Close Call

Smacked a whitetail yesterday on the way to a fish fry.  Deer suddenly materialized out of nowhere  from the woods on my left running at full tilt.

From all outward appearances all we suffered is a damaged front tag. 

Raising a toast to anti-collision technology and driver assist on the Ford Mustang Mach E….

Deer Camp Recap

It is hardly a secret that southern Door County has a burgeoning deer population.  It is a routine fact that anyone driving around here is going to have a close call dodging a running deer or a whitetail that materializes suddenly from the roadside ditch.  The damage to the forest is stunning in its scale.  There's hardly any regeneration of anything that the deer prefer to eat.  They've even taken to browsing the landscaping in the yard and tasty veggies grown in the garden.  My pal New Guy calls them the Antlered Menace. 

Nevertheless, there is a flip side to this - deer hunting.  Unlike some parts of northern Wisconsin where discouraged hunters are happy to just see a deer - the deer hunting around here is pretty darn good.

click on the meat pole for a better look

This weekend New Guy, Six Deuce, Braumeister and El Diabla Roja teamed-up to slay five additional deer in an antlerless only hunt.  That brings the total for the year to fourteen.  A camp record.  Our freezers are full, El Diabla Roja returned home with three deer for her hungry family and five of the deer have gone to Paul's Pantry in Green Bay for needful hungry families in the community.

The recent tally shapes-up as follows:  

2017 - 14

2016 -   9

2015 - 12

Anyone see a pattern forming? 

I'll post some additional highlights this week of the weekend fun.

Deer Aplenty

Amazing.

Last year a total of 12 deer were killed here at The Platz.  The neighbors killed plenty of deer too.  We knew coming into the year that the deer herd here on the peninsula was large.  How large?  Large enough to to set a new record of vehicle-deer wrecks.

By the end of November, 2015 a total of 403 deer collisions were reported.  That tied the previous 12 month record set back in 2003.

Judging from all of the deer that are showing-up on my trail cameras in the last couple of weeks we've hardly put a dent in the population.

Too many deer remain on the landscape.

2016 should bring another large number of collisions and the hunting should remain steady. 

Drive safely.