Last year, Jeff, as well as a few other family members, leased hunting property in Calhoun Co.  I wasn’t really interested at the time, especially since I can hunt a few other properties for free – but, since they were down one person this year – he moved to Hawaii – I decided to drop the few hundred bucks and join them on the lease this year.

Friday night I headed to Menards, picked up a nice little 15ft stand, and on Saturday morning we headed over to the property in order to get the stand put up, as well as to show me the property lines, etc.

I was not disappointed.

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This time of year is always one of my favorites, simply because it’s the time of year when many “new” animals are running around.  You are bound to run across some type of new offspring this time of year -  baby ducks, goslings, turkey poults, and, of course, little guys/gals like this one that Justin ran across a week or so ago.

While mowing his grandma’s lawn, he noticed an adult doe lurking in the nearby hayfield – and a little walk through that hayfield led to the fawn’s discovery.  Justin took a few pictures, left the fawn alone – as you should do with any wild animal you come across – and walked away.

As we made his way back to his lawn mowing duties, he noticed the adult doe return to where the fawn was, and proceed to bed down with it.

I’ve never run across a fawn before, so I thought this experience was pretty cool.

I hope everyone enjoys the picture.

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Need a Friday treat?  Then click on the picture to the right and watch Jeff, Matt, and Matt’s son, Brandon, as they plant some switchgrass on Jeff’s property.  Jeff is hoping that the switchgrass provides a nice little sanctuary for a few big bucks this summer, and especially this fall.

And, in that spirit, Brandon decides to shed some light on what exactly the deer do in the tall grass; one of his reasons is a stroke of genius.

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If  you’ve ever spent any time on any type of hunting forum, or even if you’ve sat around a campfire listening to hunting stories, I’m sure the subject of wind, and the effects it has on deer, has come up a few times.  This subject is actually quite controversial sometimes as well, and why that is I’m not sure, but the opinions really tend to vary on how the Whitetail handles high wind situations.

I think the overall consensus among hunters is that high winds will limit the amount of time that deer are on the move.  High winds tend to hurt the Whitetail’s ability to detect movement, and also effect his sense of smell, so it seems obvious that in high wind situations the Whitetail would tend to limit the amount of time they’re  the move……..you would think.

Other people have the opinion that high winds will actually make some Whitetails nervous, and because of that, it makes them move in order to detect danger more easily.  They have the opinion that deer will get nervous sitting in one spot during high winds, and get up in order to ease their anxieties a little bit.

Normally I don’t even pay attention to either side of this particular issue.  Unless the winds are dangerous – in the 30 plus mph range and I feel unsafe in a treestand – I still hunt regardless of wind conditions.  In the beginning I relied to heavily on the opinion that deer didn’t move in high wind and got burnt – I went home on two different windy days, Jeff went hunting, and he came home with a deer.

Also, I think that the timing of the wind plays a big part as well.  If you’ve been experiencing 30 plus mph. winds for two days, and today they’re down into the 25mph range, it’s probably a good idea to be in the woods.  Any break in the wind at that point is more than likely going to trigger deer movement.  Deer have to move in order to survive, so at some point they will be on the move again……….and sitting at home, regardless of weather conditions, is never going to end in a successful hunt.

It has been windy here for the last couple of days, but even though those winds are continuing today, I will still be heading out this evening.  After 5pm the winds are suppose to subside a little, and you can bet that I will be in a treestand waiting for an unsuspecting buck to come strolling by. After all, he’s probably been bedded up a good portion of the last few days, and will be anxious to find some food.  What time is better than now to catch him off guard?

Bottom line:  If you can hunt safely in windy conditions, do it.  You can never shoot a deer from the couch.

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I am not a farmer; and anyone who knows me knows that to be true.  I couldn’t keep a green thing alive for any length of time if my life depended on it.  Heck, most of the time I would forget that I even owned any plants, and would never water them.  My wife can attest to that since she always left plants in my apartment when she was still in college; the only time they ever got watered was when she did it.  So, after sharing that, all of you know that I am not a plant expert and I’m definitely not a farming expert.

I thought I knew one thing, though:  that farmer’s normally rotate crops.   Usually if the field is planted with beans one year, then the next year it will be planted with corn.  And if the field is planted with corn this year, then more than likely it will be planted with beans the next year.  I thought that was the rule.  Apparently I was wrong, though.

After Jeff and I got done checking on our treestands the other night, we drove around the backside of the property to see what crop was planted this year…….and it was beans….for the third year in a row.  I thought that was odd since I knew some of the benefits to crop rotation – improved soil structure, improved soil fertility, pest control – but the evidence was right there in front of us that not all farmers believe in crop rotation.

With my interest peeked I started to check around to try and figure out what the reasons were behind this farmer’s decision.  Apparently, monoculture – the process of planting the same crop in the same place over an over – does have some advantages according to Encyclopedia Britannica:

First, if different kinds of soil exist on the farm, a monoculture system may permit each crop to be grown on the soil best suited to it. Forage crops, for example, could be confined to steep land to minimize erosion; intertilled crops could be planted on the better soils with gentle slopes. Wet areas could be used continuously for crops not requiring early-spring field operations, while dry soils could be used for drought-resistant crops such as sorghums or winter small grains.

Second, the fertility level of the soil can be adjusted to fit one crop more precisely than it can be adjusted to fit all the crops in a rotation.

Third, where continuous cropping is practiced and perennial forage crops are used, regular reseedings are avoided. This is an advantage, because each seeding is accompanied by the possibility of failure.

Fourth, systems based on monoculture usually offer greater flexibility in planning the system to meet year to year changes in the need for various crops. Part of the acreage can be shifted from one crop to another without upsetting the total farm cropping plan.

Whatever the reasoning behind the farmer planting beans three years in a row, Jeff isn’t very happy about it.  I don’t think it will affect the deer movement in our area much, but it would be nice to see a different crop in that field next year; it would be interesting to see if having corn planted there really affected the deer movement patterns at all.

This year we just have to get used to the beans…..again…..and move on with our lives.  And my light research into the subject at least proves that the farmer knows more than Jeff or I ever could about his own land.

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