12-30-06 - Winter is setting in

Time to start thinking about what to plant, and where. I want to have a cohesive plan by April 1st - and I'll lay it all out several times between now and then.

My son & I had a good Grouse hunt this week -
We put up 7 birds and I got off two shots. 1 for 2 is pretty good!

A couple other pictures from this week as well.










Happy New Year

Late Fall Pictures

Every fall, no matter how good our plots looked in the summer, I'm surprised how much they thin out by late fall. I always think we "need more green". Its interesting - because the deer NEVER touch the corn until the snow is near 1 ft deep.

We've found that if we mow the corn - the deer will get on it - even without snow - but we plant corn to sustain deer through the winters - which can be harsh here - and we leave it standing, even if it means that the deer don't come to feed on it in a mild hunting season like this year was. Bot though - they LOVE those bean pods when they start cracking in November - and even when there IS Snow -they will be pawing to get this high protein/fat food source in November.

Every deer we took this fall had Green (clover and or alfalfa) and soybeans in their stomach - and many had apples too.

Here's some late season pictures of the plots this year:

Early November 2006

Well I was lucky to take a nice 8 point buck with a bow this fall. Its a young buck probably his first rack - but I was happy to have the chance to take him with a bow. We ended up taking 2 bucks and 1 doe with bow and 2 bucks and 5 does with gun/blackpowder this fall. 10 deer including 4 bucks on 200 acres is a pretty good year for us. None of the larger bucks we've occaisionally seen were taken, the hunting pressure is enough to keep them off the property most of the hunting season.