Not now Batman

Brokenbear

Active Member
Well ....while it's cool and low humidity I am trying to knock out all those things that need/want to be done on the farm ...so the corn is up knee high (had to replant) and sprayed last week ...and held the beans until last week but they are all in and up and a follow up spraying completed ... and this year I am trying Milo on some of our ridge top thin soils since Milo is a deep root plant and will perform fairly well in low water conditions plus I am wanting to add organic matter to the soils on those ridges
Whoa Batman ....bush hogging and in general tidying up I have a couple of clover fields in their last year of production ....therefore some tall grasses and a few weeds needed topping in those clover fields ....so first pass on the first field edge clipping it about 18" tall I flushed twin fawns about 40 yards out into the field .....so I stopped a bit to watch their uncertain journey out of the field when I notice 6 or 7 little undulating trails of grass tops waving also away from me ...yup ...a turkey brood ...that old clover field must be doing it's job as I never sighted neither doe or hen

Guess I will clip the clover fields later ...hot later ...and likely high clip just half or less of each field

Have a great summer All

Bear
 
Seems like almost every year we seem to get a fawn or turkey through the windrower when cutting hay. Dad got the fawn last year, said the sound the make is awful! I know a turkey makes a heck of bang when they go through the crimpers. We try not to hit them, if we see them we stop, but a 16ft head going 5-7mph is hard to watch all of it, and you cant see them bedded down in there.
 
Yeah, I get it. My buddies in Dawes County cut 'em up all the time. Not near as many now as before the EHD crash of 2012.
 
The EHD wasnt too bad here, we found a few, but I guess down along the Loup you couldnt get near it for the stench. Actually I think it improved our deer herd here, between my dad and I weve shot 3 130"+ bucks, one was a 148" 4x4 with a tiny 5th on one beam, and 3 110-120", plus one 1 and a half antlered buck all since 2012.
 
We still get a few but the herd has nowhere near recovered. I killed my biggest ever--a 157" 5x5 on opening day in 2012. He was the 74th deer I saw that morning before sunrise. He was in a group of five bucks--all over 130. In 2013 I saw 13 deer on opening day. Nine in 2014, 15 in 2015, and 8 last year.
 
We dont have near that many here, but were somewhat on a boundary between the whitetail range and the muley range, theres a pocket of muleys that range down here and off to the northeast a little. Probably 10 years ago now we had some crossbreds for awhile, big ears and a big white tail. NGAP thought we had lost our minds when we told them, and a friend of mine that lives closer to the river got in trouble for shooting one, it has the rack of a whitetail, but the ears of a muley and the body is sorta in between. Hes been hunting a long time so he knows his stuff. IIRC they took it, and fined him $700. If he wouldve had a Loup east tag he wouldve been fine, we can shoot muley bucks but not does, but he had a statewide and its whitetail buck only, which I think is stupid, especially for those guys out west in muley country.
 
Thats the first true hybrid buck Ive ever seen, all the rest were does. When I first started about 15 years ago it was hard to even find a deer around here, and the ones we did see were does, hardly ever saw a buck. You hated to get that buck only tag cuz you knew you were gonna get skunked. I think that there were so many does and not enough bucks that the rut was all out of wack, wed see little fawns in Oct, thats what led to the crossbreds.

Now we get either ors every year and most of the time get a bonus doe tag. Id love to see more muleys, last year we had a nice young buck and a couple does right below our feeyard about a week before rifle season. I wouldnt have shot him even if I had the chance.
 
I remember those Buck-Only years. Killed some nice bucks then but it sure was nice when the either sex tags came about and then the antlerless tags and we could bring home meat every year.

The one hybrid I saw was a 3 x 3 bucks. Weird looking deer.

The problem in Nebraska is if a muley buck grows an antler somebody will shoot his ass. I hate government control but I think the state needs to get involved and put some antler restrictions on muleys. It's ridiculous in the Ridge. Lots of muleys, but nothing makes it past 3 years old. We don't even target them because it isn't worth it.
 
I agree, especially in an area like ours. I wouldnt be opposed to an antler limit for both either, it would keep the "shoot the first buck I see" hunters from killing anything with a horn, but the either/ors have helped that too for the guys who only want some meat.

I mean, its one thing for a kid to shoot a little basket rack buck in his first couple years, but when I see grown ass men in the check in with one, "I just wanted some meat and it was a buck" "did you have a buck only tag?" "no either/or" it makes me sad. My cousin runs a taxidermey shop and I see it all the time, last year when I brought mine down to him a guy came in with this "huge deer" and it was basically the size of the butt of your palms put together and made a rack out of it. He asked about mine, and I told him I hadnt decided to shoulder mount mine or just european because it wasnt as big as my other one, and he about fell on the floor lol. It grossed at 138", but is really "veiney" which is neat, I did end up doing a shoulder mount on it

But as dad and I have always said, there are deer hunters and deer shooters.
 
Thing is, in the Ridge, if you want meat you can find a whitetail doe. Fortunately they eliminated muley doe hunting. Man, they use to HAMMER them. So now they HAMMER every yearling 2 x 2 and spike. It is very disappointing to sit at the check station in Crawford on opening evening.
 
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