WEST VIRGINIA — After reviewing 412 trail-camera photos before finishing his morning coffee, local hunter Wayne Blevins concluded Tuesday that an eight-point buck on his property was deliberately arranging its life around his inconvenience.
The buck, which has appeared on camera at 1:14 a.m., 2:37 a.m., and “approximately four minutes after I left,” has reportedly refused to cooperate with several clearly communicated opportunities to be harvested.
“He’s there every night,” Blevins said, enlarging a blurry photograph of two glowing eyes. “But let me get in that stand and suddenly he’s got somewhere else to be.”
Blevins has checked the camera’s phone app 86 times since midnight, including twice during this interview and once while showing reporters a picture he was already looking at.
His wife, Carol, said the camera was originally purchased so he would not have to keep walking into the woods to check a camera.
“It’s really cut down on the trips,” she said. “Now he can be disappointed from the couch.”
According to Blevins, the buck’s behavior became suspicious after it appeared beneath his stand at 7:46 a.m. Wednesday, a time when Blevins was attending a mandatory workplace safety meeting.
“There are seven days in a week,” he said. “He picked that one.”
Blevins believes the deer may recognize the sound of his truck, know which weekends he has off, and possess at least a working understanding of his employer’s attendance policy.
He has named the buck “The Supervisor.”
“He shows up when I’m not there and leaves before I can do anything about it,” Blevins explained. “Same deal.”
Records indicate Blevins has spent the past three weeks carefully studying the buck’s movements while maintaining a predictable routine of entering the woods, checking several locations, adjusting equipment, and announcing aloud that he was “just going to slip in real quick.”
He has also repositioned the camera four times to obtain a better photograph of the deer avoiding him.
“I try not to disturb the area,” he said, while preparing to drive up there and see why he had not received a picture in forty minutes.
Not every notification has involved the target buck. Recent alerts have included a raccoon, two does, a squirrel photographed at extremely close range, and 73 images of a branch Blevins has repeatedly promised to cut.
One particularly promising alert arrived at 6:58 a.m., causing him to stop eating breakfast and open the app with both hands.
It was Wayne.
“I forgot I’d walked through there,” he said.
Carol confirmed that her husband now refers to deer he has never encountered in person with the familiarity normally reserved for troublesome coworkers.
“He’ll look up from his phone and say, ‘Well, guess who finally decided to show up,’” she said. “Then I have to ask whether he means the deer or our son.”
Despite growing frustration, Blevins remains confident he is close to establishing a reliable pattern.
At press time, the buck had appeared on camera in broad daylight for the first time all week.
Blevins was at Tractor Supply buying another camera.
