Brad,
Numbers are coming up. In the early 90's on my first sit on Banana Ridge, with acorns all over the ground, I had no less than 20 deer parade through in an evening sit. By the mid 90's mother nature fixed this skewed herd with 1995 and 1996 back to back winters that were devastating. By 1998 we had one of our best years with 4 bucks and 4 does taken. The camp property went to a 6 point or better rule on bucks a couple of years after that and we would harvest a buck now and then after that but mostly were keeping the doe herd in check while mother nature kept winters in line. Most years we averaged between 6-10 does taken and because the rut is so much later in the UP, the rifle hunters using the property usually bagged 3-4 nice bucks off the property each fall. Guys were seeing deer every sit for the most part this year, which was an improvement over the last two, but for a week of hunting, only 3 legal bucks were seen, two while hunting and one on a trip into the stand site. The area we hunt is excellent deer and upland bird habitat. However go 50 miles north and you're in mature forest and swamp with little agriculture. The property we hunt has had the aspen managed for timber and it has a diverse age of young aspen stands throughout that deer, turkey and upland birds like along with some food plots that the property owners put in (my spot I mentioned above from a couple of years ago was put in by an outside source that had larger equipment than the club uses internally for food plots). The herd bounces back fairly quickly, although there are more predators to fawns now than in the early 1990's before bears were regulated with a drawing system (that started in 1999 and for 5 weeks in the spring, bears will hunt fawning cover like a bird dog, flushing a fawn, which has no chance).
Topic: SHREWHAVEN OR BUST (Read 7582 times)
