Ice Age

Thursday started out just plain chilly. The temp was 7 degrees without the wind in the morning. Chris, Dad and I met at Grandpa and Grandma's and headed up to the hill. I borrowed a hatchet to try to pull out the shed that I found earlier in the week.

I eventually got the thing out of the mud, but not without a few dings from the hatchet. After I cleaned it up I measured it and it went 49 4/8". Not bad for something that had been lost there for who knows how long.
Afterwards, we worked our way to the NW side of Orville's mailbox. We belly-crawled across the ditch on the ice (cracking the whole way) and walked through the popples that were left along the road. We were heading back and I decided to zigzag through the red willows in hopes of finding Mr. 140's other side. I caught a glimpse of something white in the middle of a smaller clump of willows. Sure enough, it was an antler. I actually thought it was a year old antler because of how white it was. It may have been shed early. I'll check the date I last saw this buck with antlers. It was a small 2 year old four point antler. It has decent mass for a two year old. I hope he makes it to four. He'd be interesting.

After that, we drove up to the landing and walked north of the W trail trying to parallel it. We went west until we came out of the cedars beyond the bus. From there we turned north mostly and I cut back E to change the memory card at the Cedar Stump camera. I left the camera heading mostly W trying to zigzag between trails when I heard them coming through the woods and I heard dad say, "Sure would be nice to find the other side." I thought, no way, he's just saying that loud enough for me to hear and mess with me. Then he said the decade old joke, "I've got that pain in my ribs." I thought you do not but as he was appearing through the cedars I looked intently and sure enough I saw that it was one of the sides off Scabby 8. I've went back and forth about the age of this buck and it's hard to say. At first picture, I thought him to be 5.

Then looking at springtime photos, I thought more like 3. He's very identifiable because his left ear has a huge tear in it, which you can't see in this (the first pic of him out of velvet) His right mainbeam was 22 even. Which would suggest 4+. It's safe to say he's four, gonna be five. But we'll see. His G2 was a little short and we knew that from the photos. I measured the antler at 53 7/8". That's sad if that's a 5 year old deer. That's Minnesota Hill. You take the trophies you can get.

We spent some time up in the cedar swamps between the two cutovers, but there was good rut sign, but not much more than that. I'm hoping we were far enough north. After a lunch break and after I set up a third camera down by my honeyhole, we headed up by the gravel pits and walked around on top of the hill. Not a ton of sign, but enough to suggest a few does live there - enough to warrant some buck traffic. It also doubles as a wide bottleneck from two large woods. We just about turned around a mile north of Grandpa and Grandma's to drive across the county to look at another spot. Good thing we didn't. It feels so good to find one off the hitlist. That's like the entire goal, besides finding one or both of The Clown's antlers. A good day's work.

March 18th

The snow virtually disappeared over the last weekend. We had rain and weather in the 40s. Then this week we had a couple days in the 50s! I guess I shouldn't be that surprised, it happens every year. Now we'll need to get dumped on at least once sometime in April.

I took off to the woods yesterday morning and decided to hike out to John's island. This was a place that deer were traveling to quite heavily this winter while feeding on the sunflower pile and soybean scrapes in the yard. My biggest challenge was crossing a gumbo mud field. I brought out my water boots and took off across. Since I was alone, I knew I needed to take my time in order to not have to come back. I zigzagged from NE to NW and worked my way south through the island. On my third or so pass back and forth, I caught a glimpse of something hand had to look back over my shoulder.

Sure enough... "that's an antler." I said to myself and

worked my way over. As I walked up to it I knew right away which buck it was from. A small, narrow 2 year old 8 point that was chipped on most tips. After taking my pictures I continued to zigzag around through the grove. I finished as best as I could and then walked North up the West edge until I turned back inside on the best trail I could see. My plan is to set up a trophy rock in this island and have a place for some good photos. I remembered a natural clearing about 15 yards by 10 yards where pictures would be great. As I made my way over to it, I stopped dead in my tracks. It was like a moment on The Shining where Danny comes around the corner and those twins are standing there. I thought that the antler I just picked up was laying back on the ground. To make things more insane, I had just walked through this spot! I don't know how I could've missed it!

Regardless, it was the other side of the same buck. The crazy part was that I knew this buck carried one side for a few days. I never would've thought that his antlers would be in the same area as each other.

I headed back across the gumbo and went up to the cabin and got situated to set up two trail cameras. I put out some molasses NW of the landing and cut down a tree for a new site north of the gravel pit. I'm really hoping to get some pictures at both sites soon. It will be interesting to see what happens with the new one. I hope deer that were wintering there are still coming through.

After I set those up, I went for another walk on the County piece north of the cabin. I made my way around and something caught my eye that looked like an old stick, but too perfectly pointed. I walked over to it and there was about two inches sticking out of the grass. I stared right at it and said, "that's got to be an antler."

I got the camera out and tried to get a phone video of me excavating this old relic. it was buried. I don't even know how old this antler was. The year it fell the buck was probably a 3 or 4 year old, but it's probably been laying there for over 20 years. Dad shot a buck in 88 that resembled this antler an awful lot.

All in all it was a good day to find antlers. The wind really picked up and brought some colder weather in so the afternoon was fairly uneventful. At least we're narrowing down the spots to look.

Ides of March

Dad and I went out yesterday morning for about 4 hours. We hiked some swampy state quarters with no luck. There was plenty of sign there in December and January and so it should've been easy to come across something, but nope. Walking back there was cool to see the lay of the land. The majority of the topo is simply wet, but every 50-100 yards there were little plateaus that were dry and had prime bedding opportunities. There were plenty of small rubs and whatnot. We also came across the same massive scrape site as I found last year. Another plateau that had at least 8 licking branches. What a place for a camera next year.

Then at work yesterday afternoon, I mentioned that dad and I were out looking for antlers and a neighbor up there said he picked up a big 12 point

set just a few days ago. NW of John's Bins along a deer trail near where they were taking out trees. UNREAL! I asked him more questions about them and it really seems like they could be WideWeb. I hope so. He said his brother's got them down in the cities to have them officially measured. They should be back up here in April.

Mom and Dad walked around that clearcut, with nothing to show for it. I better get back out there.

The Legend of Tank

Like a loved one called into the morgue to identify a body, I walked into a friends cabin and in the middle of stomping the snow off my insulated water boots, I glanced up to see a photograph come to life. There was the antlers of a buck we knew as "Tank". A dozen possibilities ran through my mind as I tried to make sense of it. "How long had it been since I had been in his cabin?" That rack is from 2007. Where has it been? Has it been two and a half months since I had been in there?" Those where some of the many simultaneous thoughts that crossed my mind.

"Where did that come from?", I asked out loud.

"Oh that? I shot that with the muzzleloader a couple years ago." he said.

"2007?" I asked.

"I don't know. A couple years ago. North of Elmer's cabin. He was wounded...came in limping. Someone had shot him." he suggested.

"That was me." I told him. "Opening day of rifle season 2007."

"Really? That was you?" he asked puzzled.

Long story short. He said after skinning him he was all gangrene and so he "just took the head...cause the cape was shot." That part has stuck with me since. What? I'm not going to get into my own theories, and I want to believe him. So I will choose to. Regardless, the first buck that was 'named' at the hill is now dead. Officially. It's kind of nice to have closure. There are many parallels to a mysterious family death you see on a made-for-tv movie. He grossed 130 and net 125 4/8 typical, which was about 20 inches less than I had guessed from the trail cam pictures. This was probably due to the body size of this buck, hence the name. His main beams were each 3 inches shorter than I guessed. the spread was 2 inches narrower. The brows were each an inch shorter. That's 10 inches right there. The G2s were 10 2/8 instead of 11 4/8 and so on. We're learning to be more conservative on our field judgement based on trail cam photos.

Also interesting was that my friend had picked up a set of sheds a year ago from a nice buck my other friend shot this year. I picked them up and laughed out loud. I knew instantly that they were from the same buck. Also, he picked up three fresh antlers from this year. One from Mr. 140 (which actually measured 57 1/8 - putting a Mr. 130) and a matched set from a three year old with split brow. Cool sheds. Definitely a worth-while trip over there. Regardless of the means of tank's 'death and resurrection', I'm just glad to know his dead.

Quality Deer Management

After hunting whitetails for 16 years, I have found a concept that covers all aspects of whitetail management. Although the first time I heard of QDM, it was on a sign on the West county line and I thought it was some weird type of off-limits sanctuary. Turns out it was private land that was telling other people what they stood for. That was as least 3 or 4 years ago. Now at 27, I'm spending lots of time in the woods and I'm learning so much by reading about and observing whitetail behavior. The majority of my early learning was taught orally by my dad. I would listen to stories about buck encounters, that were vividly memorable to him, and as hard as I could, I tried to place myself there with him. I heard the names of hunters of old and places that had names like 'The Carlson Slough' and 'The Little Hill' which the average up-and-comer has no clue what those were or where they were. I learned about antlers and had the privilage of seeing hundreds of racks come through the house as my dad would score them or mount them for people through the decades. I new the difference between typical and nontypical at an early age and that the four circumference measurements were referred to as "Hs". I knew that inside spread was the only spread that counted and that G5s were rare.

After college, I rekindled the passion of my youth, but now it has been with more knowledge, understanding, and in-depth curiosities. I wanted to know why whitetails do what they do, not just be content to shoot a decent one. I picked up my bow and started shooting and shot my first buck near Barnsville, MN in the 'Black Swamp' state piece. That was all it took to have me hooked on bowhunting. The following season (2007) I shot my first Pope & Young grossing 144". I began to read more, watch more hunting videos, be more mezmorized by whitetail behavior, and ultimately, I wanted to know what could be done to enhance and study a specific herd of deer.

Throughout most of my recent reading, the topic of deer management has been coming up more and more frequently. Food plots have been a buzz phrase for a few years, but I've learned that that's only one aspect of deer managment. I've learned that the most commonly practiced type of management (traditional deer management) really isn't a management style at all. The other two that are being talked about are Trophy Deer Management and Quality Deer Management. TDM is fairly self-explanatory in it's goals, as is QDM. Since there is nothing to really gauge a 'trophy doe', TDM must be talking about bucks. The downfall to this is that bucks only make up half the possible herd. Quality Deer Management focuses on the overall herd health, which encompasses bucks, does, and fawns. QDM has four cornerstones or pillars and they are:

Herd Management

Habitat Management

Hunter Management

Herd Monitoring

Each of these are essential, and not necessarily easy to achieve. In an area like where we hunt, there's some private land, but it's mostly public. Granted, there's not simple access to most of the public land, getting land owners to agree on some sort of standard or basic principles of hunting seems daunting. For a QDM cooperative to work, lots of people need to work together.

All this brings me to where I am today. I have fully bought into the principles of QDM and now the task is to communicate and sell the vision of what potential some simple cooperation could do for our deer herd, and ultimately for our hunting future.