Deer Hunting 2003
Man What a year. I party hunt with five other guys and between us we had 7 tags to fill. By the end of the season I personally filled 4 out of the 5 tags we filled including a 1 1/2 year old Buck. I probably should have let the buck go but in all the years I've been hunting I have never shot a buck. This was the year to break the streak, so even though he was small I shot him. Check out the photos
We could have filled the other two but we were beginning to wonder how much we really wanted to butcher two more deer. We had enough to last us until next year and taking more deer seemed like excess So we stop hunting five days into the nine day season.
Here's another nice buck taken by my good friend Brian Henry.
Brian and I both hunt the same ground but in Zone 3 his season starts two weeks before mine durring the rut.
Thanks to a lot of the work the Bluffland Whitetail Association and the DNR have done, Zone 3 has improved for Trophy hunters like Brian. Although this deer would be unlikely make any record books, it is a very respectable buck. Lou Cornicelli himself aged this deer at Two and a half years. This rack is the typical size of a two and a half year old deer in Zone 3, one more year and this deer would be a trophy for sure. Lou is the big game coordinator for the Minnesota DNR and has a lot of experience in aging deer and this type of fieldwork.
This year the Minnesota DNR is conducting a large-scale study of the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease. There have not yet been any reported cases of CWD in the wild deer population in Minnesota, but in Wisconsin there are areas where this is a huge problem. That is why men like Lou are doing CWD surveillance throughout the state this year.
| Hunters who cooperated with the CWD testing this year received a patch as well as being entered into a drawing to win a Bow or a Gun, compliments of the State of Minnesota and other sponsors.
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One of the ways of slowing down the spread of CWD is to control the deer population, this is done by killing more does than bucks. Since I primarily hunt for the meat I don't mind this, and fortunately there are a enough people of this same mind set that hunt Zone 3 that we have been able to keep the deer heard at a healthy size.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy
(TSE). CWD is suspected to be primarily spread by contact. For example: deer
eating at feed troughs that people set up for the deer in an effort to help
them survive the winter causes a lot of interaction among the deer. It's like
you and a friend sharing a glass of water and one of you has a cold and is in
the contagious stage, most likely the one that is healthy will catch the sick
persons cold. CWD is kind of like that. Because TSE agents are extremely resistant
in the environment, transmission may be both direct and indirect. Concentrating
deer and elk in captivity or by artificial feeding probably increases the likelihood
of direct and indirect transmission between individuals. Contaminated pastures
appear to have served as sources of infection in some CWD epidemics. This and
more information can be found on The
Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance web site.
Spring Turkey Hunting 2003
This year was my first year hunting for Turkeys and to my surprise it was a success. I say success because I called that little Jake right in. He was one of two jakes that came in. It was on the last day of my selected season this year and after going all weak seeing turkeys but not being able to call them in I decided that I had better take him if I was going to my tag this year. Even if he was still young and dumb, a dumb turkey on the table is better than no turkey on the table. Anyway, without further ado, here he is.
