Rainy Day Bird

Never forget that turkeys move when it is rainy and nasty.  Opportunistic feeders they are.

Thirty-six degrees and horizontal squalls today.  Six Deuce bagged this eighteen and a half pound gobbler this morning hunting in the nastiness.

Persistence pays-off.

Snow Bird

Wikimedia Commons

They’re gone now – having only stayed around here for a handful of weeks as they wing their way north to their breeding grounds in the boreal forests of Canada and as far as the southern fringes of the arctic circle     

The dark-eyed Junco – Junco hyemalis – is a finch-sized bird that we observe scratching in the turf of the yard or underneath the feeders.  They a sweet-looking bird that also has a rigid social structure that calls for the dominant birds to boss the meeker birds.  Later this year as the days grow shorter and the leaves fall they’ll return for a short visit while returning to their wintering grounds further south.  

You can learn more about this song bird here.  And if you want to hear it’s call click here.

Early Worm Gets the Bird

SID bagged a seventeen pound gobbler this morning.

Nicely done!

Varmint

Raider of of nest boxes and predator of ground-nesting birds is this masked marauder.

The good news is this predator does a good job of keeping the population of the former in check.

Friday Music

I first saw Junior Brown in concert as an opening act for The Mavericks a couple of decades ago.  This artist is known for playing a double-neck instrument that he has dubbed the Guit-Steel.   The top neck of the device is a traditional six-string guitar - while the lower neck is a full-size lap steel guitar for slide playing.  Brown has placed twice on the Billboard country singles charts.

Big Policy

Headline:  Trump Rolls-Out Huge Tax Plan.

Looking to throw something on the wall that might stick as the artificial 100 day deadline arrives the Whitehouse released President Trump’s big tax plan.

The 15 percent corporate rate - we already knew.   

Getting rid of the state and local tax deduction hasn’t a hope of passing. 

As for the details concerning how they could cover the cost of the giant corporate rate cut?  Missing in action.

What about  the tax rate for repatriated earnings?  Nothing.  

Application of the new individual rates?  Dunno.

When will the details be released?  Anybody's guess.

Impact on the President’s personal finances?  None of your business.  

Steel yourself for the bigness of this as you can read the entire plan here.

Deer Stand

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The last time I inspected this old deer stand was a month and a half ago.  It is obviously no better than before and in-fact quite a bit worse.

By the time anyone gathers enough ambition to attempt salvaging any of the treated lumber it may have collapsed entirely and fallen to the ground. 

Talking Turkey

From one of the tail cameras last week.

Where the hens go...

The gobblers follow... 

click on images to enlarge

Politicizing Deer Management

Like most sportsmen, I’m tired of sitting in a deer stand all day and not seeing any deer, said Walker.  As governor, I will name a ‘Whitetail Deer Trustee’ to monitor the health and population of the deer herd. That way, we take the politics out of the forest and put the deer back in.

Candidate Walker intoned those memorable words more than six and a half years ago and today the legislature is in charge of deer management.  Manage deer by means of sound, scientific principles?  Nope.  Manage deer with the guidance of wildlife biologists?  I don't think so - better to eliminate those positions from the Department of Natural Resources.  How about a deer management plan that involves consulting foresters?  Are you kidding? All that science makes their heads hurt.  

So much for taking the politics out of the woods.  A larger pile of steaming and stinking BS hasn't been spoken since.

Today Wisconsin has a one-size fits-all legislated deer season framework that has resulted in a dearth of deer in the northern third of the state and a surplus of deer in other parts of the state.  Door County's CDAC suggested an antlerless season might be a solution to stemming the burgeoning deer herd - but that got shot-down.  Wait...what about an earn-a-buck framework?  Maybe once every three or four years or so to bring the herd closer to goal and grow some big bucks?  Alas, the governor and legislature tell you no way.   

As a consequence there are no tools left in the deer management tool box anymore.

As for me the deer are eating me out of house and home.

All of this browse damage is enough to give me a big, damn headache and leave me pissed-off.  The good news is that my friends like deer hunting and aren't afraid to stack them up.

Sigh...

Talking Turkey

Lawyer popped a nice bird today.  Snuck up on him silently like a ghost.  Not even a peep.

Twenty-four pounds.  Big spurs too.

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Lab approved...

It Pays to Volunteer

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If you examine the photo above you will note a forest to the left.  These trees were planted in the spring of 1998 and they've grown into a nice stand of hardwoods and conifers.

The stand to the right are big tooth aspen.  In the winter of 1997-98 The Frau and I went in there with a chainsaw (a wedding gift to each other) and cut-down several hundred mature aspen along the northern line fence.  As a consequence of the patch cut new popple sprouted from the root clone and they are now a nice mature stand of newer aspen growth. 

The little conifers you see growing in the foreground and just now getting above the height of the grasses.  Those weren't planted there at the hand of man.  They just showed-up.  Seed progeny from the white spruce that were planted in 1998.  They are volunteers.  

Planting trees is the gift that keeps on giving... 

Turkey Hunting

My pals are here at The Platz to chase gobblers.  Lawyer arrived a couple of days ago and Mennonite joined him yesterday.  I arrived last evening.  Today is my first day-off in five sixty-hour weeks of day job excitement and doctor appointments.  It feels good to spend some time outdoors communing with Ma Nature.  My buddies are hunting from the blinds I set-up last weekend while I returned to hunting à la carte. Turkey hunting the way of the past.  

Old school - hunkered on the ground in full camouflage with my back to a tree.  

Had a hen cruise-thru to check on my decoy set.

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And worked a gobbler for about twenty minutes only to get busted just before he came into gun range.

I guess that's why they call this hunting instead of shopping.

Friday Music

Some Fridays you have to reach back into the archives for some really good music.  Originally written by the Belfast, Ireland singer-songwriter Van Morrison and recorded by his band Them in 1964 this song figured significantly in my childhood.  Anybody with an older brother musician could play this song out of a backyard garage or at a CYO dance.  Shoot, my childhood buddy Tom taught me how to play the simple three chords on his guitar.  And I don’t play a guitar..