Growing up, late January to the middle of March was my least favorite time of year. Deer season was closed, turkey season wouldn’t open for a few months, and it was cold. For a teenage boy who loved to be outdoors, it was a boring time of year. As time has gone on, I’ve discovered new things to help get through this time of the year, and it can be almost as exciting as chasing deer in the fall!
Grant and Adam enjoying a successful hog hunt in southern Florida.
Throughout America there is a growing population of feral hogs. These highly invasive animals are causing much damage. Eating crops/food plots, turning over soil, and even predating on some prey species, these reproductive maniacs are moving in on native wildlife. As wildlife managers it’s important to do our part to help balance all aspects of creation. We talk a lot about balancing buck to doe ratios and balancing predator prey relationships; it’s also important to control invasive species like feral hogs.
Hunting feral hogs is a blast! Feral hogs are very smart and have an incredible sense of smell. Hunting feral hogs will sharpen your hunting skills. Plus, they provide some excellent meat for the table. Hunting is not an effective way to decrease the population. Many landowners will need to resort to trapping, but hunting can remove several animals while you get to enjoy a great hunting experience.
Grant and I have had a lot of fun chasing feral hogs over the last couple of years, but we recently had one of our best hunts in southern Florida! Stay tuned for upcoming episodes of GrowingDeer.tv to watch it all unfold.
The GrowingDeer Team is excited because we are blessed to begin our turkey season March 7th. Flatwood Natives has graciously invited us to kick off our season chasing birds with them in Florida. As the first hunt approaches, we are not only preparing for Florida, we are also preparing for Missouri’s opener on April 20th. No matter when your season starts, you can start preparing now.
It takes the right combination of habitat, food, and calling for a great hunt.
You may have watched the recent unboxing video of Adam opening our new turkey calls from Hooks Custom Calls. We were excited to find several different diaphragm, slate, and locater calls. We have been using these cold winter days to get to know each call. By practicing our calling now and becoming familiar with our new hunting tools, we will be well prepared for turkey season. As turkey hunters/wildlife managers, we know it takes a great call AND quality habitat to get a long beard within range.
We recently burned several hardwood slopesthat have established clover plots on the ridge tops above. We are excited! Burning is a known management tool for turkey, especially in the early spring, and can create great hunting opportunities.
By clearing the forest floor we have improved the property’s nesting habitat. As native forbs and grasses grow over the next few weeks, the burned area will become an ideal place for hens to lay their clutches, or eggs. Insects will also find the tender, new growth. The concentration of insects along with the ease which turkeys can now find them is a great food source. Ideal habitat, with an added source of food, close to a known strutting location can lead to great hunting later this spring.
Turkey season won’t get here soon enough! But we can use this time to improve habitat and practice our calling. If you do, you will be ready when toms leave the roost and hit the ground opening morning.
February can be a very slow time of year for hunters, but not for us! There are plenty of things every wildlife manager can do during this time of year to improve the habitat at their property! One project that we’ve been practicing lately is prescribed fires!
Always be careful when using prescribed fire because you can cause serious damage to trees.
There are areas on The Proving Grounds that we haven’t been able to successfully burn over the years due to slope, shade, moisture, etc. Typically these areas are on the eastern or northern slopes where during the summer the leaves on the trees shade out the forest floor and the leaves are usually still too damp to burn. During this time of year we can reach low humidity levels; when timed with dry conditions and no leaves on the trees, we can burn areas that haven’t seen fire in several years. Burning areas like these will remove most of the leaf litter and decrease the amount of ticks in this area. This happens when the tick habitat (leaf litter) is removed during the fire.
It’s a great time of year for prescribed fires on your property! Don’t let the dog days of winter get you down, get out and improve your habitat!
Daydreaming of long beards and long spurs,
Adam
Warning: This blog contains information about prescribed fire which is a management tool for trained professionals using the appropriate tools for the situation.
Are you looking for a special meal to prepare for your special deer hunter this weekend? Show that hunter some real love with this recipe for grilled bacon wrapped loin. (Some folks would call it “back strap.”) It’s one that our family saves for those special occasions! So, take a nice, big loin from the freezer, let it thaw overnight, and create this dish your hunter is sure to love!
We make this amazing bacon wrapped venison loin for special occasions.
1 large venison loin/back strap, butterflied down the middle and seasoned with pepper and garlic salt
1 package of bacon (approx. 2 slices of bacon per 1 ½ inches of loin)
Tooth picks
8 oz. bar of cream cheese
4 oz. can of chopped green chilies (or if you like it spicy: 1/3 lb jalapenos cleaned, chopped and diced)
1 tsp. chili powder
Heavy duty aluminum foil
Instructions:
Mix together the cream cheese, chili powder and peppers in your mixer.
Roll out aluminum foil and cut an amount that will “wrap” the loin: the length of loin long and about 12 inches wide. Put the foil on top of a baking sheet then place the loin on top of the foil.
Lay open the seasoned loin/back strap and spread/pack the cream cheese mixture down the length of the loin. Fold the loin back together, then…
Wrap 1 slice of bacon going in one direction and the 2nd piece the other (so there is no back strap showing and the cream cheese does not come out). Stick tooth picks in to hold the bacon on while grilling.
Fold the foil around the loin leaving the top open. Transfer venison package onto hot charcoal or gas outdoor grill.
Grill until all the bacon is cooked.
Some side dish ideas:
Baked potatoes – use the left over cream cheese and jalapenos on top
Corn on the cob – with pepper cream cheese as a spread
Mashed potatoes – with pepper cream cheese sauce*
*Cream Cheese Sauce: Over low heat combine pepper cream cheese (left over) and sour cream in equal amounts. Salt and pepper to taste with ½ cup cooking wine, simmer. It should be a little thick. This is also a very good sauce to use for the back strap. If the sauce is too thin use corn starch to thicken, simply follow the directions on box.
My thanks go out to Jessica and Ally Wright for sharing this recipe with me! Like usual, I’ve made some tweaks to fit my family and the way I cook. I hope you and your loved ones enjoy it as much as we do!
Antlers fascinate us don’t they? We name bucks based on their antler formation. We create stories about fights hit list bucks were in that ended with broken tines. We form connections with individual bucks as we watch their antlers grow over the years and sometimes decline. There’s just something about antlers that draws us to them.
That’s why we love this time of the year. All summer the GrowingDeer Team watched antlers grow on Reconyx cameras, once again meeting old and new deer. And now as daylight hours begin to lengthen and hormone levels drop, the bucks we’ve watched all year begin to shed their antlers.
Tracy and Crystal can’t wait to start hunting sheds.
Over the next few weeks many antlers will be hitting the ground and that means shed hunting! You may have already been out looking for sheds and had great success. Others of you may not have found any yet, but don’t lose heart. If the deer in your area are healthy and have few predators, bucks may hold their antlers longer, many bucks at The Proving Grounds still have their antlers. Just be patient and keep searching.
You can bet the GrowingDeer Team will be pulling on our LaCrosse boots soon and hunting the antlers we’ve watched grow all year. For more information of where and when to look for sheds, check out episodes #123 and #116.
Deer season recently closed in Missouri. Though we’re sad another season has past, part of our remedy is to begin scouting for next year. We no longer have to worry about pushing deer out of bedding areas or risk changing their patterns. Using this to our advantage, we are able to gather new information for next year.
A Reconyx camera is watching a newly found trail and scrape.
When we scout, two things we look for are trails and scrapes. Trails can lead you to food, cover, and travel corridors that you may have not known existed. When looking for scrapes, look for those that show a lot of activity and are being used year after year. It may take a year or two of observation, but once you have found a great scrape, that can be an awesome hunting location. If you find a scrape make sure you watch episode 257 and 267 so you know how to properly hunt it.
Adam and I recently scouted The Proving Grounds, searching for well-used trails and scrapes. It wasn’t long before we found a trail that had a lot of sign. After a few hundred yards, it went through a mature white oak stand, an exciting food source when acorns begin to fall. Later that day we found another trail that had a great scrape. Immediately we placed a Reconyx camera on the scrape to see who was coming through. In just a few days we have gathered information that is already influencing our hunting decisions for next year.
This is a good time of the year to learn how deer are using your property. Whether you are outside shed hunting or chasing turkeys this spring, I hope you take the opportunity to begin scouting for next fall. You won’t regret it.
Duke cage traps caught two raccoons and Duke #4’s caught a coyote and fox.
Over the past months, early mornings have been spent in the stand, but now we get to enjoy mornings through another activity, the trap line. As I have checked traps the past few mornings, my blood has raced, hearing the year’s first turkeys begin to gobble. These moments remind me that trapping is a great management tool for turkey and other wildlife.
Last week Adam shared how Duke #4 traps are reducing our larger predators, but we are also removing many smaller predators known as nest predators. Nest predators are animals that feed on the eggs of quail, pheasant, turkey and other species. These predators can do a lot of damage very quickly. Imagine a large raccoon waddling up to a turkey nest finding several delicious eggs sitting there. It’s an easy meal that instantly removes several eggs that may have hatched. As a wildlife manager, I want to do my part to help as many eggs hatch this year, and the trap line can do just that.
We began setting out Duke cage and dog proof traps last month. These traps are easy to set and are very effective for catching smaller predators. We have already removed 32 nest predators from The Proving Grounds. Once removed these predators will be replaced by others, so we trap every year, to continuously help balance nest predator/prey populations. That means each year we have reduced the number of raccoons and opossums from eating turkey eggs that spring.
If you are interested in learning how to begin trapping, to reduce your nest predators, check out GrowingDeer.tv episodes #265 and #266. I hope you get the opportunity to do some trapping or other management projects this week. It will be worth it in the end.
Deer season officially closed for the GrowingDeer Team yesterday. Although we’re a little bummed, we’re dealing with our grief by preparing for next season. It’s never too early to prepare for future seasons, and one way we’re doing that is by removing predators!
Clint Cary makes a dirt hole set on the side of an interior road. These are great places to set traps for coyotes!
Predator control is a huge piece of our wildlife management program. Coyotes can be very tough on deer herds this time of year. With the whitetail breeding season over, a lot of deer are worn down and weak from the rut and are now dealing with the winter elements. The constant presence of coyotes can raise stress levels on the deer and even lead to death. Injured deer will be easy targets for coyotes to take down as well. All of these factors motivate us to set out our Duke #4 coyote traps!
We use two different styles when trapping coyotes, the dirt hole set and the flat set. These styles of coyote trapping have proven successful for us over the years and we’re hoping they help out our deer herd significantly again this year! To learn more about these techniques watch the upcoming episodes on GrowingDeer.tv!
Being a successful deer manager isn’t putting out a couple food plots every fall. It’s a year round task that includes predator removal! Get out this winter and do your part in balancing the predator/prey relationship!
