Coyote and deer have picnic together

Doe, spike buck join coyote at corn pile

When Kenneth Branham of Camden, S.C., went to check his trail cameras on a piece of property he hunts in Kershaw County this past weekend, he had a surprise waiting for him.

Among the 300 or so photos captured by the Wildgame Innovations camera were a handful of images showing something most deer hunters would never believe: deer and a coyote feeding on the same corn pile.

“It goes against everything I’ve ever been taught,” Branham said. “If somebody had told me they had pictures like this, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

But there, just before 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 27, was a photo of a coyote eating a corn pile. A few minutes later, a doe shows up, eventually approaching the coyote and beginning to eat the corn. A few minutes later, a small, spike buck shows up and begins to eat at the corn pile.

“I’ve had other pictures of coyotes walking by the corn pile before but never of one eating corn,” he said. “The coyote comes in first and eats, then the doe comes in and eventually starts eating. Then, this other spike comes in. I thought a deer would run at the first sight of a coyote.”

That leaves Branham with one trail-camera dream left: to get a photo of Sasquatch.