Winter Severity Index update

[hartman756]

Here is the video from today. It isn't much ...........the two deer at the end ( one lying down and then the next one one standing in the woods )are the ones that have no hope to make it till spring. also included are shots of the heavy brows line and the cold and windy weather today!

[hartman756]

I love your hunting recommendation on the other site. According to the LimpDs, the NW is THE place to hunt. I really feel for you folks that hunt up there.

You know I said the same thing when the EHD hit and all the hand wringing and whining went on over it. I made sure I followed up to see if any one came up this way that season. And believe it or not public land parking lots that hadn't seen but maybe one or two cars on opening day in years were nearly full. By the third day they were all empty  THOUSANDS of acres of public land with the age structure dreamed of by the MARs pushers and no one wants to hunt it because  the deer numbers are low    So many areas here in Emmet county where the bucks grow old and open to the public with very little hunting pressure. The trade off is you are not going to see dozens of deer each day or maybe even in a week. And it is going to be even tougher in the next two years to see many deer with the winter we are having( YOY now or 1.5 year olds come hunting season, and the fawn crop form the spring are always the largest share of deer seen and will be the hardest hit) . The other thing will be that hard winters have an effect on antler growth so no matter the age of the buck chances are the racks will be much smaller and as we all know it really isn't about age it is about the rack

[daappleknocker]

Just a quick report from the Northern U.P. For three years I have been making a journey to the deer yards in Northern Marquette and Eastern Baraga Counties, along Lake Superior. I have been interested because that is where our deer migrate to spend the winters. First year, my son-in-law and I stopped counting deer at 100. Last year my buddy Tom and I counted 36 deer driving the exact same route. This year, last Friday the 14th, my friend Betty Farrow and I counted a grand total of .....wait for it....10 deer. The only GOOD thing about it was they looked very HEALTHY, and when molested with snowballs they ran in an instant. LOL.

[ridge]

Be careful, daappleknocker, or the DNR will establish a snowball season with antler restrictions!!

[hartman756]

Curtis,

I think you are correct, the deer numbers are WAY down so the deer that are left have more winter browse per deer and it may help keep the winter kill down in your area..........

I am uploading some more video to post when it gets done. I got some video of a doe on the 18th and she was so weak she couldn't get up the opposite bank when she tried to cross the river...............She was dead today when I made it  back in that area today  Also one of the does in the last video got hit on the road the first day the snow froze up hard enough for the deer to walk on for a couple of days.

[hartman756]

Here is the video

[ridge]

That is very sad.  We used to take hay down in the swamp deer yards for the deer years ago.  I no longer have a snowmobile or hay.  I hope some of our deer over by camp made it through the winter.  Around our lake there are folks that feed deer all winter so we have seen deer on the other side of the lake.  De and Riley saw 38 over there in one afternoon coming home from work and school.  The scenic shrubs that city folks plant around their summer homes help the deer also    .

It is also very sad that some of the MARs people would prefer deer to starve to death than to have folks take them for food.  Harvesting more would also help the deer, that make it to winter, have more nutrition available to them.  Shooting only does will do to the herd what winter would have done.  It will dramatically reduce the number of deer in the woods for some years to come.