J-birds place

[j-bird]

My AWP never grew back in the spring. And of course the turnips will be rotted. That's where beans interseeded with rye shines. The rye always gets heavy use in early spring right before everything else gets going.

I have had AWP survive come spring here and even flower before and I have even had turnips survive and bolt, flower and produce seed before. My winters will get cold, but I think we average like 18" of snow annually. I am curious as to what the AWP does come spring as I have never planted it like this (in rows with a planter for a solid population). I typically plant beans or corn in the spring and then overseed turnips and wheat or rye...but my corn planting was a flop this year. As such I thought/hoped the addition of a good dose of AWP would put the deer in the plots during hunting season....but we didn't really see that in November. They seem to have found it come December...but we are pretty much done hunting now.

 

[j-bird]

• So we got our first snow of the season over night. I was able to get out this evening and take a few pics....had a few 4 legged friends who wanted to tag along...

My SW plot... you can see the weeds/switchgrass buffers around my fall plot, with the latest shooting house.... I have plans to plant some MG around the shooting house to help hide the access to it. This is the same plot where I saw the buck I had to pass on. This is along a natural travel way with a decent creek behind where I am standing. The deer move thru here to move between bigger areas of woods.


While I was out I thought I would take a pic of this soft edge... This is where some natural weeds meet a switchgrass planting and the deer follow this edge....you can see the deer trail the dogs are on. This wasn't done on purpose, but it certainly shows how an edge of even different cover types (thought very similar) can help guide deer movement. The switchgrass has some native weeds in it so it's not a monoculture....but it's far thicker than the goldenrod and the like on the right side of the photo. This is a little path that leads from a small block of woods to my plot in the SW.


This is my plot area in the south bottom area. This area is a flood plain and you can see the plots in the photo, but you can again see the weeds/switchgrass buffers and the the wooded slope. This is a difficult area to hunt because the deer like to bed up on the slope and then can see this entire bottom area... This poses an issue also because I have to come from the higher elevation (where the house is). So I try to pick a small area where I come down the slope and then try to drop down into a creek bed when possible to access stands. I like the switchgrass simply because it stands well in the snow and has more cover than just the natural weeds. Goldenrod and ragweed and the like simply turn into a mini-forest of sticks and don't provide a lot of cover this time of year. The switchgrass does a far better job...as long as you keep in in a mixture to keep both food (mostly for birds) and the cover in a balance.


I figure by the weekend the snow will be gone...

 

[j-bird]

latest card pull... I was pretty surprised....

 

[bearcat]

Thanks for posting the edge pics. This is really something I need to work on my place. I have hard edges and definitely need to soften them up.

 

[j-bird]

Thanks for posting the edge pics. This is really something I need to work on my place. I have hard edges and definitely need to soften them up.

Edges and buffers help add layers of cover to a property and can help it seem bigger than it really is. On my place cover is very limited so I have to try to make it feel bigger than it really is. "Depth of cover" is a big topic Jeff Sturgis talks about and it can be a big factor in holding deer on your property and getting them to spend more time there.

 

[j-bird]

Regarding my last video....I have NEVER had this many bucks on cam at one time. I would have had to put them in a horse trailer and released them to do this again.

Video starts with the buck #1 (little 3 point and missing an antler)...as he walks out of view a second buck comes into frame (a basket racked 4 pointer at about the 10 second mark, closely followed by buck #3 (appears to be a spike or a small fork horn) at the 13 second mark. They are followed by buck #4 (decent 120 ish 8 pointer a little busted up) at the 15 second mark. At the 40 second mark 2 more bucks...buck #5 (a different little basket 4 pointer) and buck #6 (a nice busted up 8 in the 140ish size) come into frame. Then at 49 second buck #7 (nice 150ish 10 point) comes into view. At one point I have 5 of them all in view at once.... Then buck #1 comes back into view and the video winds down. I am very pleased they all made it and hopefully I get to see a few again come November....but I have NEVER seen anything like this on my place before. I found it odd that this many bucks of obvious different sizes and ages would tolerate each other so well in January. If someone would have told me they had seen this on my place, I would certainly question their story.

 

[OkieKubota]

That’s cool but I am coming up with different ish’s...

 

[catscratch]

Nice group of bucks jbird. Must be doing something right!

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[j-bird]

That’s cool but I am coming up with different ish’s...

I may be being a little hopeful.... I'll worry about it more once I tag one. The good news is that hopefully they all make it and all get a little bigger next year.

 

[j-bird]

Nice group of bucks jbird. Must be doing something right!

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The bigger ones I didn't see during the season but I had some pics of....but mostly at night. I will be certain to put a stand in the area next year....I just have to be patient enough to wait. I pulled the trigger on a smaller buck this year and was kicking myself in the butt when I had a much better one come thru a few days later...but that's deer hunting. If I had passed that chance...I may have not seen a buck within our limits the rest of the season.

 

[DocHolladay]

Never pass on the first day, what you would shoot on the last...


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[OkieKubota]

Never pass on the first day, what you would shoot on the last...


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Agreed...

 

[j-bird]

I get it....and I didn't lower/bend any rules/standards for the buck I did take. It's just how hind sight can beat you up a bit....they say 1 in the hand is better than 2 in the bush.

 

[DocHolladay]

they say 1 in the hand is better than 2 in the bush.

That is correct.


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[j-bird]

I was out and decided to take some more pics of "edges"

Below is the hard edge most of us are familiar with.


Here is some edges that I have added to help make the property feel bigger and help expand my limited cover. This is different cover types...


These are edges that are created by different ages of the same type of cover...


These edges I think are important to understand deer movement AND helping make a property more deer friendly. You can even see how the maturing level of some cover types can impact the stem density and thus the holding ability of that cover.

 

[j-bird]

Here is what I do with willows to help improve their cover value.


Here I cut the stumps flush last winter....they grew 6 to 8 feet and nearly the diameter of my thumb.

 

[OkieKubota]

Looking good!

 

[dogghr]

Great edge discussion with pictures. Place looks great!


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[KSQ2]

Our property came with quail buffers on the field edge. We’ve let that grow the last 6 years, since the contract ran out. Since then trash trees have come up, they aren’t too valuable in the long run, but the deer browse on/in them like crazy. I think I’ll copy your plan of beginning to knock them down and let the stumps keep doing their thing. When we deer watch in the summer, there are just as many deer, if not more, in the edges browsing as those in the beans. I do have one question, do the deer seem to mind the fallen litter all over the ground, or so they wade right through it to get to the new browse?

 

[j-bird]

Our property came with quail buffers on the field edge. We’ve let that grow the last 6 years, since the contract ran out. Since then trash trees have come up, they aren’t too valuable in the long run, but the deer browse on/in them like crazy. I think I’ll copy your plan of beginning to knock them down and let the stumps keep doing their thing. When we deer watch in the summer, there are just as many deer, if not more, in the edges browsing as those in the beans. I do have one question, do the deer seem to mind the fallen litter all over the ground, or so they wade right through it to get to the new browse?

When I cut the saplings and the like....I tend to pile them up and make brush piles along the timber edge. I have found that the other critters like these piles and the deer can nip the tips if they want. You can also burn these piles if you want a cleaner look as well. I would not just leave them lay unless you are actually hinging them. I agree the species tend to be low value, but you can monitor what the deer will browse and you can use that info to guide your efforts and choices.