J-birds place
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j-bird
Well-Known Member
Thanks... He wasn't the one I was looking for, but I think I did OK. If it wasn't for that leg I would have tried to pass on him...I say try...because it's easy to say I would have...it's a lot harder to actually do it!
j-bird
Well-Known Member
Just a basic update here... Our firearms season closes sunday and we are still looking for one more deer to top off the freezer (hope my boy gets his buck). I took a few photos while I was looking at some things today.
First my view from this mornings hunt... This is a little basin area of hardwoods at the north end on my place that tends to be a bedding area and tends to get some activity as its a low spot that connects a larger bedding area and leads up to some larger ag fields... its just difficult to access and hunt most of the time due to it requires an east wind which we don't get often.
I also saw where the deer took over a mock scrape I started with some "buck bomb" type spray and ticking a bare spot on the ground and adding my own "personal contribution" to the bare spot. The rope pulls and holds the limb down...the "dripper" is an old one that wasn't used this year. The tree is a tulip/yellow poplar.
I also found some evidence of the deer FINALLY using some of my turnips! Some had the leaves browsed and some had bites out of the tuber itself...I hope it's deer use anyway...
First my view from this mornings hunt... This is a little basin area of hardwoods at the north end on my place that tends to be a bedding area and tends to get some activity as its a low spot that connects a larger bedding area and leads up to some larger ag fields... its just difficult to access and hunt most of the time due to it requires an east wind which we don't get often.
I also saw where the deer took over a mock scrape I started with some "buck bomb" type spray and ticking a bare spot on the ground and adding my own "personal contribution" to the bare spot. The rope pulls and holds the limb down...the "dripper" is an old one that wasn't used this year. The tree is a tulip/yellow poplar.
I also found some evidence of the deer FINALLY using some of my turnips! Some had the leaves browsed and some had bites out of the tuber itself...I hope it's deer use anyway...
j-bird
Well-Known Member
Well, when the sun went down sunday our general firearms season was done. I will say that even though it isn't the end of hunting season (we have a month left of archery and 2 weeks of muzzleloader coming) it tends to be the end of hunting on my place as december tends to be a very busy month for us and the weather tends to decline. So it's sort of a good time to reflect on how the season has went...at least so far.
#1 - so far - everyone has been safe with no issues, accidents or even near-misses!
#2 - Daughter got her first buck (great milestone to share with her).
#3 - all hunters on my place (me, my son and my daughter) all tagged a deer - so everyone had a taste of success of some level.
#4 - we are seeing more deer than we did last year (which was a serious concern) AND our success thus far has come without taking a single female deer so next year should be even more promising.
Thoughts for the coming year:
#1 - expand "deer path" to help guide deer movement
#2 - work hard at doing less...disrupt less. I may be TOO active on my place.
#3 - plot fewer but better plots and help expand the cover aspect
#1 - so far - everyone has been safe with no issues, accidents or even near-misses!
#2 - Daughter got her first buck (great milestone to share with her).
#3 - all hunters on my place (me, my son and my daughter) all tagged a deer - so everyone had a taste of success of some level.
#4 - we are seeing more deer than we did last year (which was a serious concern) AND our success thus far has come without taking a single female deer so next year should be even more promising.
Thoughts for the coming year:
#1 - expand "deer path" to help guide deer movement
#2 - work hard at doing less...disrupt less. I may be TOO active on my place.
#3 - plot fewer but better plots and help expand the cover aspect
j-bird
Well-Known Member
Post #667???
HB_Hunter
Well-Known Member
Yeah. Seems to just have been an issue with the app on my phone. I can see them fine on the website. Carry on
.
j-bird
Well-Known Member
Over the weekend I was able to add this years antlers to the barn...Emma is now "in the club"so to speak with her first buck. I also took the time and put different colored zip ties on the antlers to be able to identify who's is who's...I tend to forget some of my earlier ones.
This next part has nothing to do with habitat work but more to do with one of my kids. My middle daughter Jenna (the one with the foot pain issue). I know a few of you have expressed some interest in her ongoing saga. Anyway...things have been going fine, but I think we took another step forward over the weekend. My 2 youngest wanted to go indoor rock climbing. I wasn't sure how Jenna would do as it takes her to do two things...#1 - over come the fear of it possibly hurting...and #2 potentially the pain itself. Well after a few attempts and some encouragement from us an a younger fellow climber, Jenna not only did it, but made it to the top. Now it wasn't the most challenging one...but its success and progress. Sometimes I think we as hunters and land stewards tend to forget that someone new to what we do can be very intimidated....and we need to offer that encouragement for those initial successes.
This next part has nothing to do with habitat work but more to do with one of my kids. My middle daughter Jenna (the one with the foot pain issue). I know a few of you have expressed some interest in her ongoing saga. Anyway...things have been going fine, but I think we took another step forward over the weekend. My 2 youngest wanted to go indoor rock climbing. I wasn't sure how Jenna would do as it takes her to do two things...#1 - over come the fear of it possibly hurting...and #2 potentially the pain itself. Well after a few attempts and some encouragement from us an a younger fellow climber, Jenna not only did it, but made it to the top. Now it wasn't the most challenging one...but its success and progress. Sometimes I think we as hunters and land stewards tend to forget that someone new to what we do can be very intimidated....and we need to offer that encouragement for those initial successes.
j-bird
Well-Known Member
Got our first real snow of the year...
Also got my first card pull of the year. About 2 weeks ago I was out and found what appeared to be an active scrape, so I tossed up a cam. I had 4 different bucks and multiple does visit it. No pawing (I have it set on video) but every deer took a whiff, stood in the scrape itself or worked the licking branch. I was surprised to see this much activity this late in the year. I got what should be a nice deer for next year, the biggest 6 point I have captured on cam and what appears to be a buck with a droopy ear...
Also got my first card pull of the year. About 2 weeks ago I was out and found what appeared to be an active scrape, so I tossed up a cam. I had 4 different bucks and multiple does visit it. No pawing (I have it set on video) but every deer took a whiff, stood in the scrape itself or worked the licking branch. I was surprised to see this much activity this late in the year. I got what should be a nice deer for next year, the biggest 6 point I have captured on cam and what appears to be a buck with a droopy ear...
j-bird
Well-Known Member
With a break in the weather I headed out Saturday to take care of some neglected buffer strips. On the north side of my place I have a 30' wide buffer strip between my corn/bean field and the neighbors oak plantation. Pic on the left is the neighbors...as their plantation grows they are grossly loosing understory. You can easily see 100 yards or so. The deer used to bed up against my buffer strip but as you can see in the right picture a significant lack of cover has reduced that because the sapling got so large and shaded out a lot of the more non-woody plants.
As you can see here this is a narrow strip but can be an important one as it creates a different habitat type and edges... You can see in the left pic the woody stuff that creates the shade and you can see on the right pic what happens when you control the woody stuff and the grasses and weeds grow which far better facilitate bedding (there was several beds in the grass and non-woody cover that I found) along with a few small rubs on the more limited saplings.
here is some samples of what the woody stuff is. It's lots of white mulberry and sycamore trees and heavy briers and vines. You can see the leaves on the ground and see how its just keeping the non-woody stuff from growing. There was even no sign of rubs in these areas where the woody stuff was big enough that it was suppressing the more ground level growth and thus loosing its cover aspect. If I can get light in there I can increase the stem count density and thus the value to deer and other wild life.
So I went to town with my chainsaw and cut everything as flush as made sense. Keep in mind some of this stuff was thicker than your wrist. I put the brush to use to form a natural screen to hopefully help with the bedding as well as helping dictate deer movement along that edge (left pic) as there was very little that narrowed down where the deer would enter that edge of the field and makes hunting it a lot more difficult. This ended up being 5 to 6 feet tall and should create more screening and cover.
So now that the sunlight will reach the ground I should see a lot more non-woody growth and more predictable entry points. I won't wipe out all the woody growth areas, as I like the diversity, but I think simply due to the width of this area I will get better use of these areas AND be able to manage the woody growth better. I did not treat the stumps so I suspect they will stump sprout like crazy come spring and the mulberry will provide more browse down at the deer level. I look for the goldenrod, ragweed, poke weed, and the like to be very prevalent in this area come spring and summer. It was a lot of bending and the like and fighting the thorns as not fun, but it needed to be done. I will do this in other areas and create a checkerboard affect along these buffers to try to stagger the different growth stages and trying to get the most diversity I can.
As you can see here this is a narrow strip but can be an important one as it creates a different habitat type and edges... You can see in the left pic the woody stuff that creates the shade and you can see on the right pic what happens when you control the woody stuff and the grasses and weeds grow which far better facilitate bedding (there was several beds in the grass and non-woody cover that I found) along with a few small rubs on the more limited saplings.
here is some samples of what the woody stuff is. It's lots of white mulberry and sycamore trees and heavy briers and vines. You can see the leaves on the ground and see how its just keeping the non-woody stuff from growing. There was even no sign of rubs in these areas where the woody stuff was big enough that it was suppressing the more ground level growth and thus loosing its cover aspect. If I can get light in there I can increase the stem count density and thus the value to deer and other wild life.
So I went to town with my chainsaw and cut everything as flush as made sense. Keep in mind some of this stuff was thicker than your wrist. I put the brush to use to form a natural screen to hopefully help with the bedding as well as helping dictate deer movement along that edge (left pic) as there was very little that narrowed down where the deer would enter that edge of the field and makes hunting it a lot more difficult. This ended up being 5 to 6 feet tall and should create more screening and cover.
So now that the sunlight will reach the ground I should see a lot more non-woody growth and more predictable entry points. I won't wipe out all the woody growth areas, as I like the diversity, but I think simply due to the width of this area I will get better use of these areas AND be able to manage the woody growth better. I did not treat the stumps so I suspect they will stump sprout like crazy come spring and the mulberry will provide more browse down at the deer level. I look for the goldenrod, ragweed, poke weed, and the like to be very prevalent in this area come spring and summer. It was a lot of bending and the like and fighting the thorns as not fun, but it needed to be done. I will do this in other areas and create a checkerboard affect along these buffers to try to stagger the different growth stages and trying to get the most diversity I can.
j-bird
Well-Known Member
Sorry no pics...I took a walk after my work above and I am seeing a significant improvement of the deer use of my turnips. I think this happened because of the poor result of the corn plot... I just like knowing that the deer will eat them now if the need is there. I have been planting turnips for at least 3 years now to one extent or the other and this year is really the first real acceptance of them... This coming year we will see if it just took them a while to adapt OR if they are just picky as I plan on planting corn and beans again as I have in the past with better results.
j-bird
Well-Known Member
With spring finally seeming to be here I got out over the weekend and did a little work. Nothing special but it got me out of the house.
Switchgrass burn... before and after. Not an antler to be found... I now need to get in and spray the stilt grass before the switchgrass wakes up!
I did prune some of my apples and crab apples as well. I also had to reset my cages on my crab apples as earlier flooding created some issues. I also did some walking and found where the deer are using an interesting edge that I will certainly remember come hunting season. My turnips smell nice and rotten as well!
Switchgrass burn... before and after. Not an antler to be found... I now need to get in and spray the stilt grass before the switchgrass wakes up!
I did prune some of my apples and crab apples as well. I also had to reset my cages on my crab apples as earlier flooding created some issues. I also did some walking and found where the deer are using an interesting edge that I will certainly remember come hunting season. My turnips smell nice and rotten as well!
j-bird
Well-Known Member
I am aware...I just get frustrated to plant something and have 95% of it not be used by the intended user. Good thing they are cheap.
