Cut some trees and feed some winter deer

Deer gather around fallen tree-tops to feed in the winter

Today was one of those days when another 10 degrees of upward temperature movement would have felt nice, but it was a grand and wonderful day with a lovely sunrise.

It also led to this question. Do deer like the tips of branches to eat? We are getting DISH High Definition so we can better view the playoffs with the Detroit Red Wings over the upcoming weeks.

We were told that six trees had to be toppled to clear a good line of sight for DHD television. Those six trees were toppled a week ago, and now three others need to come down to provide us with the perfect line of sight to the satellite.

Some mature trees had to go

The trees cut down last week already are attracting deer. I went out with the DHD guy as he pinpointed the exact trees to down, and there were deer tracks all around the tree-tops.

The ends of the branches have been nibbled, and some new tops will fall tomorrow or Saturday to add a wee bit more food as the snow melts.

Did I want to cut the trees? Not really. I could see the Red Wing games just fine, and it will be interesting to see how much better the game appears than with regular television.

I watch so little television, other than the Winged Wheels and the Tigers, that one could say I don’t watch it. I’d rather waste my vision reading a good book than watching what passes for good television. Most of it is not good at all, and too much of it is awful, and much of it borders or crosses the line on obscenity.

I refuse to insult my intelligence by watching most of the garbage and pap on television. Sure, some of the stuff on the National Geographic channel, the Discovery channel and a few other channels offer programming that suits me, but 99.9 percent of the stuff causes me to hit the “Off” button.

Much of television disgusts me and is insulting

Ah, but I digress. We were talking about deer feeding on tree-tops. We had 101 trees cut last December around my land, and the neighbor had quite a number cut as well. There are deer tracks around those tree-tops. Lots of fresh tracks.

The periodic thinning of mature trees, and their sale for fire wood or for saw logs, can provide some money. Certainly not enough to get fat and sassy on, but perhaps enough to pay the taxes.

Several people have asked to cut wood, and I’ve granted permission providing they place all the tops from each area into a pile at a place of my choosing. I want the piles placed in strategic locations where they will provide a certain amount of cover and food next winter.

There is nothing worse than walking (or trying to walk) through a recently cut wood lot, and every two or three steps it becomes necessary to extricate your feet from clinging branches of tree-tops. I much prefer they be piled up, and I don’t care if the pile is 10 feet tall.

The winter snow, and deer nibbling on the tips will cause them to slowly settle. It provides a nourishing source of food that comes as a direct byproduct of improving our forest.

We provide deer with winter browse in key locations

Briers, brambles, saplings and shrubs will spring up this year as a result of that opening in the woods, and this too will increase the bounty of new food for deer, rabbits, ruffed grouse and other critters.

Bunnies will eat on some of the smaller branches and use the brush piles as cover. Grouse do the same thing, and I’ve found spots where deer have bedded in the lee of a large brush pile and then pass their time in relative comfort.

My ideal spot for a brush pile is near a small roll in the ground. Most of our storms come from the west, northwest and north although southeast storms occur each winter. A bountiful brush pile on the west, northwest and north edges of a small roll in the ground, and another on the southeast side, will give some protection for winter-weary deer. The food is there, and some evidence I’ve found indicate that is exactly what the deer did last winter.

So, in some obscure way, DHD television will be instrumental in giving winter deer a spot to get out of the worst of the winter weather, and I think that is a grand use for our new technology.

And, I’ll bet you wondered how I’d end tonight’s blog.

Dumb mistakes that deer hunters make

Richey with a nice buck taken with a Thompson-Center Contender.

Over the years, I’ve seen people do some of the dumbest things while sitting in an elevated coop or a tree stand or while hunting from a ground blind. Most are funny but some could have been deadly.

The reason I write about some of these is there are always lessons that can be learned. Benefit now from these mistakes of other hunters.

One time I had a new hunter sitting in a ground blind. It had a sliding Plexiglas window in that coop, and when I dropped him off, I suggested he keep the window closed until a deer got close enough for a shot, and then silently slide it open, draw, aim and shoot.

It pays to remember and pay attention to advice.

He did some of it right and failed on other parts. He saw a small 8-point walking toward him, and he waited until the deer stopped, quartering-away at 12 yards, and he drew back and shot.

C-r-a-c-k! He’d forgotten to slide the Plexiglas window open, and shattered it. The buck obviously disappeared, and probably never walked past that blind again.

Another time, another guy was sitting in a ground blind with a sliding wooden window. He saw a buck and doe coming, and when the doe walked past the window, he waited for the buck to pass, and he shot. His arrow struck the sliding portion of the wood window frame, glanced off it, missed the buck entirely but the ricochet nailed the doe in the heart. It was a great trick shot, and a killing hit on the wrong deer.

Then there was a time when another hunter drew down on a doe, studied the animal as it walked in front of him and stopped. He held his draw until she started to turn, and he aimed for the heart and lung area. He made a great hit, but again, on the wrong deer.

A doe fawn, standing out of sight, darted in next to its mother, and saved her life. This mistake has often happened to several hunter friends, and it is the result of tunnel vision on the target animal and not watching to see what other nearby deer were doing. The venison was really tender, I heard.

Once, during the December bow season, a bow hunter was sitting in a pine tree near an alder run. He’d shot several bucks over the years from that tree, and sat out in hopes of seeing another one. The air temperature was about 10 above, and a strong north wind was blowing.

Toughing out a cold day with low wind-chill figures isn’t fun.

He toughed it out until shooting time ended. He lowered his bow to the ground, shrugged his shoulders several times to restore circulation, and rubbed his hands together. He’d lost most of the feeling in his hands and feet, and tried to get warm and limbered up before starting down.

He took the first two steps, and then one of his feet slipped on a snow-covered ladder step. He had three contact points — two hands and one foot  – but all were too cold to respond when his foot slipped. He knew he was going down, and pushed himself away from the tree and tumbled eight feet off tree limbs and into the snow. He wasn’t hurt from the fall but was a bit disoriented for a moment until he figured out what had happened. Anytime a hunter can walk away from a tree stand fall is indeed lucky.

Then there was the gent who felt nature calling. He looked around, didn’t see anyone, so he gave the tree trunk a good shower below him. That had been one of my best tree stands, and after he told me about his aerial spray job, I enjoyed it so much I let him hunt the same stand the next day. He never saw a deer but I doubt if the object lesson resonated with him.

Another time a hunter was in that same tree, and it was a cold day, and suddenly a nice buck appeared. He normally had a 60-pound draw weight, but had forgotten to crank it down a bit to compensate for the cold, still muscles and bulky clothing.

A buck came walking slowly by. Our hero started his draw, and the arrow fell off the rest. He was shooting with fingers at the time, and the extra effort to draw the weight when cold and over-dressed, caused him to roll the bow string. It flipped the arrow off the rest and it fell, tinkling, to the ground as the buck looked up at the sound.

The buck stared upward, and the hunter didn’t move, and eventually it went back to its business of checking an old scrape. He nocked another arrow, tried drawing on the buck again, and again the arrow rolled off the rest and tumbled off branches to the ground.

The tinkling arrows bouncing off tree limbs scared off this buck.

The hunter, sat and stared at the curious buck, but finally common sense apparently set in and the deer raced off through the snow as the hunter looked down at the red nocks standing upright in the snow.

I’ve had a ground blind with a low door-way. A sign tells people to watch their heads, but one person managed to smack his head going into the blind. And, to add insult to past injury, banged his head when he left. He no longer  sits in that stand.

Deer hunting is mighty serious business for most of us, but some of these things are a bit too funny to ignore. And it’s a wise and good-natured hunter who can laugh and benefit from his mistakes.

And to prove that I’m not immune to doing dumb things, it was me that banged his head twice on the door-way. It still makes my head hurt to think about it.

Bob Jennings: Book Review – My Mythical Adventures with Bird Dogs

MY MYTHICAL ADVENTURES WITH BIRD DOGS, by Bob Jennings.

Bob Jennings has this book available for $30 postpaid. Send payment to: 3302 N 190 W., Switz City, IN 47465. Or call, (812)798-0783.

This book is for any hunter who has owned bird dogs, and learned to love them like the author does.

The Dedication of this book states: This booklet is dedicated to all dogs that have passed on and made their way back into the hearts of their owners. I think this wonderful dedication will pertain to any dog lover.

This book, at 42 pages (twice the length of the first book) shares with readers the thoughs about three of his dogs. Anyone who has owned bird dogs, and raised them from pups to adults, can clearly find something in this book to jog their memory about pets they have owned in the past.

I read the book at one setting, and couldn’t put it down. The first of the three stories I read was one of the finest dog pieces I’ve ever read, and the entire book was a great read except for a few misspelled words.

I’m not going to go into great detail, but will keep this short. If you’ve got a good imagination, I strongly suggest you take my word for it, and buy this book. You’ll be reading some of the finest dog stories I’ve read in a very long time. This book is a spiral bound paperback with many drawings and photos.

Praise doesn’t come any higher than that. Happy reading.

Bob Jennings: Book Review – The Crossbred Fishes

THE CROSSBRED FISHES, by Bob Jennings. Available from Bob Jennings, 3302 N 190 W., Switz City, IN 47465; (812)798-0783. This book is $30 postpaid.

FOR MUSKIE (MUSKY) FISHERMEN – THE CROSSBRED FISHES

Muskie fishermen went through a 10-year revival of interest in these great fish, and in the past year, very few books have been published about them and how to fish for them.

Well, welcome to the latest muskie title. Or, if you’ve an active imagination like Bob Jenning has, you’re bound to be interested in Jennings’ new book. He has always been interested in the “what-if,” and he began wondering  what if a big muskie cross-bred with with a striped bass or rockfish. The what-ifs of the unlikely chance of crossbred fish, such as the RO-OX,, OX-RO or the STR-IKE seem unlikely.

However, Jennings wonders if such pairing could happen. Perhaps the RO-OX might come to be. It would be a crossbred fish. This near mythical fish comes from the merging of two words – ROckfish-esOX. This imaginary fish has the body of a striped bass and the head of a big muskie.

The OX-RO (esOX-ROckfish) has a muskie body but the head of a striped bass. The STR-IKE is a pike’s head and the body of a striped bass.

The author feels that he and some of his friends have hooked and lost each of these three crossbred fish while fishing some southern lakes where muskie, pike and stripers have been planted. Who knows, but the possibility could happen I suppose, and artist Ken Bucklew did the drawings in this book.

The Crossbred Fishes is a spiral bound paperback book with 21 pages, and unlike most books, it is printed only on the right-hand pages. This book was published in 2011, and is limited to only 100 copies. Anglers working to build a muskie-book collection would be smart to order  a copy from the above address. Such small print runs usually sell out quickly.

In the air or on the ground?

On the ground or in the air. Both work & it depends on you.

It’s an eternal question that is always being contemplated by bow hunters. Which is best: hunting on the ground or up in an elevated coop or tree stand.

An elevated coop or a tree stand wins me over every time. I like the increased visibility that hunting from a tree provides, and I’m not bothered by height except in a high wind. After many years of experience, my preference is for a stand at about 15 feet. Going higher can increase the chance of a fatal fall.

Many hunters prefer hunting from a cedar or pine tree, and if I have a choice, it’s one or the other for me. However, I often hunt from maple trees. There are a lot of maples on my property, and my first decision is where is the best stand location?

Personal preference plays a big role on how you bow hunt for deer.

If a cedar or pine offers the best spot to ambush a moving buck, that’s where I will hunt. However, if the key area to ambush a whitetail is from a maple tree, you’ll find me up one of them. Trees make little difference to me but location, as with real estate, is everything.

Some stands are permanent wood platforms and others are more confined. Some are ladder stands, and others are fixed-position stands that I reach by going up limbs or tree steps. It makes little difference to me: I go where the deer want to go.

It doesn’t take much room to shoot a deer from a tree providing the stand is properly positioned and downwind of the deer travel route. The trees on my land are there to provide possible stand locations, and although it’s not legal on state or federal land, I nail or use sturdy screws to hold my permanent tree stands in place.

I have a few places where a big stand isn’t feasible, and some of them are no more than two halves of a sheet of marine plywood painted gray or dark brown. A narrow platform just big enough to sit down on is nailed to the tree, the two side panels are nailed or screwed into place and a narrow piece of plywood serves as a roof. These stands are narrow at the end where people enter the stand and slightly wider where they will sit or stand to shoot.

Deer seldom pay attention to them, and they are very productive if the hunter can sit still. They are not made for a claustrophobic person, however.

All of my stands, at home and elsewhere that I hunt, are strategically placed, and some designs are unlike any I’ve seen before. Some stand outside in the rain and snow, and we check them two or three times each year to determine if they are still reliable and safe.

Any stand that is no longer safe is torn down. I’m not a risk-taker, and if I won’t hunt from a stand, no one else will hunt there. Such stands are quickly slated for demolition.

Take down any unsafe tree stand.

Hunting from a tree stand appeals to me. It’s possible to see deer come from many different routes, and it allows hunters to study the animals as they approach the area. Some deer dash right in, others come cautiously and slow, and a few wise old does and big bucks often try to slip in on the downwind side to check for potential danger.

Some hunters dislike shooting down at an angle toward a deer. It is a part of hunting that must be practiced, and years ago, I would get with someone else and take turns on the ground. One would position a target at varying distances and angles, and the person in the tree would shoot a dozen arrows. He would climb down and we would change jobs. Frequent practice at shooting from a tree stand makes handling these shots as routine as ground-level shots.

Tell your friends, neighbors and relatives about my weblog. I plan to do this for a long time, and am willing to share my knowledge of what works and why it works for me. Do them a favor and give them my weblog address.

I’m a realist. Ground blind hunting can be very productive, especially in places where almost everyone hunts from a tree. I’ve preached the use of safety harnesses when hunting from an elevated position, but there are still people who feel wearing a “sissy” harness isn’t for them. A doctor friend of my buddy learned a sad lesson this fall he fell and broke both legs, and was very luck it wasn’t his back or neck.

Let’s face it: some people are NOT meant to hunt from high places.

For such people, it’s my personal recommendation to hunt from a ground blind. Believe me, I’ve been in and out of ground blinds and pit blinds all of my life, and have yet to see anyone get busted up by falling out of a ground blind.

Use the same logic when choosing a ground blind location. The proper spot is everything, and it must be downwind of where deer travel. It’s possible to make a ground blind almost air-tight by installing slide-open windows. The glass can be covered with camo cloth or painted to eliminate the shine, and a motionless hunter is nearly impossible to see when sitting in a darkened hunting coop with the walls painted dark brown or black.

I favor ground blinds in windy weather or when it is cold, rainy or snowing. Properly positioned, a ground blind can blend in with root-wads of fallen trees, against a backdrop of standing corn or in an oak forest.

Everyone has their own likes or dislikes. Whether you hunt from a tree or from the ground, just remember to have the wind in your face, don’t move until its time to shoot, and when you shoot, shoot once and shoot straight. And don’t miss.