E
edhunter
Guest
Reading the Dec/Jan issue of Muley Crazy magazine brought a flood of emotion. The article is titled "Colorado 200 inch Hat Trick". The 1st paragraph outlines perfectly what I'd like to post,
"The weatherman was calling for 4-8 inches of snow and temperatures in the 20's overnight. The storm would be breaking by morning and with the date being November 25th, the bucks should be sick with love in the morning. Fresh snow in the peak of the rut. I told my buddy on the phone that night that it was going to be an epic day for big buck photography".
Two hunters were searching for photos that morning. One was out of bed well before light. He braved snow packed roads and drifts getting to the deers winter range. His spotting scope found the big bucks and his feet took him to their haunts. Miles of Kodachrome burned through his camera and the weight of extra batteries and film burdened him. By days end he had caught on film 3 buck over 200 gross inches and one 180" buck. What a day.
Our other photographer didn't bother to load equipment the night before, no point in that. He rose well after the sun and slipped into his house shoes, noticed that it was a little chilly and turned the thermostat up to 72 degrees. A few minutes later coffee was streaming, hot and flavorfull, out of his percolator. Ah, now lets get some big buck pictures. He fired up the latest version of Adobe Photoshop Professional and searched through his archives for the perfect shot. There it was, a fat doe perched against the bluest sky God's hand had ever painted. Save that one and now find the material to make this imposter a buck. The rack he picked was huge. The deer won the big buck contest in his state two years earlier. He was at the checkpoint when the lucky hunter brought it in. Luckily the guy didn't understand and let him burn 3 rolls of film on this one buck's antlers, side view, quartering forward and away and straight on. He had just the shot to transform the estrogen to testosterone. By days end he had created one hell of a buck. What a day.
What is real? I salute the former. I've crawled through the cactus for 3 days trying to get one picture of a coues buck in the snow. It wasn't good enough for Outdoor Life but did make the cover of AZ Outdoors. I've had the batteries die just when a large buck mounted a doe for the final rutting surge. I damn near died in the Black River one spring trying to get to 2 huge rams on the other side. I'm not a world class photographer but I've done enough shutter snapping to know what it takes to get a quality shot in the field and I'm not talking Yellowstone or the den where the computer is.
What do you prefer? Does your heart skip a beat seeing 12 of the biggest bucks ever taken posed like manikins against the rimrocks? If so my hat is off to the animater who created that for you. Just my thoughts.
Ed,
"The weatherman was calling for 4-8 inches of snow and temperatures in the 20's overnight. The storm would be breaking by morning and with the date being November 25th, the bucks should be sick with love in the morning. Fresh snow in the peak of the rut. I told my buddy on the phone that night that it was going to be an epic day for big buck photography".
Two hunters were searching for photos that morning. One was out of bed well before light. He braved snow packed roads and drifts getting to the deers winter range. His spotting scope found the big bucks and his feet took him to their haunts. Miles of Kodachrome burned through his camera and the weight of extra batteries and film burdened him. By days end he had caught on film 3 buck over 200 gross inches and one 180" buck. What a day.
Our other photographer didn't bother to load equipment the night before, no point in that. He rose well after the sun and slipped into his house shoes, noticed that it was a little chilly and turned the thermostat up to 72 degrees. A few minutes later coffee was streaming, hot and flavorfull, out of his percolator. Ah, now lets get some big buck pictures. He fired up the latest version of Adobe Photoshop Professional and searched through his archives for the perfect shot. There it was, a fat doe perched against the bluest sky God's hand had ever painted. Save that one and now find the material to make this imposter a buck. The rack he picked was huge. The deer won the big buck contest in his state two years earlier. He was at the checkpoint when the lucky hunter brought it in. Luckily the guy didn't understand and let him burn 3 rolls of film on this one buck's antlers, side view, quartering forward and away and straight on. He had just the shot to transform the estrogen to testosterone. By days end he had created one hell of a buck. What a day.
What is real? I salute the former. I've crawled through the cactus for 3 days trying to get one picture of a coues buck in the snow. It wasn't good enough for Outdoor Life but did make the cover of AZ Outdoors. I've had the batteries die just when a large buck mounted a doe for the final rutting surge. I damn near died in the Black River one spring trying to get to 2 huge rams on the other side. I'm not a world class photographer but I've done enough shutter snapping to know what it takes to get a quality shot in the field and I'm not talking Yellowstone or the den where the computer is.
What do you prefer? Does your heart skip a beat seeing 12 of the biggest bucks ever taken posed like manikins against the rimrocks? If so my hat is off to the animater who created that for you. Just my thoughts.
Ed,
