December 2007 page 9 Updates

17 December

Hard Weather

Hi Gents,
Tell Jerry thanks for letting me know that the property I was hoping to get had opened up for the weekend. The ice storm Saturday was horrible. The county highways in [location deleted] looked like glass. I had to take all dirt roads instead. I was able to get a ground blind set up in the freezing rain, but the mesh windows quickly iced over, and I couldn't see out of any of them. The wind blew hard, and trees were breaking and falling all over the place. I was glad I didn't set up the blind under any of them. This was probably the first opening day that I never heard a single gun shot...not a one. My wife was very upset that I went hunting when she heard a jet slid off the runway up here and shut down the airport for six hours. Oh well...

Anyhow, today's weather was a little better, but it was cold and extremely windy. It dipped into the 20's, and the wind was a constant 20mph with the occasional 40-50mph gust. It was rough, but despite the wind, the buck in the attached picture crept by me at dark-thirty. It took me almost two hours to get the cart and pull him back to the truck. Fortunately, that farm has an old machine shed near the field entrance where I could hide from the stinging wind and perform a "headlight field dressing". Sorry I don't have a well-composed field pictures...it was just too dang cold!

Thanks...and give Jerry a raise, :) [name deleted]

Thank you for the great description about the weather conditions to show well the range that can be expected. Not too many hunt videos out there under such adverse weather. Congratulations and thanks for the story.

Land Feedback

We are getting a good amount of feedback for the keep/delete land list. Keep it all coming as neither Jon or John can get to all leases throughout the season when a bulldozer or cattle show up.

To answer some general questions reference land.

Winter bulldozer activity is conducted mostly along drainages when the frozen ground allows track movement on typically warm weather soft, wet soil.

A lease signed with a landowner that does not run cattle is a concern when that non-cattle owning lease holder rents out his land to a neighbor for grazing.

Any one farm may be retained in spite of more than one vote to delete as it may be part of a larger set of acreage of good value.

We need complete land identification of county, state (remember that the same county name occurs in more than one state), unit and farm number.

A lease with first year CRP will not appeal to anyone.

Our best hunts are within the agricultural region of row crop land use. Wildlife thrives where there is food. In this part of the country that means row crop occupies 45 - 55% of the total land structure. For every 1,000 acres the most that can be realistically expected to have in wildlife cover is 500 acres. Of that 500 acres not all of it will be deer, turkey, upland, waterfowl habitat.

We are interested in localities where MAHA signs are not posted on the corners.

Cutoff of contributions to the keep/delete list is February.

14 December

Living Life

Just got back from my 5 day [location deleted] Safari. I call it a safari because I have the opportunity to hunt two different species of deer (mule and whitetail), three different species of upland birds (pheasant, quail, and prairie chicken), various species of duck and goose as well as two different species of rabbit, not to mention the coyote hunting, all in the same township, in the same county. Normally I just hunt deer, pheasant and quail. This year I harvested two deer, 7 pheasants and a quail. Attached are a couple of pictures of my best day. I harvested an old brawler on the second morning of the season with a mile spot and stock coming within 30 yards of the old bruiser. In most deer pictures that I am in, there is a little deer shrinkage because I am a rather large guy. When looking at this buck, remember that I am 6’4” and weigh about 250 lbs. He had 9 of his 12 points broken off but did not have any scars which would mean to me he must have been the dominant buck in the area. After I took this buck to the locker to donate the meat to Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry (FHFH), I went back and harvested three roosters and a quail in a late afternoon hunt. The next day, I bird hunted in the morning and harvested two roosters, and harvested an anterless deer for FHFH in the afternoon. Quite a busy two days of hunting. Most of the balance of the time I took some pictures; I will send you a link in which you can see a sequence of photos that show two nice bucks chasing a doe.
Take care, [name deleted]

For the rest of us this hunter's pictures we have seen many times over the last several years showing us all how he is after the hunt and not the tag or bag. An especially good person to work with. Thank you for your consistency at supporting your Association. We certainly appreciate your having taken the time and effort to harvest a doe as much as all else.

13 December

Deer Hunting Team

Hi John,

It took me a while but here are some photos of my wife Becca's first MAHA deer and first [location deleted] buck. We hunted hard for 3 1/2 days and didn't see what we had hoped. On the last evening of the hunt Becca took this 2 year old, I think I was more excited for her than she was. The second weekend of season I went down to [location deleted] to a farm that I had never hunted before. I saw a few deer but still nothing of any size, the one I killed was a 2 year old.

[name deleted]

Lucky man that has a wife that hunts! Congratulations. Thank you.

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