We caught some POACHERS!

This is what happens when people try to poach on our property and we catch them. Alex and a friend were duck hunting in the rainy weather when they noticed a couple of people walking out into the woods, after a few quick calls it was confirmed that it was not anyone that should be in our woods. They tracked them down and found one of the them sitting in Mitch's treestand, the other person took off running and was picked up on Tyler St. They had parked by a neighboring business where a bloody arrow was found in the back of their truck. With a little convincing from Alex and Brian they confessed to shooting a 8 point buck on Monday or Tuesday. Ivan Perez was called and they had their gear confiscated, licenses taken away, buck horns and meat will be confiscated and both will face some pretty serious fines and probably lose their hunting rights for some time. Here is their picture, one of them is from Zeeland he graduated a year before I did. The other guy is from Hudsonville, I did not get his name, he is the one that shot the buck and was sitting in the treestand. These guys are either really brave, really stupid or both, they had to cross a brand new fence that was finished in the last couple of weeks to get into the property.

Mr. Turkey

Gary shot a nice turkey on Monday morning, about a 8" beard. I heard it was Gary's first "wild" turkey that he has ever killed. Nice job Gary.

BBD on Opening Day!

Eric and I decided to try and cover some area on the big field and see if we could get lucky and catch a buck sneeking onto the field before they get pressured. This one came out early but we were winded by some does in the center of the field and they all ran back into the swamp. 45 minutes later he came out again and Eric made a good 30 yard shot as he was sneaking through the grass. We tracked him for quite a ways into the swamp and ended up finding him floating in the creek. Heavy 8 point, 19 1/4" wide, 10" G2's and 8" G3's. Gross score is 146.5 inches.

The Licking Branch

While it is a couple weeks early to start scraping activity with the big boys, the young bucks are trying to get a head start on some early does. I have seen several scrapes starting to get active in the last week or two. Here a young buck is working the branches above the scrape leaving his scent and checking who else has been there. I haven't done a lot of video with the motion cameras but I think it is pretty cool to see them like this.

Youth Hunt Success

HERE IS A PICTURE OF BRIANAS BUCK SHOT LAST NIGHT ON THE EAST END OF THE BIG FIELD ON THE CLOVER FIELD (THANKS UNCLE MERLE FOR LETTING US USE YOUR BLIND) 11 POINT, DRESSED OUT AT 170 POUNDS SHOT AT 7:25 PM THANKS STEVE FOR THE PICTURE.  Brian

More Bucks

Looks like this one is still in velvet. Maybe he is a late bloomer or it is possible that some bucks never lose their velvet.

This looks like a really young buck but he is showing some great potential, he is starting to develop some really interesting character in his head gear.

September Rain

How many deer are too many deer? These are a couple different pictures of the browsing pressure that our property is under during the summer months when there is the most amount of forage available for consumption. The recent rain has sure helped everything green up and germinate.

Need a lawnmower, this is off the "Big Field" where we have about 25 acres of food planted, there was probably about 6 inhes of growth inside the fence. We have about 4 acres of clover, 5 acres of clover/chicory mix, 5 acres of sorghum, 5 acres of beans/turnips and 5 acres of turnips. we tryed planting some corn as a screen around the edges of the field and a strip down the middle but it obviously didnt work out. You can see what is left of the few protected stalks that the deer haven't devoured. On another note the turnips are coming up really well, even in the area we planted in the beans because they were getting eaten down so hard.

It isnt always the obvious that gets noticed, looking at these young maple trees you would think they were intended to grow without leaves near the ground.  But that is not the case, that is a typical browse line in an over populated forest that can not support that number of current wildlife calling it home.  This winter we will need to go through and hinge cut these trees to get the forage near the ground.

I havent had cameras out this early in September before, it sure is fun getting pictures of these bucks coming out of velvet. Supposedly they eat the stuff and it is thought to be high in nutrients.

This buck looks decent with good brow tines but his G2 & 3's are a little lacking. His body is starting to fill out and look muscular which is a good sign. Hopefully we will get another angle of him to see how wide he is.

This buck is also decent but could use another year or two of growing to reach maturity.  

Warm Season Success - We Love Grass

These are pictures of some of the better areas of WSNG that came in. This is a 2 year old planting just to the south of the Grainery. The grass averages about head height to a foot or two over my head. That equates to about 6-8 feet of new cover in less than 2 years time with 2 summers of minimal rainfall and extremely sandy soils where most other plants would struggle to survive.



What we had before was your typical pasture/brome grass that would be about 2 feet high. This type of grass is not a tough grass and gets easily flattend by the first early snowfall. Our new grass should hold up well to snow and provide tremendous cover for deer, turkeys and all other types of wildlife.



It is hard to show height and thickness of the grass, I strongly recommend taking a walk through it sometime and experience it four yourself. There are a good number of wildflowers coming up and 4 types of grasses that we planted.



This is a picture of a 4-wheeler from about 20 yds. away when i am slightly crouched down. You can easily see how something can hide in this grass and let a predator pass within yards without being seen.

And the Velvet comes off!

Looks like the summer groups will be breaking up pretty soon, the velvet is off this buck already. That means October is not far away and the testosterone is going to start building.

September heat - when will it rain.....

Looks like a decent 7 point, once the velvet comes off he will probably be pretty thin, another year will look good on him.



We finally have some beans in Iowa that are turning out good. While some of the new food plots will need some more work I think this is going to provide some excellent late season food once all of the crops come down around our farm.

Bucks

Velvet City

Growing Pains

Hunting season is just around the corner and head gear is starting to take shape as we push into August. Send me pictures and I will get them posted.

Wierd Beard

Alex and friend shot this turkey on the last day of the spring season this year. The beard discoloration is supposedly caused by a malnutrition or high stress period of time. Possibly from this winter when we had bad weather and a lot of ice on the ground.

Shed Hunting

These are some pictures of sheds we found in Iowa a couple of weekends ago. The first one measured about a mid 150's class buck, hopefully he will put on 20 more inches this year. This is getting me to think about hunting season which is only 6 months away.




One of our friends down there also found some nice sheds and shot a good buck with his bow.




A farm down the road had a good year as well taking this nice buck. They also found the sheds off the 12 point in the motion picture.