We're in the process of preparing 80 acres of CRP to return to crop production and the first step is/was harvesting the grass hay to clear the ground and encourage fresh new growth prior to a full field burn down chemical application. We finished moving the hay bales yesterday and had a considerable pile of bones collected from the accumulation of deer that had died in this field over the past 37 years. Of course, many had already reverted to natural and total decomposition so we only found those which had died within the past 5 years +/-. We're the only ones hunting this field so very slim chance this is the result of poor hunting practices. A couple are probably the result of vehicle strikes that made it into the field.
I'm guessing somewhere in the 15-20 animal range and certainly missed some that were in the brushy ditches and closer to fence rows than we mowed. Quite a few shed antlers from a 4" spike to 1/2 of a nice 8 point rack--fortunately none were found by tractor tires.
This is a high deer population area where I've seen up to 75 deer at a time flocking to the food plots after snow flies. Makes me wonder about MDC's 'efforts to reduce CWD by better population control'. We're restricted to 2 antlerless tags per hunter on that farm. Oddly enough, 2 miles away on a farm where deer are seldom seen, MDC is offering population control tags to landowners.
I'm guessing somewhere in the 15-20 animal range and certainly missed some that were in the brushy ditches and closer to fence rows than we mowed. Quite a few shed antlers from a 4" spike to 1/2 of a nice 8 point rack--fortunately none were found by tractor tires.
This is a high deer population area where I've seen up to 75 deer at a time flocking to the food plots after snow flies. Makes me wonder about MDC's 'efforts to reduce CWD by better population control'. We're restricted to 2 antlerless tags per hunter on that farm. Oddly enough, 2 miles away on a farm where deer are seldom seen, MDC is offering population control tags to landowners.