Outdoors Blog

Category: Deer hunting

CWD news could raise new questions

Let's not muster up a parade just yet, but the news on chronic wasting disease isn't all bad.

Steve Halstead, the Michigan Department of Agriculture's top veterinarian, says he expects tests for the four remaining suspect deer from the Kent County herd to come back negative.

If you've been following the CWD developments, you remember that a Kent County deer tested positive last week and all 50 or so deer from that deer farm were killed and tested.

All negative.

That left the four deer that were shipped off that facility in the previous weeks.

They too have been destroyed, and test results for them are due any minute now.

If they come back negative, the scientists' attention turns toward one single question:

How?

As Halstead said, it's not likely that the single Kent County deer had one-in-a-zillion bad luck and developed CWD spontaneously.

That disease came from somewhere, and it's likely that taxidermy and illegal movement of captive deer will get the microsope next.

For now the trail seems to have gone cold. That's probably better than the alternative.

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Category: Deer hunting

Is CWD spreading?

If you were to compile a map of Michigan's chronic wasting disease areas, you'd obviously start with a dot on Kent County, where a 3-year-old captive doe was confirmed positive last week.

Then what?

Well, Michigan Department of Agriculture officials confirmed this morning that in recent weeks, the owner of that facility moved a few animals to other deer farms in other counties, namely Montcalm and Osceola.

So make Kent County, where Grand Rapids sits, the epicenter. That's where one case was confirmed and several other deer were shipped. Add those other two counties as "definite maybes".

Montcalm abuts Kent to the northeast, and Osceola is a little farther north, past Big Rapids.

Watch them.

If the news gets worse, that's where it will come from.

Category: Deer hunting

More on chronic wasting disease

If you've been following the horrible news that Michigan is now a chronic wasting disease state, you know that the Department of Natural Resources has been very aggressive in its efforts to stop the spread of the insidious, fatal disease.

The 50 or so deer in the Kent County facility where the disease turned up have been destroyed. A testing program for road-killed and hunter-killed wild deer in the area has been established.

All 500+ of Michigan's captive deer and elk facilities are under quarantine.

Feeding and baiting deer are banned in the Lower Peninsula until further notice.

But there's more.

I hear that the owner of the deer that tested positive had sent five deer to two other facilities in the weeks preceding the positive test, greatly increasing the chances that CWD now has at least three homes in Michigan.

Nice.

If this disease reaches the state's wild deer, we're all going to feel it. And any measures the DNR and the Department of Agriculture can take to stop its spread whould be widely applauded.

Let's hope like hell it's enough.

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Category: Deer hunting

Put down that bait -- please

So chronic wasting disease is in Michigan now.

No big surprise there. With all the game ranches and deer and elk farms, it was only a matter of time.

What counts most now is whether it can be contained to that one single captive deer in Kent County. Let's hope like heck it can be.

The DNR deserves some credit for taking aggressive action. They've quarantined all 580 farms that raise deer and elk. They're testing hundreds of deer around Kent County and have made it mandatory to have deer killed by hunters around there tested.

And they've banned baiting and feeding deer statewide.

That's the big one, and it's the one that will take the most cooperation.

The state banned baiting in bovine tuberculosis areas when that disease broke out a few years back, and it took roughly 32 seconds for everybody to ignore the ban.

If that happens this time and CWD spreads into the wild herd, the effects will be huge.

CWD is horrible. Its victims wither away and die, period.

In our state, deer hunting is not only a cultural institution but also an economic necessity. If our herd gets this disease, it will be devastating.

That's why we need to do anything we can to stop it for now. Bait piles bring deer nose to nose, and that obviously is a way that disease spreads. It sure seems like a good time to set that method aside.

I'm not necessarily opposed to baiting deer, but it has always seemed kind of silly to me that in a state so crammed with deer who clearly have enough to eat, you'd even need to.

It's just not that hard to look at the habitat, observe the sign and figure out where deer are coming and going.

What a novel concept.

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Category: Deer hunting

Knucklehead, knucklehead, knucklehead

We all make mistakes, right?

Right?

If you read the previous post about how magical the trail cam is, you may recall that since there didn't appear to be much traffic around the salt block, I moved the trail cam.

The new spot was very clearly a heavily traveled zone between cover and cornfield. A veritable highway of activity. Deer Central.

Except for one thing: No one told the deer.

First camera location: 600+ pictures in five weeks.

Second camera location: 20 pictures in 10 days, and two don't count because they were of the doofus moving the camera.

First camera location: At least 10 different bucks, including a couple dandies.

Second camera location: No bucks, and the few does looked, I don't know, disinterested.

First camera location: Dozens and dozens of deer posing dutifully for well-composed photos.

Second camera location: Deer butts. Deer necks. Deer ears. You get the idea.

Today the camera went back to its original spot.

And the doofus learned something.

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Category: Deer hunting

Scout's honor

The camera doesn't lie.

Deer hit the salt lick. Hard.

On July 5, I put a digital trail camera out to scout my main bowhunting spot. To give the deer a reason to stop, I added a salt block. A plain old water-softener salt block.

And then I left. For five weeks.

I retrieved the memory card last weekend. The salt block looked intact. The game trails didn't seem particularly traveled.

I wasn't too hopeful. I even doubted the position of the camera so much I moved it.

But the camera doesn't lie. It said 640 pictures were taken from July 5 to August 8.

Boy, were they. Of those 640, about 10 were of some big dope trying to get the camera working. A couple were of raccoons hitting the salt block. A few, less than 10, were of nothing. I assume that was the wind moving the tall grass enough to set off the camera's motion detector.

The rest? Deer. Deer 'til the cows come home.

Big deer. Little deer. Does. Bucks. Dozens and dozens of deer, and a couple sizable bucks that I'd be happy to harvest.

That camera is like a window into an unknown world, one you never see when you stomp off to the woods with all your human noise and scent and movement.

It's magic. And it doesn't lie.

Category: Deer hunting

Only hunters can fix Michigan's out-of-whack herd

My friend Bob hunts Wexford County in the northwestern Lower Peninsula.

His 2007 hunt looked like this: 22 does, zero bucks and nothing killed. That's because last year there were no antlerless tags issued for Wexford.

So he's delighted that this year the Natural Resources Commissions added Wexford to the list of counties where antlerless tags will be issued in 2008.

For one thing, even if he bats a thousand on does again this year, he'll be able to fill the freezer. But more importantly, it will give him and other hunters a chance to do something that was clearly needed: Manage the herd.

It has become a familiar refrain in large chunks of Michigan: There are just too many deer.

Now, we can poke fun at the silly three-point/four-point rules that make no sense and even less difference, or we can grouse about the state's unwillingness to adopt Quality Deer Management practices.

But what we really need is a cultural shift. We talk about the need to shoot does, but we hold out for bucks.

The does walk, make more babies, of which the does walk to make more babies, and pretty soon the herd is so out of whack there are swaths of private property where no plant survives within six feet of the ground.

And car-deer crashes mount. And guys like Bob go an entire season without seeing a single buck.

Whether you support QDM or not doesn't matter much. We need a better-balanced deer herd, period.

The Natural Resources Commission can make all the rules in the world, but we're the ones with the weapons.

And this problem isn't going away until we aim them at the deer without the antlers.

And fire.

Category: Deer hunting

Proposed U.P. buck rule isn't honest

Changes to antlerless regulations?

Check.

Add albino and all-white deer to the list of animals that can be hunted legally?

Check.

Make substantive, measurable changes to buck regulations in response to the growing number of hunters who want to let little bucks walk so they can improve their chances of hunting mature bucks?

Uh, no. Not even close.

The Natural Resources Commission meets tomorrow to nail down the 2008 deer regulations. One measure on the table would require the purchaser of a combo deer tag who hunts in the U.P. to essentially shoot a six-point (at least three on one side) with the regular license, and an eight-point (at least four on one side) with the restricted license.

Michigan DNR big game specialist Rod Clute explains:

"Our survey results indicate that deer hunters are interested in increasing the number of mature bucks in the deer herd," Clute said in a press release issued Tuesday. "This suggestion was proposed as a possible way to decrease the harvest of one and one-half year-old bucks to build a herd with an older age structure."

Sounds good in theory. But look closer: It's just sleight of hand.

The key term here is "combination license." There's nothing to prevent a hunter from buying an archery tag separately, shooting a spike, then buying a gun tag separately, then shooting another spike.

All legal, of course. And if that's your type of hunting, enjoy.

But restricting the restriction to the combo license basically makes it voluntary. Which is what it is now.

Guys who want little bucks to walk let them walk. Guys who want to shoot them, shoot them.

Just like they will if this proposal is enacted.

I'm no biologist. I don't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of deer management.

But sometimes I can tell when I'm being tricked.

This proposal makes it sound like rules have changed, but would change nothing.

Pretending it will is disingenuous at best.

Category: Deer hunting

U.P. buck rules up for change

Keep an eye on the Natural Resources Commission when it meets June 5. If you're one of the deer hunters who's dissatisfied by seeing too many does and not enough good bucks, you'll want to stay tuned.

The state has been reluctant to adopt Quality Deer Management (QDM) principles in its management, but a potential change in U.P. buck rules is a step in that direction.

The goal of QDM is a better-balanced deer herd. By shooting plenty of does and letting young bucks walk, proponents say after just a couple years they see a healthier herd with a lot more mature, big-racked bucks.

That's a far cry from many parts of Michigan, where there are 20 does per buck, the bucks you do see are puny, crop damage is extensive and the lower stories of the woods are decimated.

As I read it (and they never make this just plain), the U.P. proposal would put antler restrictions on the combo license. That's the one that lets you shoot two bucks regardless of weapon (i.e. two with firearm or two with bow). One can be a spike if you're so inclined, but the other must have at least four points on a side.

So if you're a gun hunter and you're happy to shoot just one buck of any size, you still can. But if you want two, they can't be little ones.

(By the way, I doubt if this proposal applies to a hunter who buys an archery tag, then later buys a firearm tag separately. The cost would be the same as the combo, but each tag would likely be good for any buck as I read it.)

I'm one who wishes we could have a better balanced herd, not only for its ecological benefits, but also for the challenge of hunting bigger bucks.

The herd and the hunters would all be better off in the long run if those little spikes and three-pointers could live another year, all over Michigan and not just in the U.P.

But this is a start. Here's hoping it spreads.