely any community scrapes opened up yet, but some good rubs continue to pile up in some areas around the thickets where I know doe's like to hang.  The intel continues to pile up for me, I've never known so much about a buck I've been after.  I got a surprise last night while I was clearing some memory cards I pulled last week, a picture I couldn't see clearly enough on my card reader while in the field last week, but my target buck "Bullwinkle" walked right by my camera only 3 days after I moved it, he walked right down the cart road at around 8:00 pm,15 yards from the stand I sat the last 2 days.  I began wondering if he'd gone nocturnal, which was hard to digest considering I had so many day time pics of him in his core area, I'm talking like 80% of the pics of him in his core area were day time from June to early October.  But it all makes sense now that I've thought it through, this is what bucks are supposed to do, rest up and save their energy for peak breeding activity.  After checking my cameras today, its exactly what I had hoped to confirm after sitting 4 days without him or another deer in sight.  I got pictures of Bullwinkle at two other stand locations out of the 4 spots I checked, all night time pictures checking his doe areas.  3 confirming his departure from his core bedding area at night, one from his north most bedding area, and another of him bedding smack in the middle of his territory by my climber spot and coming out at exactly 6:30 pm last week, probably too dark to shoot of course.  I'm confident he's in trouble this season with my current set up, it seems like wherever I put a camera he shows up on it.  My last stand location I hadn't got a picture of him he visited 3 times last week, I just knew by the terrain and last years sign this was a regular spot to check, especially with all the mature oaks around.  While I may not be getting many pictures of him in his core bedding area lately (last pic was opening day at 6:08 pm) he is still checking his doe areas at night either coming from or going to his favorite bedding areas.  Don't give up on big old bucks, while there is certainly a chance to kill them this early in the season, they know its time to relax during the day and conserve energy for marking their territory and visiting the ladies at night.  It brings me additional confidence and patience to know that despite mostly nocturnal pictures, that I did get him moving in shooting light 3 times in October and all of these dates he's showed up at a tree stand location confirmed by trail camera just since the start of the month:  October 2, 10 (at two cameras), 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23.  Some pictures below of the recent action...

Never got him in this cam and he shows up 3 times in 5 days!

Mock scrape in the snow, looks real doesn't it?  Still gets ya pumped!!

These two rubs were right on my trail to my stand.  I could smell the birch tree on the second one it was so fresh.  The last 3 times I went to that stand there was a new rub on my trail in, and now there's 3 rubs and 3 scrapes... Guess they like the path I cut.

Coming out of bedding the week before the season opened, I couldn't tell it was him on my card reader, so I guess I was sitting in the right place the last couple days, just need him to do this with a light left, quartering away 20 yds isn't bad!