South Dakota mule buck

Just got back from an outstanding visit to the western wilderness. One of the stops was a new place in South Dakota.

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Nice catch Mike. Beautiful BG but a shame about the tips of the antlers missing.

What lens and how close were you ??

Matt.

Yeah I didn't have time to adjust the focus to the bottom target which would have let me get all the antlers. It was taken yesterday morning about 1,000 miles from where I live. The lens was the 300 F4 IS bare, wide open at dawn. I was really close! I have some other buck shots from this area I will be posting later.

Nice looking animal...good shot!

Hi, Mike!

What a nice, crisp, clear image! I'm glad to hear you got out to this part of the country. Hope you had a great trip!

Thx folks. I have another image I'm going to post in this thread with the antlers not cut off. This was ISO 2500 and things were real shaky so I;m lucky I got anything at all.

Tom - the trip out west this year was AMAZING. I was in the Gallatin NF for a bit, then went to Yellowstone whereI had to play "dodge the fire". Two roads were completely shut down and I could not get down to Teton due to the smoke(my primary goal). While I was in west Yellowstone, a little voice in the back of my head said "head north, my friend. Head to Glacier country". I did just that and got very, very lucky on a grizzly bear sow and three cubs. I will be posting those later. Glacier put on the greatest widllife and scenery display I have ever seen. Highs were in the 30's and low 40's with light snow and 40 mph winds, but it was worth it. Much of the action was too far off, but some wasn't.

After about 7 days around Glacier and that little other place around Missoula, a snow storm pushed me back east into South Dakota(took me two days, really bad roads and a srious winter storm warning). I discovered some new places in SD that were fantastic. The mule buck was from one of them.

I added a new pic below the first one taken the previous morning, same area. ISO 1600.

Mike, you were up quite early if you needed 1600 ISO. The early bird gets the wor... - um, deer!

They only came out at dawn, then disappeared once the slightest good light came out(or at extreme dusk). That's the way it goes I guess.

I'm looking at fast 200 mm primes for just this situation in the future. The advantage of camping in 30 degree weather is you can be right at the "hot spots" with virtually no travel time. You are also forced to go to bed at 9 PM. It gets dark at 7:30, making it easy getting up at 5 AM, giving about an hour and a half before first light at 6:30(very meager light at that point) with plenty of preperation time. You can even cook a leisurely breakfast at camp in the pitch black while listening to the elk bugle.

I can't count how many times I'm the first one up and around in the parks and forests. I see a lot of animals appear and then disappear before I even see the first other person. The camping and early rising is a distinct advantage. But to really take full advantage, I need too look into the 2.8's at some point.

Yeah, that 200mm f2.8 would be a good wildlife lens if coupled with a 1.6 crop body like your 50D or a 7D

A friend and I were just in Yellowstone & the Tetons last week. All he has to shoot with is a 70-200 f2.8, and coupled with his new 7D it was plenty of reach for many of the subjects we found.

Hard to believe you can use just a 200mm for wildlife, but if you get close and have a 1.6 crop it's actually quite effective. And IQ would be amazing with the fast 200.

Well that's the thing. Early and late, when the most wildlife is out, is also when they are not afraid to be closer. A 5.6 lens at this time? Forget it.

Yellowstone is a different animal altogether though. That place has the least skittish elk ever. You could easily get away with 200mm there during the rut at all times of the day. The elk in the other parks are not even close to being like that.

How did you guys do in Yellowstone and Teton?

Mike55 wrote in post #8824624
Yellowstone is a different animal altogether though. That place has the least skittish elk ever. You could easily get away with 200mm there during the rut at all times of the day. The elk in the other parks are not even close to being like that.

Actually, we may have a new leader in the "non-skittish elk" category: Rocky Mountain NP in Colorado. I was there for a week in late Sept, and it was a far greater opportunity than I've ever found in other parks, at least for elk. I hear that Banff & Jasper are similar, but they're across the border.

Mike55 wrote in post #8824624
How did you guys do in Yellowstone and Teton?

We did good. Not as many elk around as there were 10 or 15 years ago, but we managed to find a couple bulls who let us get close. One actually approached me to within about 15 yards, and I had to use the 100-400 zoomed out to around 250mm in order to fit him in the frame. This was usign a fll frame 5D, so it would be like using a 150mm with your 50D. Real good close stuff.

Also, we found a Griz' on Dunraven that fed on pine nuts only about 10 yards away. Good portrait opportunity on a Griz, which is not all that common. It fed at this close range for over 40 minutes before a ranger came along, so we had alot of undisturbed close-range shooting. They sure do keep their heads down alot. It was hard to get good eye contact, but every now and then the Griz would lift it's head and look up for the briefest of moments. Once or twice I was quick enough to capture it. I'll post a couple of the pics soon.

NICE!!!

Tom Reichner wrote in post #8827632
Actually, we may have a new leader in the "non-skittish elk" category: Rocky Mountain NP in Colorado. I was there for a week in late Sept, and it was a far greater opportunity than I've ever found in other parks, at least for elk. I hear that Banff & Jasper are similar, but they're across the border.

I've been to RMNP, but not in the fall. It wouldn't surprise me because the elk population is through the roof and there are no real apex predators in the park like wolves and grizzlies. One thing I do know is theyare eating all the aspen in the park and causing other problems.

I bet you got some nice shots.

I've had that happen before with the biggest elk I've ever seen. I had to get behind a car. It was funny watching other photogs run away as this bull just strutted down the path. There are some absoltuely gigantic elk there. I had a zoom at the time. Had I only had my prime I would have not gotten the shot.

The elk are not as many as 1995, but at that point there were 19,000 in the northern herd and they were damaging the park and many of the elk were unhealthy. There was a big starvation winter in 1996-97 which killed off a bunch. Montana created an extended late season elk hunt to help with the overpopulation. Wolves also started growing in number, and the combo of wolves and grizz brorught numbers down even lower after 2005, along with keeping the antler-less elk hunt alive at 1,000 or so permits. The hunt was changed to only 100 antler-less permits and now the elk are doing quite nicely, up from a low of 6k to now at 7k.

I also had this experience in late Septemberup on Dunraven. About 15 yards first light, griz was just intent on finding food. He hung out for awhile until a large diesel approached(that seems to do it every time, regardless of animal). I had my bear spray ready to go but this was a very calm bear.

Was it in the forest? If so, very tough shooting. And yeah they do not lift their heads when they have food.

It's amazing how few shots are actual "keepers" when you spend that much time shooting. Even with the best gear it doesn't really matter if the animal doesn't feel like posing, and the light is off.