J-birds place

[j-bird]

Latest cam pull....nothing impressive, but it appears that I got one decent deer that made it thru. These bucks all came from the same scrape over the past 2 weeks. There was a lot of doe activity here as well....which was surprising.


While I was out I also snapped a few pics... Some folks have recently been posting about the value of beech trees. To be honest they can be a weed. But, they can also be a great means to add cover or hide a trees stand in because they hold their leaves well into the fall. All the orange leaves you see are from beech trees.... I like having some as the mature ones tend to hollow out and are good for cavity nesters. I love hiding a stand in one if I can and the turkey and squirrels seem to enjoy the nuts as well. We just had our first real snow of the year as well.

 

[j-bird]

I went shopping today....local walmart had ladder stands on sale. 15', 300# capacity for $35....I walked out with 3. Big Game brand. I like the simplicity of a ladder stand the older I get....and you can never have too many options.

 

[j-bird]

With a break in the weather I headed out Saturday to take care of some neglected buffer strips. On the north side of my place I have a 30' wide buffer strip between my corn/bean field and the neighbors oak plantation. Pic on the left is the neighbors...as their plantation grows they are grossly loosing understory. You can easily see 100 yards or so. The deer used to bed up against my buffer strip but as you can see in the right picture a significant lack of cover has reduced that because the sapling got so large and shaded out a lot of the more non-woody plants.


As you can see here this is a narrow strip but can be an important one as it creates a different habitat type and edges... You can see in the left pic the woody stuff that creates the shade and you can see on the right pic what happens when you control the woody stuff and the grasses and weeds grow which far better facilitate bedding (there was several beds in the grass and non-woody cover that I found) along with a few small rubs on the more limited saplings.


here is some samples of what the woody stuff is. It's lots of white mulberry and sycamore trees and heavy briers and vines. You can see the leaves on the ground and see how its just keeping the non-woody stuff from growing. There was even no sign of rubs in these areas where the woody stuff was big enough that it was suppressing the more ground level growth and thus loosing its cover aspect. If I can get light in there I can increase the stem count density and thus the value to deer and other wild life.


So I went to town with my chainsaw and cut everything as flush as made sense. Keep in mind some of this stuff was thicker than your wrist. I put the brush to use to form a natural screen to hopefully help with the bedding as well as helping dictate deer movement along that edge (left pic) as there was very little that narrowed down where the deer would enter that edge of the field and makes hunting it a lot more difficult. This ended up being 5 to 6 feet tall and should create more screening and cover.


So now that the sunlight will reach the ground I should see a lot more non-woody growth and more predictable entry points. I won't wipe out all the woody growth areas, as I like the diversity, but I think simply due to the width of this area I will get better use of these areas AND be able to manage the woody growth better. I did not treat the stumps so I suspect they will stump sprout like crazy come spring and the mulberry will provide more browse down at the deer level. I look for the goldenrod, ragweed, poke weed, and the like to be very prevalent in this area come spring and summer. It was a lot of bending and the like and fighting the thorns as not fun, but it needed to be done. I will do this in other areas and create a checkerboard affect along these buffers to try to stagger the different growth stages and trying to get the most diversity I can.

 

[j-bird]

I didn't take any pictures but I have seen a reasonable amount of use for the first time of my turnips. It's been a several year process and to be honest I think the limited success of my corn plot has influenced the use. The deer needed something to eat and my corn didn't do well so it was gone fairly early. Hopefully this year will be the beginning of seeing more and more use of the turnips. I still think corn/soybeans is king for late fall hunting, but turnips are a nice easy insurance policy that I now know they will use if needed.

 

[j-bird]

Well my boy found this laying in the yard this morning.... I thought it was nice of the buck to bring it to me and drop it off at the house vs me have to go look for it. I looked it over to see if maybe one of the dogs brought it up but I don't see any teeth marks on it. Decent mass...but only a 6 pointer...

 

[Bill]

I think if the dog brought it in, the dog would still have it.

 

[j-bird]

I think if the dog brought it in, the dog would still have it.

My dogs have never found them before...but we have a new pup (actually my daughters) and I was thinking maybe she had found it. But being a pup if she had found it I figured it would have been chewed up to at least some extent. Either way it was a surprise to have in the yard... I just hope the buck grows some additional points this coming year. I don't need a big 6 pointer!

 

[j-bird]

I think I found the buck that the shed came from... I had posted a still of him (lower left) in post 621....I thought the video was better. I need him to grow a few more points this year!

 

[Telemark]

Pretty neat. Looks like he needs two years to really shine though.

 

[j-bird]

Pretty neat. Looks like he needs two years to really shine though.

He needs a few more points! I agree he needs more time...I figure he is at least 2 and maybe 3...my fear is that even with more time he still only carries 6 points.

 

[Telemark]

I hope you get him. You're developing quite a history with him.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I like those nice 6 pointers since they aren't very common. I'd say he is 3.5 years old based on the age/size of the antlers I'm used to seeing in MN and WI. That would be some great mass if he was only 2.5.

 

[j-bird]

I hope you get him. You're developing quite a history with him.

This is the first time I have found a shed of a deer I was able to confirm I had on camera before. I wish he was a little more impressive, but it is what it is. Was just interesting that I was able to put those 2 pieces together that I had not been able to do before.

 

[Bill]

I killed a 144” 7 point a few years back. He’s still one of my favorites, big gangly looking thing. Time could make him cool...

 

[j-bird]

So yesterday with the snow falling here I took a walk with the dogs to the north side of my place...it was sort of a shed hunting trip, but I was only sort of looking for them. Once I got up the the wooded area I started jumping woodcock/snipe! I bet the dogs and I jumped up 1/2 dozen or so....one at a time. I have them on my place from time to time, but this was by far the most I had ever seen at one time. I didn't see a lot of deer sign...which is normal, but seeing other wildlife taking advantage of my place put a smile on my face. I don't hunt these little critters and really don't know much about them. I can't say I have ever focused on habitat for the goofy little birds....but if they like what I have they are welcome to it!

Only other thing that came up was that my local box store that I have bought trees from in the past has their trees for sale. I couldn't resist and had to go look. The only thing they had that caught my attention was some willow oak. I didn't think they was native to my area, but I also know I don't have any. I contemplated buying 1 or a couple. However, patience won out as I did a quick search for the trees native range....and it does NOT include Indiana. I have tried to extend the range of trees before and have failed so I don't do that any more...especially to the tune of $30 a tree! They did have some pears that I might consider (Kieffer and Ayers) and some callaway crabs as well....but I got time.

 

[Telemark]

Woodcock like soft/soggy ground to probe around in, and low cover to hide in. In winter, they will congregate wherever they find thawed ground when other spots are frozen. Here, that means closer to the sea. Farther inland it often means wet areas that get a lot of sun.

For Indiana, I would recommend scouting anything that's thawed out or not frozen yet when other areas have snow or frozen ground. Don't just look for bare ground. I have been fooled by that before where a windswept slope was free of snow but frozen solid, while in an area that had been covered by relatively thin snow for a while suddenly melted, and there was soggy ground underneath. They really like to hide under fern/bracken in my experience.

 

[j-bird]

Woodcock like soft/soggy ground to probe around in, and low cover to hide in. In winter, they will congregate wherever they find thawed ground when other spots are frozen. Here, that means closer to the sea. Farther inland it often means wet areas that get a lot of sun.

For Indiana, I would recommend scouting anything that's thawed out or not frozen yet when other areas have snow or frozen ground. Don't just look for bare ground. I have been fooled by that before where a windswept slope was free of snow but frozen solid, while in an area that had been covered by relatively thin snow for a while suddenly melted, and there was soggy ground underneath. They really like to hide under fern/bracken in my experience.

that is exactly what the ground is/was like. The snow was falling but the ground was not froze. The ground was sort of soggy and my timber harvest created a decent sized opening where the understory had improved with both saplings as well as non-woody type plants. I was just surprised to see so many in such a small area. I don't have much in the way of fern, but they certainly found something they liked. I am also glad to see other critters enjoying the work. This was in the same area where I found the turkey nest last year....which I had never found before.

 

[Bill]

My box store kieffer pear died :(

But I couldn’t water it so......

 

[Telemark]

that is exactly what the ground is/was like. The snow was falling but the ground was not froze. The ground was sort of soggy and my timber harvest created a decent sized opening where the understory had improved with both saplings as well as non-woody type plants. I was just surprised to see so many in such a small area

Yeah they gather in those areas, and they can become really concentrated when there is little of that type of ground available. Pretty neat when it happens. If you go out without a dog you practically step on them before they flush.

 

[j-bird]

My box store kieffer pear died :(

But I couldn’t water it so......

Typically when I plant trees like this I tend to water them thru the summer their first year. But I also tend to wait until late in the summer when the store puts them on sale before I buy as well....because I'm a tight-ass!