The Big Buck Of The Trip...

Let me first start by clarifying the title.  This was and was not the big buck of the trip.  He was a 6 x 6 but you will note that it does not count the tine broken off at the base of the beam on the left antler.  If you can not see it here there is no need to worry because you will be seeing many more photos of this deer.  He was the biggest because of the spread of the rack and the length of the tines and beams.  I did photograph one that had a total of 17 points but I feel this one was more impressive. 

I photographed this buck on five different occasions, all early morning or late day.  I had an idea of his location and looked for him each day.  He was not like many of the other bucks in that he did not like people being around him.  As you began to approach him he would walk away making it hard to get good shots.  I finally learned to get close to his herd and just remain still hoping that he would chase the doe's my way.  My second time photographing him I tried to follow him in his chase and found that I was doing 70 to 100 yard circles and getting nothing.  Do you think he knew what he was doing and was playing me for a fool?

This photograph was taken at 7:01 am one frosty morning in the far reaches of the meadow as he does a lip curl checking for does that may be ready for breading.  He kept the does in the shaded area giving us more time to photograph out of the sun.  To get the shot it was taken with the D7000 with the 200-400 VR f4 lens from a tripod.  My settings were ISO 800 1/160 second at f4 at 300 mm.  One may ask why a few of my shots were a higher ISO when I had my shutter speed as high as 1/160 when many of my low light Elk photos were taken at 1/30 of a second.  It was simply because often the whitetail did not remain still like the Elk and it was requiring higher shutter speeds to keep the images sharp.  Heck sometimes I sound like I know what I am doing with the camera, now if that were only true.

By the way the 17 point buck I mentioned, you will see him in the future.