I found this double drop tine mule deer today laying behind a bale in the middle of one of our stubble fields. I think he was pushed out of the hills to the north by a drilling rig that is drilling for natural gas in the area. The deer have been coming out of the community pasture to the north to feed in a pea field. With the drilling activity in the are some of the deer have been disturbed. If you look closely in the first photo you will see a blue spot between the the green bushes in the top right corner of the photo. This is a piece of the rig as it is being move to another lease. I was able to use another bale in the field for cover and get within 100 yards of him. He is a great deer but give him a couple of years and he would be a real pig. sadly with the number of tags being given out this year in our zone his chances of surviving past this fall are pretty slim( 4X as many tags as usual) It was really windy and raining lightly. The lighting conditions were poor so I had to use a higher ISO on the camera so the photos are a little grainy.
