J-birds place

[j-bird]

What Brassicas are you planting?

I typically plant PTT and GFR. I tend to get pretty good bulb production with them. This is a sample of what I had on november 1st last year. These are not huge by any means.


I have planted Appin turnips in the past as well (they are more forage type with very little bulb) but I knew that when I bought them.

This year I planted some BOB mixes because my seed source wasn't ready yet when I wanted to plant. This year the BOB seed produced greens fine, but I think many of the varieties in the seed mix are just for that. I planted a mix called Honey Hole by Antler King and another called 7 card stud by evolved harvest. Below are the seed varieties and the like from each mix. Maybe my expectations where to high.....all I know is that what I planted this year came well short of what I planted last. Doesn't really matter, because the deer virtually ignore it all the same both years. I have planted brassica now for at least 4 years and still no evidence of the deer being even moderately interested. But I live smack in the middle of farm country so they tend to focus on corn and beans and acorns first along with my cereal grains and peas. Brassica in general simply seem to be low on the preference list on my place.

Evolved Harvest - Seven Card Stud $17.98 (10lbs - 1/4 acre bag):
52.8% cayuse oats
23.4% forerunner triticale
9.8% nutrigreen peas
2.8% barkant turnip
1% daikon radish
1% antler chicory

Antler king - Honey Hole $19.98 (3lb - 1/2 acre bag):
32.9% trophy rape
19.7% dwarf essex rape
6.6% purple top turnip
3.3% seven top turnip
3.3% winfred rape

 

[j-bird]

We got a fresh snow of a couple inches the other day and the temps are staying cold so I am going out to use the snow to my advantage and see what the deer have been doing. I love fresh snow for post season scouting. Not only does it allow me to follow their activity, but I also know the time frame within a few days of the activity I am looking at. I'll share anything I find of interest.

 

[j-bird]

Well I wanted to take advantage of the snow on the ground today and took a walk on the norther half of my property. I took lots of pics so the topics are going to wander a bit, but I find the snow provides great contrast and the dead of winter tends to be a "worst" case from a habitat perspective as well. The snow fell Wednesday...I think so the tracks and the like are from the past few days.

First pic is of something that I am a little surprised about. I have a small area near a county road that I am working on screening that used to be horse pasture. I have added clover here and I see deer in here from time to time and wonder how they use it. Well the tracks in the snow show me that instead of jumping the woven wire fence or going around they are actually going thru a hole in the fence!

The green is the tracks in the snow and the red is where the hole is in the fence. I was also able to see where the deer are entering this area from the neighbors thicket. They are going around the part of the property line that is fenced and then make a quick route to this area.

The neighbors thicket is a 15 to 20 year oak plantation. a few years ago it was great cover but as the canopy starts to close the cover at deer level is fading. I have a 30' wide CRP field edge buffer. I knew the cover would fade so I hope the buffer will screen my activity as I have to cross a wide open crop field to reach my hunting areas. I tend to avoid the near edge to this thicket, but I figured a little help couldn't hurt. Below is sort of a cross section...with my field being on the far left, then the buffer as we move right and then the neighbors thicket as we reach the far right.

There are obviously deer trails coming from the neighbors to my ag field, but something I want to touch on is that sometimes the subtle changes are hard to see. In this ag field the edge toward the neighbors has a small low spot that starts out in the field and gets wider as it reaches the neighbors. I bet it doesn't change elevation by 10 feet. However this area is where the majority of the deer enter my ag field. The subtle terrain feature makes a significant impact on how the deer use the area. I have known this for a while, but the tracks in the snow really proved the point today.

As I moved north I came to a small corner that I hinge cut last winter in an area to promote some bedding activity and have always wondered if it was working.

This pic is of the area immediately right next to the area I hinged just to give you an idea of what it was like when I started. You can see there isn't much cover and there is a slight south slope to it as well.


Now consider I had the larger maple trees taken in a selective timber harvest and then went to work hinging what I could.


You always wonder if your work is making an impact....well to my surprise there where 2 clear beds in this area. I am pretty tickled simply because I tend to struggle with getting deer to bed on my place and this is proof positive I have accomplished that at least once in the past few days.

 

[j-bird]

Continuing on my walk today I thought I would show some areas where I am trying to use terrain and other things to my advantage.

First an over view. Below what you will see if a close up of my north corner plot area. The black circle area is the hinged area that I showed in my previous post. You see a triangular perennial plot and the rectangular area near the crop field is an annual plot - this year was seed in a brassica plot. The little white square is an elevated shooting house. The heavy red line is a brush windrow to direct deer traffic and the heavy blue line is a decent sized stream. The thin blue lines are property lines and the thin green line shows where the CRP buffer is as well.


The main feature in this area is that the bend in the stream creates a steep cliff that grossly impacts the deer activity. The pic below shows that it's every bit of a 50 feet vertical elevation change.


This is a pic of the brush windrow. I had to put this in as deer where skirting the backside of the plot to avoid being exposed.....that just wasn't going to work! The green line is the deer tracks coming from the hinged area and going along the windrow to enter the plot. You can see the shooting house in the distance. There is another trail on the other side from where the deer come from the neighbors to reach the plot as well.


Next is an area that is north of the shooting house and east of the windrow. This area I did some hinging and some TSI work on last year as well.

Just north of this area is the neighbors oak flat - it's several acres of mature oaks.....you will notice the lack f any understory. This area is almost entirely void of deer in the daylight. You can see 100 yards or more without any issue. As much as I hate to see mature oaks cut - man these need to go. The neighbor is a logger and I gave him a chance to get them as they need to cross my place to avoid a real steep creek bank to get them out and they declined.



So here is my part of this. Like I said I cut down the bigger trees and left the oaks I could ID. The little burr oak had never produced an acorn but did this past fall, quite a few in fact......made me a happy camper!

 

[j-bird]

This will pick up where I left off.

This is another pic of the same area. Again trying to promote mast and ground level cover. Again you can see the shooting house in the distance. This area has a small ravine that leads into it from the creek bottom.


And another. The sumac seem to draw the interest of backs - note the small rub. I also mark oaks r trees of interest throughout the year. Note the tape - as I have found that oaks can be difficult to ID when they are younger and without their leaves. Last thing I want to do is cut a young oak.


I then moved on into the major portion of my north wooded area. Again as compared to the neighbors oak flat you can see that I am trying to get ground level cover. This is at the south edge looking north.


This is inside the "woods" so to speak. Just to give you an idea of the understory and ground level deer cover.


With some recent talk on how to know which trees to cut and which not too I thought this would be a great situation to show. This is the ONLY white oak tree I have that is producing acorns. I have other members of the white oak family, but this is the only true white oak. This tree is worthless from a timber perspective, however I collect acorns from it every chance I get to help fuel the next generation of oaks. This tree is right at the edge of the woods, so it really isn't hurting anything from a shade perspective either. One of these days I need to sit here in the early season with my bow. Typically there are several deer poop piles under this tree when the acorns start to fall. Somehow the deer know EXACTLY where this tree is.

 

[j-bird]

Here is why I like to keep younger beech trees in my woods. The larger ones need to go, but these smaller ones provide great cover at ground level for the deer, and medium sized ones are great for hiding a hunter/tree stand and producing beech nuts for deer, squirrels and other critters of the woods. Again this is January and the tree is still holding leaves. I have not had great luck hinging them thus far.


Here is some pics of other TSI/hinging work that turns a large tree into deer cover and maybe even some food. The upper left pic is a hinge cut where the trunk has sent up additional sprouts, the upper right is a lower cut stump that has done the same. The lower pic is where a large stump was left after my timber harvest and has created essentially a shrub at this point.


As I went and looked into other areas where I am trying to promote deer bedding. The main 2 areas I was disappointed in because I didn't find a single bed. Now that doesn't mean it isn't being used, but it tells me that I may need to go in and try to make some changes. I will obviously be keeping a close eye on this thru the winter. Now the interesting part is that I found some beds in an area I didn't expect to find them. This area was near a large tree top but the rest of the area was fairly open, but again on a slightly gradual slope that had a view of the large ag field. There was 3 beds on this side and one on the other of this tree top as well.


I did review the north plot as well. The deer are pawing thru the minimal snow to get to the clover but I still am not seeing much use of the brassica. Apparently I did have something inside the exclusion cage in my brassica plot that something wanted! The deer did seem to eat off the cereal grains, annual clovers and the peas however.


In all my wandering around I did also kick-up 2 does as well.....so I didn't kill them all!!! The main disappointment was that I didn't see any significant sign of the presence of a mature buck......hopefully things go better on the south side tomorrow.....

 

[MarkDarvin]

Did you do anything to your bur oak that started producing, at least beyond clearing out around it?

 

[j-bird]

Did you do anything to your bur oak that started producing, at least beyond clearing out around it?

Nope, all I did was get it some sunlight. It went from producing nothing to producing several dozen acorns this past fall that where nearly the size of ping-pong balls. Something really liked them as all I found was the acorn caps on the ground......I got 1 actual acorn.

 

[Chummer]

Don't be afraid to hinge those beech. I have good luck on them. If you can, hinge above the lowest branch. Even if the top dies the tree keeps living. Do you get beech nuts every year. I seem to only get them every 5 years.

 

[j-bird]

Don't be afraid to hinge those beech. I have good luck on them. If you can, hinge above the lowest branch. Even if the top dies the tree keeps living. Do you get beech nuts every year. I seem to only get them every 5 years.

I have had poor results with getting the top to survive hinging regarding beech. I tend to leave them be and then cut a tall stump and turn them into a shrub once they get too big.

 

[Fish]

Interesting jbird.
I went after beech yesterday taking a different route. I hinged some and cut others off, then treated all with garlon4/oil mix. My ridge is full of them. I will let the sunshine grow forbs through the downed tops and see how that goes. Hinged beech were for blocking in an area.
I have one giant wolf beech that i want to girdle but cant bring myself to do it. All others die.
Good pics. Thanks for posting.

 

[j-bird]

Interesting jbird.
I went after beech yesterday taking a different route. I hinged some and cut others off, then treated all with garlon4/oil mix. My ridge is full of them. I will let the sunshine grow forbs through the downed tops and see how that goes. Hinged beech were for blocking in an area.
I have one giant wolf beech that i want to girdle but cant bring myself to do it. All others die.
Good pics. Thanks for posting.

I don;t like the big ones - they need to go and I hear beech is good firewood. I like the smaller ones and the medium ones simply because of the cover they can create. I just can;t get the tops to live. I fear I am cutting them too far. The base tends to continue to grow which is fine with me as well. Either way it's all about creating cover any way we can. I really like bending over the ones I can to create that false canopy as well. I didn't take any pics of that. I'll do a couple more and take some pics. I just prefer seeing brown leaves for cover vs a sea of stems......especially as a visual screen.

 

[Fish]

I don;t like the big ones - they need to go and I hear beech is good firewood. I like the smaller ones and the medium ones simply because of the cover they can create. I just can;t get the tops to live. I fear I am cutting them too far. The base tends to continue to grow which is fine with me as well. Either way it's all about creating cover any way we can. I really like bending over the ones I can to create that false canopy as well. I didn't take any pics of that. I'll do a couple more and take some pics. I just prefer seeing brown leaves for cover vs a sea of stems......especially as a visual screen.

I agree on the cover aspect. Cutting a larger tree will provide numerous sprouts from the root system, like a locust.
Thats why foresters arent fond of them. Those sprouts completely shade the woods floor and hinder regeneration of desired trees. Just depends on one's goals.

 

[wbpdeer]

JBird,

Where you were surprised to find the three beds, do you think the fallen tree behind kept the wind off of them and they were bedded in the sunlight?

You did an excellent job with the photos, explanations and the highlights on the photos. A good read. Thanks for sharing.

Wayne

 

[j-bird]

JBird,

Where you were surprised to find the three beds, do you think the fallen tree behind kept the wind off of them and they were bedded in the sunlight?

You did an excellent job with the photos, explanations and the highlights on the photos. A good read. Thanks for sharing.

Wayne

Thanks Wayne. I try to make it as easy as I can for folks to follow. Sometimes a verbal description just doesn't get it. I also like to understand as much of the why as the how.

As for your question.
I think it best to again show a pic/diagram.

The red dot is the location of these beds. The green line is my access route. The white dot is my shooting house. You can see that the position of the red dot and especially now after leaf drop the deer had a great view to the south and east of anything coming across the fields. The brown area is a thicker area where I try to promote bedding (but was free of beds when I looked). The black area is a mature oak flat so it is open as well. The yellow area is a thick creek bottom that is plantation planted in oaks. The deer had options for getting out of the wind so I don't think that was much of a factor. I think they simply used the slope and open area to soak up some sunshine. They had a 100 yard buffer so to speak from the edge of the fields, had a view, had some sun and escape cover wasn't far away. I think this is simply a seasonal thing but I will have to confirm that. If the deer show me they want to bed here during other seasons that is fine, but I then have to figure out a better access plan. Obviously screening would be needed, but then do I detract from the desirability of that location? I try to be a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" sort of person, but I may not have much of a choice. If it's seasonal......I can keep this info in my pocket and help me "get lucky" when conditions are right some time down the road.

 

[j-bird]

The storm that moved thru last night had the deer on their feet in my area at dusk. I have always had low deer numbers so what I saw isn't going to sound impressive to many of you, but it's a good sign for me. Within roughly a mile and a half of driving (within the same square mile of my farm) I saw 8 different deer. Being after the hunting season that is very promising in my area as far as numbers are concerned. All where antlerless deer as well. I didn't kill them all!!!!!

 

[OkieKubota]

The storm that moved thru last night had the deer on their feet in my area at dusk. I have always had low deer numbers so what I saw isn't going to sound impressive to many of you, but it's a good sign for me. Within roughly a mile and a half of driving (within the same square mile of my farm) I saw 8 different deer. Being after the hunting season that is very promising in my area as far as numbers are concerned. All where antlerless deer as well. I didn't kill them all!!!!!

What do you think the DPSM is near you? Is that 8 a good representative of what you think DPSM is?

Great easy to follow update. What is your method of editing photo's with info and lines and script?

 

[dogghr]

Good updates Jbird. What is your natural predator pop like? Yotes? Bears? Do you find outside of heavy hunting pressure season, that deer tend to not bed in extremly thick areas? Like the buck rub shots you showed. Interesting how bucks prefer certain trees to rub in specific areas sometimes only a few miles from one another. Unfortunately for me, they love my spruce, but luckily tear up the cedar I have too much of as well. Thanks for showing.

 

[j-bird]

What do you think the DPSM is near you? Is that 8 a good representative of what you think DPSM is?

Great easy to follow update. What is your method of editing photo's with info and lines and script?

Okie - for my pics I use a clipping tool and dump them into microsoft paint to add my notation and then save the entire thing as a JPEG - this helps reduce the file size as well.

I have been told county wide it's 15-30. That was pre EHD. And I am not sure I believe that figure either. My county is grossly dominated with row crop farming. I can see how we may average closer to the 15 but not the 30. I would guess it to be 15 to 20 would be more accurate. For the past 5 years we have had a county wide harvest of an average of 800 deer total.......that is over 373 physical square miles. That is a rough average of killing only 2 deer every physical square mile (640 acres).

Seeing these 8 deer is simply something that isn't common for me in my day-in-day-out activities. I'm sure there are more than that out there. It is not uncommon to see deer, but it is uncommon to see that many in such a short span. It is always nice to see that a fair number survived the hunting season. Our winters are typically pretty mild so winter die-off is typically a non-issue and it is real common for does to have twins in my area as well. So, at least for now, it appears I will have deer to hunt next year.

 

[j-bird]

Good updates Jbird. What is your natural predator pop like? Yotes? Bears? Do you find outside of heavy hunting pressure season, that deer tend to not bed in extremly thick areas? Like the buck rub shots you showed. Interesting how bucks prefer certain trees to rub in specific areas sometimes only a few miles from one another. Unfortunately for me, they love my spruce, but luckily tear up the cedar I have too much of as well. Thanks for showing.

My major predator is yotes. No bears, mountain loins or the like. I have never (knock on wood) lost a deer to a yote so I have them (saw one today in fact), but I tend to not have that many. I also tend to shoot everyone I can as well - one the morning was lucky I was running late to work!.

As far as bedding goes I tend to find that my deer still like the idea of cover to bed in. I think they will use more open southern slopes when it gets cold to soak up some sunlight. Most beds I see throughout the entire year are in thicker areas of cover with higher stem counts. I used to think deer would bed just about anywhere......I now think if you give them a choice they prefer a view in front of them with cover at their back. Does are less picky certainly.

From what I have seen a buck will rub nearly any tree that allows it. Do they have their favorites - I think so. I think the main thing is simply the tree is there in an area where the buck is trying or wants to leave his mark. I have seen them rub pine and cedar to beech, sumac, willow and basswood. I have one basswood tree that I have reason to think 2 bucks had crossed paths and had tried to out do each other. That poor tree was beat to death. That hunting season we killed 2 different 140" bucks within 200 yards of that tree. I wasn't aware of the tree until after season had closed. I have kept a close eye on that tree ever since.