shaman
Member
This one is going to be a limited information problem. It's just a matter of I just don't know. What I do know I'm going to try and share. Maybe y'all can fill in the missing pieces, maybe not.
Background:
Here's my farm: http://deerhunterforum.com/index.php?threads/der-bauernhof.3819/
Mystery Forb #1
I have a pasture at the back of the property. It is a long, curving N/S plot over 400 yards in length with a fence line roughly in the middle. I have my luxury box blind situated in this fence line. The north half is hardly ever touched by deer. These fields were used alternatively for cattle and tobacco by the previous owner up until the early 80's when the farm was abandoned. I concentrated on the southern part of the pasture. Its been plowed, and cultivated a few times over the years. I've planted winter wheat and clover there a few times. Mostly, I just let things grow and let the hay dude cut it once a year.
There is a spot in the middle of this pasture that has been a consistent producer of deer over the past 17 seasons. We call it the Garden of Stone. The reason for this is that originally, I started putting a rock next to each deer when I shot it, so that I could later walk off the distance. Pretty soon, that end of the pasture was filled with rocks, and I found that I was dropping deer on last year's rock. In the pic I've provided, you can see the shooting house in the distance, and the center of the Garden of Stone marked with two hay bales.
Mystery Forb #1 is what I theorize is causing the deer to be out there. All I know is that there is often enough scat that you can walk across that part of the pasture without touching the grass. The deer glom onto it whenever the acorns run out, and they are still there when we close down deer camp in December. It is something that stays tasty after the first first freeze. The only thing different about that part of the field is that there is the merest hint of a gully. It is just deep enough that deer can disappear in the center to the point where I can only see their heads when held erect.
Mystery Forb #2
This is a somewhat similar situation, so #1 and #2 may be the same plant. There is the head of a hollow directly behind the house. There is about a 90 ft. drop in elevation along large u-shaped contours. It all ends up in a wooded gully. At the very top, there is a bit of a lip, probably leftover from an old road, and another flat spot at the top where we currently take our vehicles when we're driving to the east side of the property. It is between this lip and and the top that Mystery Forb #2 exists. I discovered it when I put up security cameras. In the winter, the deer come from every which way and disappear off the camera to munch in the apex of the U. They started showing up in December and they're still there. The only other clue I can give is that we carted a bunch of dead cedar trees to the lip and burned them a year ago, and that left a significant burn scar. I noticed this behavior after the burn, so they may be eating on what grew back.
I don't have a pic of that hillside, but I can show you a pic of everything else around it.
http://genesis9.angzva.com/
Go to my weblog and look at the banner. The U is behind the trees in the center. In summer, it's just a steep grassy hillside.
#1 and #2 are both hit almost exclusively in the evening. I've tried to figure out what they're eating and cannot find bite marks. Whatever it is, they're clipping it off at the ground. Whatever it is, it is sustaining as many as a dozen or more deer a night throughout the winter-- more as winter progresses and other food sources peeter out.
Ideally, what I'd like to know is the identity of these mystery forb #1 and #2, and from there figure out a way to encourage it elsewhere on the property.
Background:
Here's my farm: http://deerhunterforum.com/index.php?threads/der-bauernhof.3819/
Mystery Forb #1
I have a pasture at the back of the property. It is a long, curving N/S plot over 400 yards in length with a fence line roughly in the middle. I have my luxury box blind situated in this fence line. The north half is hardly ever touched by deer. These fields were used alternatively for cattle and tobacco by the previous owner up until the early 80's when the farm was abandoned. I concentrated on the southern part of the pasture. Its been plowed, and cultivated a few times over the years. I've planted winter wheat and clover there a few times. Mostly, I just let things grow and let the hay dude cut it once a year.
There is a spot in the middle of this pasture that has been a consistent producer of deer over the past 17 seasons. We call it the Garden of Stone. The reason for this is that originally, I started putting a rock next to each deer when I shot it, so that I could later walk off the distance. Pretty soon, that end of the pasture was filled with rocks, and I found that I was dropping deer on last year's rock. In the pic I've provided, you can see the shooting house in the distance, and the center of the Garden of Stone marked with two hay bales.
Mystery Forb #1 is what I theorize is causing the deer to be out there. All I know is that there is often enough scat that you can walk across that part of the pasture without touching the grass. The deer glom onto it whenever the acorns run out, and they are still there when we close down deer camp in December. It is something that stays tasty after the first first freeze. The only thing different about that part of the field is that there is the merest hint of a gully. It is just deep enough that deer can disappear in the center to the point where I can only see their heads when held erect.
Mystery Forb #2
This is a somewhat similar situation, so #1 and #2 may be the same plant. There is the head of a hollow directly behind the house. There is about a 90 ft. drop in elevation along large u-shaped contours. It all ends up in a wooded gully. At the very top, there is a bit of a lip, probably leftover from an old road, and another flat spot at the top where we currently take our vehicles when we're driving to the east side of the property. It is between this lip and and the top that Mystery Forb #2 exists. I discovered it when I put up security cameras. In the winter, the deer come from every which way and disappear off the camera to munch in the apex of the U. They started showing up in December and they're still there. The only other clue I can give is that we carted a bunch of dead cedar trees to the lip and burned them a year ago, and that left a significant burn scar. I noticed this behavior after the burn, so they may be eating on what grew back.
I don't have a pic of that hillside, but I can show you a pic of everything else around it.
http://genesis9.angzva.com/
Go to my weblog and look at the banner. The U is behind the trees in the center. In summer, it's just a steep grassy hillside.
#1 and #2 are both hit almost exclusively in the evening. I've tried to figure out what they're eating and cannot find bite marks. Whatever it is, they're clipping it off at the ground. Whatever it is, it is sustaining as many as a dozen or more deer a night throughout the winter-- more as winter progresses and other food sources peeter out.
Ideally, what I'd like to know is the identity of these mystery forb #1 and #2, and from there figure out a way to encourage it elsewhere on the property.
