Dragonmaster's Blog

And that is what it has been. I had high hopes of finding some sheds even with our deer numbers being as low as they are. Insted I found dead deer. I found 11 and my little brother has found 6. So far it's 15 button bucks one adult buck and one small doe and two adult does. On the two adult does one was a road kill the outher was shot in late season. All the rest died of starvation. Worst part is I know there a lot more out there. I haven't even covered 1/4 of the public ground yet that hold the only food plots for miles around. And all of our deer winter yards are on private ground and the deer are walking a mile+ just to go from the yard to food, so God only knows how many dead deer are in the yards.

We have lost two big winter yards this last season due to development. I belive that one of the winter yards that is being hit hard by starvation is due to the loss of one of the yards. And with the deer population double in that yard and with them haveing to walk about a mile up and down hills and in deep snow put a lot of stress on them. And what little corn that was left in the food plot was eaten long ago. I have been looking for sheds in 5 spots so far,and have six more spots to go, and out of the 5, 3 corn fields have been picked bare. One I looked at today was striped bare and at first I thought I was seeing a lot of rubs on small trees but on a better look. I could see that the bark had been stripped off by the deer. No sheds today but the best part was I didn't find any dead deer on this ground (yet).

Iam not sure what the policy is on food plots. But I do plan on finding out. I know that farmers plant so much and then take a % off and leave the rest till spring. For myself I would like to see that changed. Plant it and leave it all winter, and take it off in spring. Our hay fields are mostly grass. When by all rights they should be planted with high quality alfalfa and red and white clover. The farmer can take most of it but leave a few round bales so the DNR can go out and break them apart later in the winter. Why can't we plant winter peas, winter wheat, pinfold kale, sorghum, winter rye, turnips, dwarf exess rape and so on. I know that it will coast some big bucks, but there is a cickadee check off on your tax return, why not a deer check off to pay for seed. Like I say, I don't know what the policy is but Iam going to find out. I would like to change it and am going to do my best to make it so.