While I have been lurking and posting here and there I have been MIA from my Property Tour thread. I wish my update could be like John Paul's
![Big Grin :D :D](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
If you have not seen his properties crop of bucks go check it out.
Some might remember a post I made last year on the board that I fell on my first night back home in which I fractured my femur and tore a butt muscle. The first few days were the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life and I have suffered a few bad ones. Well the Doc had me on lock down as the muscle tear was a grade two so if I got stupid it could have gone to a three and would have required surgery. Outside of hitting the Doc I did not leave the house for over a month. I went from the bed to the chair and back again with occasional trips to comfort station. I joke about that because having to sit on the throne was the absolute worst pain. I told my neighbor that I would gladly sacrifice an arm if he could go to the bathroom for me.
The Doc finally gave me the green light to leave the house but with a stern warning not be an idiot (he is a personal friend of mine). I finally made it over to the property and discovered someone had poached a doe from the road. I talked to my neighbors to the north and they said the road has been seeing a lot more road hunting, and they mentioned specific names and said the Sheriff is aware of what was going on. Our valley is off the beaten path and sees very little traffic. It is one of those roads that you really need to have a reason to be on. There is a stretch of about a mile and half between my southern neighbors cabin to the northern neighbors seasonal hunting cabin with nothing..
In chatting with the neighbors they agreed that the deer population seemed to have dropped off despite the fact that none of the landowners took any more deer than usual. I went from seeing 13-14 does in the plots in 2015, to about 8 in 2016, to 4 in 2017. Clearly something is going on and no one reported finding winter kills when walking their properties. We have invited the DEC to do something proactive and the suggestion is that they set out a decoy and we have offered to provide a couple of spots for them to hide out in. We will see what is going to happen as we get closer to the start of the season.
Sadly, when I finally got up an into the property it was like a gut punch to see that my main plot of what was supposed to be brassicas (PTT, Radish and Rape) was devoid of them. I have no idea what happened, I know the night that I planted we had very heavy rains and I was afraid that the seed would all wash down the hill and that I would find brassicas growing at the bottom, but that was not the case either. FYI in 2016 I experienced the same issue, no growth but we were very dry. Right before planting in 2016 I had 5 ton of lime put down in that plot, but I have not tested again. Despite planting late in 2015 I did get brassica growth in this plot, not great as I was late (story of my life in planting).
The 2017 card pulls revealed very little in the way of bucks. This was the only decent buck, and given he only showed on the cams a few times in a narrow window I have to think he was just rolling through in search of does.
As you can imagine it is very frustrating to see things going in the opposite direction of what you had hoped.
More to come
![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)