No Dice... For Me

Well, Monday morning I was able to get out and finally spend some time out in the woods. I started the day off kinda crappy though. I was going to film myself broadcasting clover into a newly logged clearing for Midwest Whitetail, but when I got the camera on the tripod and turned it on I learned that there was no battery in it. IDIOT! Instead of waiting until I could film myself, I just opted to seed it anyway. So I got 10 lbs of Frigid Forage clover mix down into about a 1/2 acre strip. We'll see what comes of that. After that adventure, I walked over to the cedar stump to see what had been using it so far. I kicked up a lone big deer not far from the stump, so my hopes are high. The only camera I had out was going to produce for me early on. Not so. Zero images. Batteries died immediately after I left it. I guess that's what you get for using last year's used batteries. Trying to save money. After that, I drove down to the bus and took out the plastic sled I brought and through a 50 lb sack of trace mineral salt and a small brick of Deer CoCaine onto it and drug it the 1/2 mile over water and trees. I got the stump all salted up for this year and I gotta be honest, my hopes are high for these spots.

After my morning chores, I was able to take a hike in the swamp near the beans that were left standing this last fall. I looked in a few spots that I had imagined finding antlers on several occasions to no avail. I found one old yearling buck skull and one winter kill doe. Either someone had been through there or I'm really losing my touch as to where these antlers should be... probably both. I had to get back to town to work at Cenex so I left the woods about noon. Mom and Dad came up after I went home and asked where they should go that was dry. By the time I got back to them they were already walking around by the pits. I got a picture text from dad and I thought he might have found one and sure enough, he found a nice 57" 4 point shed. This has to be the darkest shed we've ever found/seen from around the hill. He found it points down right on a trail.After a few texts back and forth, mom text me with a picture. She found herself a cool little three point from the road. Good eyes.

At least this brings some hope to the spots I've been using salt. I hope to see more evidence of Dad's buck. It had a 21" main beam. I'm guessing him @ 5 1/2, going be 6 years old in a month.

It'll be interesting to see what turns up before green up.

Snow's Finally Gone

Mom and I went out for a bit in the morning on Saturday the 9th. At that point, there was still quite a bit of snow throughout the cedars. Today, there's probably none. We parked north of the landing and walked to the stump and set up a camera and some salt. We walked west through the cedars toward where dad picked up Scabby 10's 4point side from last year. We were getting close to that area when we came to a forked trail. I sent mom ahead on the heavier branch of it and about 50 ft later she said, "I found one!". I made my way over to her and told her to leave it lay until we got some pictures of it. At first glance, I thought it was a side from Whitey, but I soon realized it was much smaller than that. This was definitely off a 2 year old buck. Nothing super special about it other than it had no brow tine. The odd part of it all was that I could not place this buck, proving that there still are deer that do not show up on camera.

Anyway. I'm glad mom was able to find something. We've been so busy with photography lately, I don't know when the next time I could go out would even be. I chose to stay home and sleep in with Steph this morning, but it's stays fairly busy from here through the next couple weeks. We'll see. There's several bucks whose antlers are just waiting to be found. Somewhere deep within the swamp. The season isn't over yet.

March Muley Madness

A 5 year story finally comes to a close. While attending college, I picked up a large mule deer rack and I have been wondering how great it would look like mounted ever since. Since then, I've periodically been checking ebay for a cape and most of the good ones sell for between 150 and 250. I finally saw a nice one that looked like it was going to sell fairly low. So I got permission from my wife to bid on it. She was so kind to say yes and I actually won. I got it for 91 dollars plus 35 for shipping. I called Bruce Sandahl in Lancaster to see if he would be willing to do a mule deer mount for me. At first he said that he'd rather not, but that if I couldn't find anybody else, to give him a call back. I called a couple other places - Lake of the Woods taxidermy quoted me $550 to do a muley - and eventually called Bruce back. I said I had the cape coming the next day and he said, "well can you bring it over tomorrow afternoon?" So that's just what I did. The cape shipped from Texas and it made it up here just fine. Good thing it was still pretty cold up here then. Dad and I drove over there and walked into his museum of a garage and into his first garage(these were both additions over the years due to his taxidermy). We had some good conversation and exchanged information and he said it would be about a month. I told him I was in no hurry. The rediculous part is that in 16 days, he called me to say that it was finished. That was Sunday morning the 20th. I told him I couldn't make it that day but that I'd head over Monday morning. Dad came with again and as soon as we entered the same garage, I said, "and there it is" it was tipped on its back with its nose in the air and the width was something to behold. It was jaw dropping from even a poor angle. Bruce came into the room a couple minutes later and he started talking about the score of the thing. I think it blew him away. He said he came up with over 200" gross typical. Dad and I were gawking at the unbelievable job he did on the mount. He charged $4oo plus tax - so $427.50. I gave him a tip because of how fast he got it done. It looks astounding. Dad was so fired up. It was exciting to have him help hang it up at our place.It truly is a jaw dropping, possibly once in a lifetime typical mule deer. There's something about putting it back on a head that just makes a person stare. One unfortunate thing is that it makes my mid-140" gross and 120" gross whitetails look puny. Was it worth the five year wait and $575? No doubt.

I'll post a few more close ups of the great job Bruce did with the taxidermy.

The February Lull

I don't know of a February that I haven't looked for sheds for a very long time. This year we got plenty of snow and it's made looking around here fairly futile. The only problem with waiting is that from the time deer are actually shedding antlers to the time you can get out there, their patterns can and most likely have changed rather drastically. It will be essential to figure out where the deer were from Christmas to the end of January. That is where your odds are best. Notice I didn't say that's where you'll find your sheds. Buck behavior overlaps the general herd's behavior at this time of year, but it's not nearly as consistent or as confined as the does and fawns area of bedding. Bucks may travel through and past the 'bedding areas'. They may even bed with the does, but if you take into account the times of trail camera sitings, the bucks are coming in a good two hours or more after the does are. This leads you to one of three conclusions. Either the bucks simply are not on their feet as early, they are spending a lot more time browsing in the woods before they cross the road, or they are coming from a much further distance. My thought is something between the last two possibilities. I believe that when heading back to bed, bucks take the same trails as does and fawns. Somewhere along the way, possibly based on wind direction etc, these bucks veer off the trail and bed down by themselves. Sure a buck can drop his antlers right on a heavy trail, but if you calculate time spent feeding and time spent bedding, the time they are in transition is puny in comparison to the previous two. Deer cannot afford to burn calories needlessly.

Yesterday I was thinking about the shed hunting in an unknown environment, say down in Whitewater. I don't know what those deer do during the wintertime. I can only imagine that if they leave the corn standing, that the deer would be drawn in to it like a magnet. Here's where it gets tricky. Whitewater State Park also enjoys plenty of other hunters and I would guess appropriately - many shed hunters. I suspect that the majority of these shed hunters hit the food sources because they're easier to access. This is what got me thinking. A deer's travel and bedding is in relationship to food this time of year. Food is number one. Safety is number two. Rest (conserving energy) is number three. In percentages, it may look something different. Although deer do spend a great amount of time feeding in the winter, they spend more time bedding. If a person was to base their odds of finding sheds on location, they would need to base their decision on where the deer are spending the most hours per day. Deer spend from 12-18 hours a day in and around a bedding area. They spend roughly 4-6 hours feeding per day. that leaves a span of less than 8 hours in transition per day. All this is to say that when I cross boot tracks in a food source, I'm not going to let that bum me out. I know that I need to find the heaviest travel in and out of the food source in an attempt to find the bedding areas.

When you find beds, it is very helpful to stop and analyze the where and whys of the deer's preference. Is it open to sunlight? Is there browse nearby? How far am I from the hottest food source? How many deer does it look like are bedding in a 50 yard radius? Can I tell if they are buck beds? Are there tracks confirming that? As you start to notice trends in the deers preference of bedding areas, other areas might come to mind. As I mentioned Whitewater, it makes me think about the terrain differences. There will be steep hills, gradual ridges, and gorged out valleys. The south facing slopes will be the warmer ones and the ones that I believe deer will prefer. Not always, but most of the time. Finding benches and places of less stress also will pay off. Like I said, number two priority for deer is safety this time of year. Survival is always number one, but certain times of year survival means different things. Winter time brings about that switch. Food trumps safety. Anyway, safety includes thermals and wind currents. Deer will often times bed facing a direction they cannot smell. The will put the wind to their backs so they can smell what is behind them and see what they cannot smell. This could create many unique situations where the terrain has such exaggerated changes.

Hopefully when this snow melts down a bit, I can afford to spend some time in the woods. There are lots of antlers that I would love to find. Nobody has broken the 60" mark at Minnesota Hill. This could very well be the year. Stay tuned.

Fogged Over In Hibbing

So of all places I get to write this blog... I'm stuck in the Hibbing airport waiting for a taxi to come pick us up and DRIVE us to Thief River Falls. Oh yeah, it's 10 minutes past midnight right now. So let's do the math, the taxi should be here by 12:30am and we should arrive in TRF at about 4am. So far Delta hasn't been able to do anything for me. They think their taxi-ing me in the fog at 45 mph is complementary. Haha. Anyway, I might as well update this blog with the most recent happenings.

First of all, I took all my cameras down before I took off to Covenant Midwinter Conference in Chicago last friday. I got a few pictures the same bald bucks, a few new ones, but nothing that was too noteworthy. Just more wolves.

The best thing I get to write about is that after the Youth Workers Connection (Fri-Sun) I had to transfer from the Hyatt downtown out to the Hyatt O'hare, still in town, but by the river. Two years ago I took a walk one afternoon north of the hotel up the river bank. I went under a bridge and stumbled across about 8 deer including one decent shed buck. This got me fired up to find his antlers. I looked and looked, but there were also boot track in there. No antlers.

This year, I glanced at GoogleEarth before I transfered hotels and once I was checked in to the O'hare, I decided I should try to take a nap. I just about fell asleep, but I just couldn't. I don't know why. Anyway, I got up and decided I would take my walk then. I grabbed my hat and gloves and headed out of the east parking lot. The riverbank is probably about 100 yards wide at this point. As I went south, there were places where it pinched and there were some small drainages flowing from the streets into the river. Once I got past the biggest pinch (one that pushed me up on the street), it opened up to quite a stretch of woods. I dipped back into the woods and saw a few openings and sure enough there were beds and lots of fresh tracks. I circled around and followed the most tracks I could and the closer to these apartment buildings I got, the heavier the tracks got, it was weird. I angled back towards the main road running south and kept it to my right so I could comb the area on the way back. That's when I kicked up my first deer. It didn't seem too spooked, so I kind of followed where it was headed. I started to see more and more deer. Pretty soon I was in a little honey hole. Deer were jumping and walking everywhere. There must've been at least 20 deer in a 50 yard area. None were carrying that I could see. Soon enough I saw a shed buck and he was limping. His left front knee was broken and healed over. I slowed way down after I saw that buck. The tracks were thick. I scanned as best as I could and then after about five minutes I saw my first antler to my right - points down. Would've been not too hard to miss. So this corridor that I was walking through, was about 100 yards wide at the most between the road and a grassy opening. My goal was to walk close to the highway to make sure I didn't miss anything to my right. Sure enough that's where this antler was - about 50 ft from the sidewalk under some willows. The shed ended up scoring 63 5/8", which would've made him roughly gross 145". I'm pretty sure he was a four year old. There were a decent amount of people tracks on some of the walking trails, probably out walking their dogs. I put my money on that somebody else already found the other side.

We also got hit by a "record" snowstorm on Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday so that pretty much shut down looking any more. We received around 20" of snow and had 45 mph winds.

They're Definately Dropping!

People have been talking that this year was an early drop for sheds. I've got 3 different mature bucks on camera with both sides off so far - before the 9th. Whitey was the first to drop (December 18th), then I figure Mr. 140 was next (pre-January 6th), and then Scabby 10 has dumped both sides (pre-January 9th). We're supposed to have -30 this weekend. I'm sure that will take care of the rest of the antlers. I put a camera back on the east side of John's farmyard and I'm glad I did. That's where both bucks have been coming in to scratch around the yard. The deer are still going back to last years' pile of sunflowers that were cleaned out of John's bins over a year ago. Yuck. That just tells you what the food situation is this year. Not good. The activity has slowed significantly on the east side in Rice's field. The beans are still number one, but there's been a little less activity out there. The deer are milling on grasses, goldenrod, and other browse. I'm sure they're into the cedars. My hunch is that they almost picked those beans clean. I'm sure there's antlers just south of the road on some private property. I'll call around the end of march to get permission. With the amount of snow we're getting, these sheds are going to be buried. There has been a lot more tracks through the cut from last winter NW of John's lately. My guess is that I'll need to spend some time back in the swamp on some trails before the ice melts (like last year). I really just want to find one antler over 60". That's like the hill I just can't see over the top of. I can't get past 60 at Minnesota Hill. It's possible. We know that for sure.

I've got plenty of pictures of timberwolves in the last 2 months.

December's End (Sit #28)

Well December Came and went - full of snow, and full of deer hitting the food HARD. I'm a little nervous that this winter could be a bad one for the deer. We've already got a foot of snow by January 1st and we're likely to get another foot before it starts to melt. I've tried to move some cameras around to get closer to the food sources, but I've been a week behind the movement it seems like. I'll get one week of good pictures and then it will die. The one camera that I have out right now is still on that bean field and I will likely pull it down here in a few days. The night of the 28th, I saw a really big buck in the headlights by the intersection west of the creek. I'm pretty sure it was Curly. I think he's coming from the west side of the highway. I just know he was wider than he was tall, which would suggest NOT Skysraper. At least I'm still putting 'pins' in the map. I may not find much for sheds this year if these deer keep hanging up on private land like this. I hope that a few make it to next year. I'll be in the same spot, with cameras set up a little differently. I know there will be beans up by the hill, around John's island, and throughout most of Rice's land north of Orville's mailbox. Should be sweet. Anway, so far I was able to connect with only a few of the bucks on the hitlist in December, but I've got three more cameras to take down yet. Mom & Dad got a picture of the buck I'm pretty sure is Mr. 140 in the shack field. Then there's another shed buck, The Contender, and Bullwinkle. Here's some new pics: