Scott's habitat improvements

Hey Scott, things are looking good brother!
 
Success here in MI the last couple days, first my father in law shot a nice buck yesterday and this A.M. my wife Lori shot her biggest buck to date. Lori's story was kinda funny, my father in law and Lori were hunting this A.M. because I had to work midnight last night so at 7:10 I get a text that she just missed her biggest buck of her life. I get home from work and they still haven't checked for blood but just by the way the deer acted they didn't think she had hit it so at 8:30 they got out and looked. Then I get another text "get back here we found my buck" apparently they both had somehow missed the fact that the buck never made it to the fence and had went down so for an hour and a half she was kicking herself for missing a chip shot (45yds). So needless to say I didn't get to bed anytime soon but it was well worth it to see the joy in my wife.







 
Congratulations to both of them - they sure look happy!
 
That's just awesome! I think that's more common than it should be, to not think we hit a deer. Glad they looked! Congratulations to both of them (and you)!
 
Congrats. I had the same thing happen to me. I thought I missed when the deer showed no signs of being hit. I got out of my stand and found blood and the deer had only went about 70 yds.
 
I think of my cereal grains as the backbone of my plots, the deer use them as soon as the are planted to even digging throw snow to get to them. Come spring time the rye in there will be one of the first things to green up so it feeds them then.

My cereal grains were planted a couple weeks earlier so the plots are a little taller than normal but the deer do not seem to mind. Actually some of the oats even headed out and they have stripped the heads. I might shoot for around Aug 20th planting from now on.







 
Interesting! Have you planted other foods in this area that the deer didn't eat as much? I've got a a particular spot that I rotate the Dbltree mixes (variations now) and the spot that butts up against some woods always seems to do the best, no matter what's planted in it. I've got my brassicas in that spot and they've been preferred this year. The Winter Mix isn't hit as much this year. But it was the opposite last year (and has flip flopped like this even longer). Now we're only talking less than an acre here. So I guess my long winded question is this... Is it more about location for deer, even if it only comes to a matter of 30-40 yards away from the cover of woods?
 
Interesting! Have you planted other foods in this area that the deer didn't eat as much? I've got a a particular spot that I rotate the Dbltree mixes (variations now) and the spot that butts up against some woods always seems to do the best, no matter what's planted in it. I've got my brassicas in that spot and they've been preferred this year. The Winter Mix isn't hit as much this year. But it was the opposite last year (and has flip flopped like this even longer). Now we're only talking less than an acre here. So I guess my long winded question is this... Is it more about location for deer, even if it only comes to a matter of 30-40 yards away from the cover of woods?
This area has been in the cereal grains for the last 5yrs, back behind where I took that last pic I have the cereal/brassica rotation going and the brassicas are getting hit pretty good too.



Pic from the tree earlier this fall, cam is set up upper right of this pic.

 
Over Christmas we made a trip to CO to welcomed into this world our first grandchild. Lily she was born on 12/20.



I'm surprised I haven't got into an accident while driving around and gawking in CO with all the great views.



While flying back at 31,000' we saw a circular rainbow above the clouds, something I've didn't even know existed until I googled it. This pic doesn't really do it justice.



Deer here have been hitting the brassicas, this plot has been eaten to almost bare dirt.











No pics of older mature bucks but there are 4-5 year and a half old bucks made it through.

 
Holy cow, Scott !! You must be doing something right - plots full of deer. Very nice. Keep up the great work !!
 
Holy cow, Scott !! You must be doing something right - plots full of deer. Very nice. Keep up the great work !!
We've always had a little higher dpsm but since rifle season our deer numbers have been really high. I bow hunted and didn't see these numbers, our property hasn't really had any disturbance on it since late Nov. and they have moved in and not left.
 
Habitat is great but the grand kid is what will enjoy your labor when they come north in a few years, congrats Scott!


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A big congratulation on you new family addition. What a blessing.

I can't get over how many deer you have on that land. Just incredible.
 
Lot of deer and a new kiddo. Life is good! Congrats.

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What a great farm you have, and a great work ethic! You try a little bit of everything and it shows in your diversity. Reading through the thread makes me want to try harder. Perfect looking granddaughter as well.
 
Congratulations on the new addition to the family. Didn't know about the circular rainbows either, pretty cool!
 
Scott - apologies for not congratulating you on the new arrival, Lily. She's beautiful !!! Me-thinks she has her hooks sunk deep into Grandpop already !!!:):):cool: Nothing like little ones to snuggle with !!
 
Nice! It looks like a petting zoo in those pics!
 
Made it out today and burned up a tank in the saw and frost seeded some switch, it was in the mid 40's and finally no rain.

I've been working on this area for the last 3 years it's between the switch field and the property line so it's a bedding area and a visual screen for the neighbors. Found that they have been using this for bedding which fired me up.







Did a tank full of hinging here today, I'll go back in later and clean up some of the branches and make some ins and outs for them.

Looking from the hinged area into the switch.







This is what I hinged today, the woods in the background is the neighbors.





This is the plots and I've been trying to funnel them down towards the tree tubes in the back but something happened this year and they moved about 50yds north so I blocked it back up today.







They were still using the southern entrance to the plots.



I mowed and hit this with gly late last summer but couldn't get back there to hit it again so I broadcast switch in this and plan on hitting it with gly when things green up this spring and before the warm seasons take off.



One of my experiments, planting MG rhizomes into established switch with no prep. These have been planted for 2 years and seem to be doing ok.



I found some MI switch called "southlow" from Ernst seed and tried about an acre of it 3 years ago, I couldn't find out much info on it as far as the height etc. Most of the acre is about 3'tall so the plan is this spring mow it and later this summer add some N and see if I can get some height on it.





Lastly I wanted to clean up all the dead Ash around this stand and do a throw and mow micro plot this summer, started up the saw and started to cut and ran out of gas so I'll finish this up tomorrow, forgot gas can at the house.





Checked out my Chinese chestnuts and DCO's and found some to be germinating so they got put into RM's and in the south window of the kitchen.



 
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I must be getting old. You did more in a day with 1 tank then I can do in two with a full can. :oops::confused:
 
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