Make Yourself Heard on Deer Population

Informative column in the Door County Advocate this weekend.  Outdoor writer Kevin Naze nails it in How many deer are 'enough' in Door County?  

 Some will disagree but I think there are too many deer.  The browsing this winter has been horrific.  And with the 'starving time' for deer upon us I sure hope we don't find more dead deer in the woods who have outgrown the carrying capacity of their habitat.

For any of you deer camp guys that might be reading - take a moment to complete the DNR's Survey Monkey questionnaire here.

Hunt safe - shoot straight.

Tom Turkey

Turkey season is drawing closer still and I'm beginning to get all tingly and itchy thinking about it.  No, I don't have a rash.  I'm getting pumped about seeing birds regularly on the trail camera and their tracks in the snow...

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The Big Jump

Poetry in motion.  

The beauty and grace of a whitetail deer.

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What a spectacular series of burst photos taken with a trail camera.  Too bad it wasn't the camera set to take video shorts.

The Gravy Train

How many of you have ever dined on gravy bread?

You know what I'm talking about.  Bread with leftover meat and gravy poured over it.  I grew up on the stuff.  I had it a church camp.  I ate it at scout camp.  I had it at home.  My dad acquired a taste for it when he was in the army.  Of course, the military referred to it as SOS (shit on a shingle) I know any number of ex-military types that have a fondness for SOS.

Back in the day families ate this stuff because it was a great way to make use of leftovers and stretch you food budget.  If you had a large family is was an economical way to feed the growing tribe.  Countless Thanksgiving turkeys and Sunday pot roasts found their way back to the dinner table reincarnated as gravy bread.

The other day I got to thinking about utilizing some chicken leftovers to make some gravy bread.  As a matter of fact this is pretty healthy stuff.  The gravel was made from simmering the neck and giblets to make a rich chicken stock.  Low fat as there were no pan dripping in it.  I added some leftover pieces of leg and thigh meat - low fat as there was no skin in it.  And I thickened it with a slurry of corn starch.

Ladled it over whole grain, oat-nut, Brownberry bread making it healthier yet.  This is like health food.  And it tasted so good that I'm thinking of making this with fresh baked biscuits for deer camp this year.

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How Many?

If you hang around with deer hunters long enough you'll get all sorts of unsolicited feedback about deer numbers.  Some hunters (like me) think there are too many deer. and would prefer to see a smaller deer population  Other hunters (like Governor Walker) complain that they don't see enough deer and they prefer a deer behind every tree.

And most hunters agree that the DNR's deer estimates are either too high or too low.

Seriously, unless you were to walk around with a clipboard actually conducting a census of the whitetail population the best you can do is make an educated guess.  Yup.  A guesstimate. 

How many deer do you count in this picture?

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Selfie

Nothing better than a trail camera for taking a selfie.

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Antler Hunting

My girls are exceptionally astute at locating and fetching shed antlers.  Just the other day I was out trudging about in the snow performing corrective pruning on my oak trees and the Labs got an opportunity to 'hunt' for shed deer antlers.

Some results:

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Winter Chores

The Frau checked the diary and we are about four weeks behind previous schedules for a major winter chore.  Namely corrective pruning of the oak trees.

We're behind - not because we're lazy - but because we lost a couple of weekends traveling to Europe and the weather had been so brutally cold.

So we're making up some lost ground.

You've probably heard the old adage about "as the twig is bent".  So it is with oak trees.  Tree farmers like to produce straight trunks without a large number of knots.  So oak trees are planted alongside pine trees so that the bushier pines "train" the oaks to grow straight and tall and the tree farmer prunes any defects or horizontal limbs as the tree grows.  Winter is the ideal time to do this as the chance of spreading disease like oak wilt is nil.  There are no bugs around that might be attracted to a fresh cut on the tree.

Here's a before and after.

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This white oak (Quercusbicolor) is already displaying some nice girth and in a few more years any further pruning will have to be completed with a pole saw.

Mechanized Transportation

Beginning with the weekend before last I was able to warm-up the Polaris for getting around and hauling stuff.

There has been some thawing of the snowpack leaving behind a frozen crust of snow that is anywhere from a few inches to 10 inches in depth.  For the most part I can walk on top of it without busting through and the four wheeler, with its balloon tires, can travel with ease over the top of the crust.

All the better for hauling pruning equipment, lunch, drinks and snacks.

Munch Munch Munch

Caught!  Red-handed!

Evidence-enough of why thousands of our cedars have been manicured precisely to the height of the reach of a whitetail deer...

Deer on the Move

I haven't a clue what startled these deer.

But they're kicking it into high gear.

Except for the guy bringing-up the rear...

Join the Parade

A parade of turkeys...

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Fox

This is sure a treat.

The return of a fox.

Captured at night a few days apart...

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Talking Turkey

Turkeys have been rather scarce the last few months or so.  Seriously, hardly a picture to be had on the trail camera and nothing to be seen while walking or driving about. 

They seems to have vanished and all sorts of crazy theories and worries about their survival were going round and round in my head.

Now, all off a sudden, they're back!

They're everywhere.  Huge gangs of them too.

No hens - just gobblers.

You can identify the gobblers by the long, pendulous beards that are protruding from their breast.

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Transitioning to Spring

The horrific cold snap seems to have abated and the temperatures are gradually climbing above freezing.

Even the creek has commenced to running.

And the deer are running too.

They better.  Just look at the browse damage on these cedars.

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Even though spring is nigh upon us there's still not much out there for the deer to eat.  Times could be tough over the next month or so.

Time to Go Shed Hunting

No more antlers showing-up on any of the trail cameras.

Which means it's time to let loose the hounds and do some shed hunting.

Shed antlers that is.

Check this out.

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Clearly the buck in the last picture has just cast-off his head-gear...

Got the Munchies?

The tree farm is showing serious signs of the severity of this year's winter.

Browse.

Specifically, the browsing that the deer are doing.  Don't get me wrong - the deer are doing what deer do in the winter.  They're eating woody vegetation like the buds and foliage they can reach.  The trees will survive this foraging as they largely grown well beyond the height of a hungry whitetail.  Any little trees not so much.  They're doomed.  White cedar is a perennial favorite and you can see here they've munched the cedars clean of any greenery within reach.

I cannot recall the deer hammering the red cedars.  Check this out...

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