eckermanmichigan.com Blog

   I spoke with Doug yesterday and he saw another pair of bucks walking across a field he’ll be covering on opening day. The wind was in a direction that didn’t cross his scent with the deers’ noses and was able to observe them until they moved into a tree line not far from my blind. He said it was a spikehorn and a 3 point, making them the 12th and 13th males that he’s observed since the start of this program. Of the 13, he’s seen 8 repeatedly, and the 10 point frequently. The trails leading into the crop area have widend and the bai….er, ah, test plot is taking on the look of a war zone. Doug is spreading the material over a much larger area and forcing the corn down into the soil. We’ve begun to soak the corn in Ca’mere Deer for at least 24 hours before applying, and it’s showing positive results. Given enough time and spreading techniques, we could have another acre plowed up before planting time in the spring.

   The test plot in Mark’s area is exhibiting the same results and with evidence of stump removal by the deer’s actions. Doug noted that there is a red squirrel that has taken the responsibility upon itself to protect that pile with his life. He said that this little critter may set a new record for both mass and transfer abilities, and at a future point, may have to be taken out of the study. (We’ll form a committee and make a recommendation or two, weighing out the factors of corn used vs. meat consumed, and then pass the decision on to the “Kill the Squirrel” committee. We’re all very politicaly correct and I’m sure Becky will be involved in it’s defense, for all you tree huggers, so fear not. It’ll be a fair trial before it’s execution)

   One week from today I’m hoping to be making a very colorful and action packed entry under the heading: “Habitational Observation, Reaping what we’ve sowed”. I’d thought about “Reaping the Rape” but I want to save that one for when I go porn.

Mark and I went out to Doug’s yesterday and sighted our rifles in. Doug shot first and put two in the black and the third close by, Mark’s took him 5 rounds to adjust the cross hairs to black, and it took me 7, or 8. The scope wasn’t mounted correctly it turns out, so he’s going to have a ‘one shot, one kill’ deer season. If we had it adjusted now, he’d have to re-sight it in, and that ain’t gonna happen. It helps to know you only have one shot. Mine was the worst, by far. If I’d shot at a bear last year with that rifle, it’d still be laughing at me. It could be the method I’d used to sight it in, or maybe it’s taken a hit, I don’t know, all I know is it’s fixed.

   We’d kept the amount of ammunition we’d used to an absolute minimum so we wouldn’t spook the deer and that turned out to be a waste of time. After we’d finished, we took some material up to Mark’s test plot to make an application when we spooked two bucks. As we drove into the area, I first saw a male with 4 or 6 points break off to our left, but when the sun glinted off the 10 point, my attention was diverted. He broke off to our right and down a grade that leads to my blind…er, observation post. Doug had been telling me of seeing this thing, but Doug tells me a lot of things, and sometimes, you know…. Anyway, we all saw it. This thing looked like one of those covers off Sports Afield. His head looked like a basket sitting atop 200# of venison. I turned around to ask Mark if he saw it, but it was quite obvious he had. That kid knows how to kill things.

   On a lighter note, I snap-trapped my first red squirrel this morning. Yesterday, I had screwed a nice rat trap to the maple outside my window here and loaded it up with peanut butter. I’d heard it snap yesterday but when I looked there wasn’t anything in it. The action of the wind through the tree set it off, but this time there was a critter attached. I put it’s tail with the collection I have for Butch’s fly tying and the carcass in a garbage bag I have hanging from the cloths line. I’ll let ya’ll know how I do. Oh, and does anyone know if I need a “Trapping” license?

   Yesterday afternoon, Mark got his ‘94 back from Valley Guns ( www.valleygunsllc.com ) and it came out looking pretty good! We were going to sight it in today but we’re going to do it tomorrow instead. We were able however, to load our Habitat Observation Platforms so we’re good to go. We took out lawn chairs and the cushions for them, two, two burner stoves, and an afghan. If it gets cold enough where the afghans don’t do it, the stoves will. We started up at Mark’s and then down below at mine.

I took some pictures while I was out there and I’ll discribe what each are, first.

The first was taken from infront of Mark’s blind, looking directly at the test plot, 60 yards distant.

 

The next two are from inside my post.

 

The next three I took outside my post with Jarrett looking out. The second picture was taken 20′ from the blind and the third, 80′.

 

 

The next two are of a scrape and a rub we saw. The scrape is in a small stand of pine, about 5′ away from the main runway. The stand of pine runs adjacent to the Chickory plot. The rub was on the same runway, about 250′ down the line from the Rape plot. This runway splits off with one leading across the creek and the other behind me a ways. If I were to position my blind to cover both runways, I’d be shooting towards the house, and that ain’t gonna happen.

 

The last two were taken at the lower test plot which is just off that same runway, next to the Rape plot.

   Mark and I went out to Doug’s today to pick up Annie, and take a look around to see how things are going. Turn’s out they’re going right to the ground; the tree leaves, the rest of the rape and a lot of the chickory, and the bai…ah, the material. Mark volunteered to use a back-pack blower to remove all the leaves that have fallen over the last three days. The last time we were out there, none of the leaves had fallen and the rye was growing well on all the trails, and today the leaves were 5″ deep. If left alone, it would have smothered all the grass’s and would have made a racket when walked on. Doug had made another application to the test plot last night and most of it was still there. Mark had said earlier when he checked on the lower test plot, that all the material was gone, and they were starting to make a hole.

   While Mark was doing that, Doug and I took a walk looking for rubs and scrapes, finding neither. We could see in the leaves where a few animals had passed through, but all the runways were covered. We did see one branch than had been snapped ragged and Doug’ll be back to check that area again in a couple days to see if that’s a scrape location. We talked about moving my Habitat Observation Post because there was evidence of the runway developing within 4′ of the blind, and I’d rather be farther away than that. He also spoke of the flights of Heron’s he saw, gaining altitude right over his house, last night.

   He said there were three different flights, the first at least 50 birds, and the other two closer to 30, came in just over the tops of his trees. Evidently there was a lift that comes up off his ridge that took the birds several hundred feet, straight up. Once they reached a point where they were just dot’s in the sky, they headed off towards Traverse City.

   We also talked about planting sugar beats in an acre plot he’s got across the street, for next spring. I don’t know why they wouldn’t grow around here, potato’s grow like weeds in this soil. Not far from here, near Alba, there’s hundreds of acres of potato’s growing, so it’s a possibility.

   I’m still working on Eckerman 8, and I should have it done in a week or so guys. Honest.

   Mark and I went out to Doug’s yesterday and set up my Observation Platform. It’s situated under three spruce trees which overlooks a clearing adjacent to a creek. We’ve installed a bai….er test plot, for future studies of C’mere deer! and other nutritional augmentations. Since it’s going to be a very nice day, the chances of our test plots being raided by unauthorized fauna is pretty high and that has to be dealt with, with extreme prejudice.

   While we were there, we took a walk in the surrounding area looking for scrapes and rubs without any postitive results. Doug seems to think (read; hope) that the rut doesn’t start for another two weeks yet. I live in a location a little North of the 45th parallel and would very much like to hear if anyone else has seen any activity along those lines. Just click on the comment’s line below what I’ve written here and it’ll show up. Thanks in advance for any help you could contribute.

   I had talked to Doug yesterday about our problem discussed on my 10 October blog entry and today I decided to do something about it. At the bottom of that entry, I talked about the problems we were having with undesirable pilferage of our bai….er, test plots. It turns out that we were right! Those dasterdly little black bastards were indeed consuming material that were meant for our bambi friends. I sat in Mark’s observation platform taking notes when one of these ugly little creatures showed his black assed face so I did what any steward would do. From a range of 60 yards with 20mph winds, I placed one .22 caliber pesticide pellet into and out of, it’s brain case and thereby removing the villan. It won’t be wasted, most of it will be consumed and it’s rear most appendage will be used to catch dinner, in the spring when the creeks once again are open for fishing.

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   Mark and I set up his Habitat Observation Post yesterday and it worked out better than I’d planned. I called out there just before I left and I wasn’t suprised when no one answered, so I planned accordingly. We would take our pruners with us to clear as much undergrowth as we could, and move enough wood aside to set up his blin…post. I’d bought some bai…er, material but we’d leave it in the truck, and just carry the H.O.P. up. When we arrived, Doug was just pulling out of his garage with the mule, he was going to do some log cutting, so we loaded everything up. We were able to get a couple small trees removed, all the logs that were in the way, and the unit set up and staked down. The test plot was empty of all materials, and there hasn’t been any stump eating behavior’s demonstrated by the deer. We added some nice tubers to their diet as well as a ration of maize, but didn’t add any Ca’mere Deer!. One other thing we did this time, was to rake clean a 10′ circle around the stump to check for footprints. We should be able to discern which species is visiting the test plot, and their numbers. While standing at the test plot I looked towards the O.P. and was pleased to see how well it blended in to the surrounding area. Mark’s going to have a very exciting observation season. After finishing up with that, we headed down to the lower area.

   The poison ivy has finally died off enough for us to get to my O.P., and I like mine even better than Marks. Doug had located a small group of spruce, about 30′ tall and spaced 6 to 10′ apart. The H.O.P. will be placed within that grouping with the tree’s bough’s acting as both a screen and wind protection. It’ll face an open area, 60′ wide by 100′ long with a stream running 50′ in front of me, left to right. There is a small wooded area beyond that, and an open field behind. The test plot will be moved closer to my position, but not placed directly in front, it’ll be off to my right but within sight. Most of the traffic will be from my left and directly in front, walking in from across the field. Doug’s post will be far off to my right and he’ll be covering that field the first three days, and then to another position near the crops.

   The test plot was devoid of most materials, so we added our combination of materials to the plot, but didn’t add any Ca’mere Deer!. We suspect that it’s the partridge that’s eating up the maize as we saw one stairing at us and another flew off. We might have to post a guard on that location to allieviate the problem.

   As a matter of fact, Mark and I are going to do that today…

 

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Mark, Doug and I started two bait piles on his property today to see how good the product, Ca’mere deer works. He’s seen some photo’s of tree trunks ground down to pulp, and holes dug in trails that are feet deep, that this stuff was the cause of. We picked two locations where we could visually observe how well this product functions. One of the Observation Locations (OL) is up on a newly logged area and the product was sprayed on the corn after we spread it out over a fairly large area, about 60 yards away. Mark is going to be the prime researcher for that area, and Doug and I will cover, er, observe tandemly, the other. Mark’s responsibility will be to see how much they consume in various time frames, and whether they have 8 point’s or 10.

We mixed it 50/50 by volume but it can be used at 25/75. We mixed it in a Windex spray bottle with the squeeze handle to deliver the droplets. We figured instead of pouring this stuff in, we might be able to spray it on and get more for the money spent.

Doug and I will be doing our research on the lower section of his property and we’re at opposite ends. Neither one of us will be in direct vision of the product, but our research isn’t in the consumption of it, but rather how and where they travel to get to it. We may, at some future date, have to erect “Deer Crossing” signs and we need to know exactly where to put it.

The same amount of material was used for each, but the lower Observation post has some extra material spread on a downed tree adjacent, but not attached to, the bait pile, er…the material. It said on the container that it could be used for that explicit reason, to get rid of Stumps! Works on corn cobs too, the deer just tear that crap to shreds. I’ve taken photo’s of all operations and it’ll be included in the final report.

   Doug came up with an interesting idea to anyone who’s using food plots. We’re going to fence off different areas of our crops, most about 8×8 feet with chicken wire. Now that we’ve had enough rain, everything’s going to be growing again and the challenge is going to be keeping it from all getting eaten. Should the unprotected areas come under heavy use, we can move the fencing, keeping them coming in, and recovering what’s in trouble.