JBird is famous!

[j-bird]

I'm going to have to get me a loud visual banner or somethign to attach to every one of my posts to ensure everybody sees that I'm selling something! I'm also going to need some sort of "Expert opinions" as to how great I am. I'm going to need a logo - maybe something like a superman "S" in camo - if that is egotistical enough! Every post needs to have a link to my own website, and I need to start talking down to people - I'm a self appointed celebrity for crying out loud. If I go on tour I'll need some folks to tell everyone how great I am as well (I'm thinking Mo and "dark side Don" would be perfect - if nothing else the side show/fist fight will be worth the price). Something tells me that may be a one appearance only - due to an ass kicking and Mo adding another jail stay to his impressive resume. I will need a legal document that doesn't allow anyone to share my "secretes". We will make a stop at every QDMA chapter - we will take a day off in Peqout Lakes, MN - we will have Foggy be the guest speaker that day! OK I'm done being sarcastic - if I offeneded anyone here I appologize - just having some fun.

remeber to buy my article, book or attend one of my seminars because, "I'm a deer hunting GOD - you wish you was me"! Cha-ching!

 

[Tree Spud]

I'm going to have to get me a loud visual banner or somethign to attach to every one of my posts to ensure everybody sees that I'm selling something! I'm also going to need some sort of "Expert opinions" as to how great I am. I'm going to need a logo - maybe something like a superman "S" in camo - if that is egotistical enough! Every post needs to have a link to my own website, and I need to start talking down to people - I'm a self appointed celebrity for crying out loud. If I go on tour I'll need some folks to tell everyone how great I am as well (I'm thinking Mo and "dark side Don" would be perfect - if nothing else the side show/fist fight will be worth the price). Something tells me that may be a one appearance only - due to an ass kicking and Mo adding another jail stay to his impressive resume. I will need a legal document that doesn't allow anyone to share my "secretes". We will make a stop at every QDMA chapter - we will take a day off in Peqout Lakes, MN - we will have Foggy be the guest speaker that day! OK I'm done being sarcastic - if I offeneded anyone here I appologize - just having some fun.

remeber to buy my article, book or attend one of my seminars because, "I'm a deer hunting GOD - you wish you was me"! Cha-ching!

Always remember that on internet blogs, everyone has unlimited right to express their opinions & expertise, along with bitterness, jealousy, pettiness, and so forth. You had the audacity to work with and provide an article to QDMA ... some folks here decided to rain on your parade and detract from your genuine effort to share what you have learned.

Good article and thanks for sharing ... remember, no good deed go unpunished ...

 

[j-bird]

Spud - Thanks. No parade to be rained on here. I don't take myself too seriously that was why I was surprised when I was given the opportunity. I also like thave a little fun. I have enough to do as it is - I don't need "pull stick out of ass" added to my to-do list!

 

[BOC]

JBird, out of curiosity, how wide are you field boarders? I am looking to do the same thing for screen access but do not want the deer bedding in them. I'm thinking the minimum of 30' would be just enough to hide me and not make the deer feel comfortable enough to bed in. Hopefully, the turkeys would find 30 additional feet of edge beneficial too. I'm curious of your experiences!

Thanks in advance and sorry I hope I did not hijack the thread. After reading the article and reading how positive you speak of your field boarders I thought I'd ask.

 

[j-bird]

BOC -First of all Welcome! I see you joined us TODAY! Mine range from 30' to 120' wide. This was the minimum and maximum per the CRP program I am enrolled in. The 30' wide areas are more like a screen and don't seem to hold the deer,but the wider areas do - especially in areas where I can but them up against one another or a differnet cover type. I originally just let the native weeds go (as was within the rules of the CRP practice) - because I was to chicken-shit to get into NWSG. It was just cost prohibitive at the time. What I found was I wasn't holding deer once things dried down and essentially was reduced to sticks. I then decided to improve these areas with tall NWSG (big blue,switch and indian grasses). I had to pay out of my own pocket, but it has been worth it. I now improve an area ever year to fit within my scope. This past year was the first full year in the ground and we had a very mild summer here and yet the grasses still reached 5 feet tall or more in places. It won't hide a hunter, but will hide a deer! I figured if I can get the does to use the grass the bucks can potentially use the narrow strips of timber - I can not confirm that is happening, but I do know that cover is my limiting resource and the more of it I can add and the better I can make it the better hunting we have. If you want cover tall enough to hide a hunter you may want to consider other options or a combination of options (I am considering conifers, screening cuttings and miscanthus giaganteus in areas where I am not sure NWSG will work or get tall enough). Hope that helps.

 

[j-bird]

View attachment 2859
BOC - hopefully this will help demonstrate more what I was talking about. In the upper left - there was no buffer just corn field and timber (it was crappy timber at that). I could touch corn and trees at the same time. I then implemented the CRP and the upper right and lower left show the range of results. It would get tall, but mostly goldenrod and giant ragweed - neither of which have much cover value once it gets cold - it essentially turns into sticks! The deer wouldn't bed in it. The picture in the lower right is what I had this summer - 48" or more of grass. It will and does hide deer, but I'm 6' tall so it doesn't hide me real well at all (not much does)! I think there would be better options for year round screening. It will depend on what you have available and what you are comfortable with. Like I said before - I am looking at other, taller, options for true screening - In my case these areas where the pictures are taken I wanted to promote the deer to use it tobedor at least travel thru it -near a true screen I preferthe deer keep their distance. Just my2 cents worth.

 

[Jordan Selsor]

I love what you have done JBIRD. I hope to play with some NWSG. I have lots of cover but still got some ideas to hopfully increase the daylight activity in my fields/plots

 

[MoBuckChaser]

See what you started Dipper....now he is posting! YeeeeeeHaw!:D

 

[sandbur]

I'm going to have to get me a loud visual banner or somethign to attach to every one of my posts to ensure everybody sees that I'm selling something! I'm also going to need some sort of "Expert opinions" as to how great I am. I'm going to need a logo - maybe something like a superman "S" in camo - if that is egotistical enough! Every post needs to have a link to my own website, and I need to start talking down to people - I'm a self appointed celebrity for crying out loud. If I go on tour I'll need some folks to tell everyone how great I am as well (I'm thinking Mo and "dark side Don" would be perfect - if nothing else the side show/fist fight will be worth the price). Something tells me that may be a one appearance only - due to an ass kicking and Mo adding another jail stay to his impressive resume. I will need a legal document that doesn't allow anyone to share my "secretes". We will make a stop at every QDMA chapter - we will take a day off in Peqout Lakes, MN - we will have Foggy be the guest speaker that day! OK I'm done being sarcastic - if I offeneded anyone here I appologize - just having some fun.

remeber to buy my article, book or attend one of my seminars because, "I'm a deer hunting GOD - you wish you was me"! Cha-ching!

Remind Foggy to give me my share, just like he was supposed to do after the Rain Dance training.

good job, J-bird.

 

[dipper]

See what you started Dipper....now he is posting! YeeeeeeHaw!:D

I knew that was gonna spark the party a little....

 

[j-bird]

Ok,Ok. Since you like pictures so much. This is what the selective timber harvest did for me. My woods was dominated by cottonwood, hackberry, poplar, sycamore, ash, hickory and maple (Junk). I have some oaks, but they where being crowded and the understory was not very strong either. You can see in the upper right photo the daylight of the ag fields in the distance and the lack of much true understory. That is roughly 100 yards away in the photo. Most of my timber is in narrow strips as it is so increasing the density even a little would help. Deer could easily see my approaching via the open field and see a long way thru the woods. I had to do something. As such I contacted some folks I know in the timber business and we went to work. I was directly involved in determining which trees went and made a genera rule that all oaks stay. We removed several hundred (I think the total was near 700 - so we cut it pretty hard) trees from roughly 50 acres or so of timber. The loggers liked the tulip/yellow poplar and the sugar/hard maple so I made some money in the process. You can see in the other 3 pics what the result was - we opened up the canopy and the explosion of growth was soon to follow. During the harvest I questioned if I had made a mistake becuase of the apparent carnage. Looking back this is the second best habitat improvement I have made.

 

[j-bird]

One thing I do want to say - I was an idiot in my early stages and jumped right into foodplots. Yep I bought into the propoganda of "plant it and they will come". I live in farm country - I am surrounded by cornand soybeans. Food is NOTmy limiting factor. I was blinded by the marketing efforts and wasn't seeing what was right in front of me. After I implemented my CRP then I had areas of roughly an acre or so where farming it just was't practicle -I use them as foodplots. Now before you jump on me about that,based on what I just said, hear me out. I plant foodplots of perennial clover/chicorymixes and fall/winter plots. We do not have hayfields near me and the farming equipment has advanced to the point where a harvsted field is nearly as productive to deer as a wal-mart parking lot after the harvest. As such I don't plant summer forages specifically - I plant corn and beans to stand thru the winter as well as brassica and cereal grain plots. The deer can eat all the neighbors beans all summer long for all I care! Once harvest hits that's when I use my plots to hold does and thus draw bucks to my place. My area also doesn't do alot of winter cover crops or winter wheat production so that early spring food supply is important as well. Recently I have started using my perennial plots for double duty as orchards as well. I have 2 areas of a small cluster of 3 apple strees and another area with a small cluster of chestnuts. Simply to add the diversity -soft mast in particular is very weak in my general area as well. No I screwed upagawith myappl trees - Isimply bought wasavailabel at a local big box store when they had beeplaced onsale (they are not true "deer" apple varieties and in some cases the form just sucks). Future trees will have much more reseach into them. I also tend to provide perennial & annual plots side-by-side. Upper left is a plot with my perennial mix in the front along with 3 of my apple trees and my annual plot in the back. Upper right is my typical fall mix of AWP, brassica and cereal grains - I like to seed rye a few times to help thicken later and give the other plants a head start. Bottom photo is another plot area with perennials and apple trees in one spot and an annual plot on the right. You will notice that I use the CRP areas to help provide that transition cover from the timber to the plots. In areas where I have enhanced these areas with NWSG - it has really helped alot and promoted bedding.

 

[j-bird]

Cost to play the game - as all of you know this habitat stuff isn't cheap. When I started I had a tractor,FEL and rotary mower (almost sold my '67 GTO to pay for it ,but my wife REALLY likes the GTO). Purchased at the time to simply maintain the farm we had - I had no idea what it would turn into. Well my collection of tools/toys depending on who you talk to has grown over the years. I think we would all love to be able to pour money into our passion, but I for one haveotherobligationsthat come first. Here are my toys.....tools, I mean tools!

790 Deere tractor (30 hp) with FEL, 2 row plate planter, 6' disc, 2 bottom plow,6' rotary mower, 3 point boom sprayer, chainsaw, backpacksprayer, hand seeder andcyclone spreader. I just started borrowing a tiller and I love it, but I love being able to borrow it vs buying it more!

 

[Tree Spud]

Jason ... Good stuff! I agree that if you are surrounded by ag, trying to compete is difficult.

Look for what the other properties do not offer and see if you can enhance yours for that. Our property is heavy on bedding cover and is well set-up for multiple doe groups and different travel corridors. I am never going to out compete the guys next door with 400-600 acres of ag.

We have some ag; however, I am now looking at transition food plots, travel cover, & timber stand mgmt to great more early succession cover. Also adding conifer planting to great cover and screening.

 

[j-bird]

I have shared some of these pics before, but this is sort of my personal before and after - all off the same property with my first harvest (doe) being in 2002. Early on I was just happy with any buck - then I wised up and I started passing up the yearlings (top picture). I have since taken a few 3 1/2 year old deer (not officially aged - but lower pic) and I am now at a point where I need to start passing on these as well - that maybe harder than I anticipate! I have real good genitics in my area I just don't have alot of deer and I try to let them go -but not alot of folks in my area will pass a 3 1/2 year old buck. I have since enstated a few rules - NO fawns (50% of our harvested fawns where button bucks). Any buck harvested (unless a rookie hunter) needs to be roughly 120" or larger. Indiana already has a 1 buck rule - so you only get one, you better make it count!

I checked my records - the bucks shown in the top pic are from '04, '05, '06 & '07.
Bucks in lower picture are 2008, 2011 & 2013.
(must of had a dumb-ass attack when adding the dates to the photo's -sorry)

Not tryingt show off or anything - just showing habitat improvement and some trigger conrol can make a difference.

 

[BOC]

j-bird thank you for the personal welcome to the forum and thank you for your reply! As a fellow Hoosier I am impressed with what you have been able to accomplish and look forward to learning from you all! Thank you for the quality replies with pictures-really put it all together for me.

 

[j-bird]

BOC -where you at in the Hoosier state? How did you find us? You will see lots of the guys here add info about their location (city/county/region & state and some add the USDA hardiness zone as well) as it helps communicate to the rest of us some info when you post questions. Many questions you may have especially regarding trees and foodplot plants can be grossly impacted by your location. This isn't required, but it helps get you better responses.

 

[BOC]

J-bird - I've been QDMA member for about 10 years now and have spent a lot of time on their forum as well as many others. I am a habitat fanatic and love learning from other peoples experiences. I have a farm up in Northern Indiana near the Michigan boarder. After 15 years, I think I have everything the way I want but always looking to improve.