Feeling bad for all critters

I was with Todders last weekend, just north of Mora. The snow is deeper than I expected/hoped. It’s miserable. Our plan was to check out the food plots and prior to the snow, hopefully find a shed or two. Needless to say, the 10 inches of new snow really put us over the top for snow depth this year.

If I ever get another snow machine stuck again, it will be too soon. Pic 1, Todders stuck AGAIN. Haha. I got stuck plenty times too. Pic 2, sitting at a gate into a field. The gate is in the background, about 5 foot tall. Couldn’t talk Todders into jumping the gate. Pic 3 is the girls. All excited about getting to ride a snowmobile for the first time.

The snow is powder, all they way to ground up there. My body still hurts today but the reality is I’m really worried about the critters up there.

I haven’t been seeing any rabbit or squirrel tracks lately here or up north. I know our resident rabbit died last month. I’ll bet the northern turkey line drops south after this winter.

I’ve been watching the Mn DNR WSI map and last winter isn’t even close to this winter for the Mora to Duluth area. Even with the late snow and ice out of 2013 this winter probably surpassed the entirety of last winter sometime in January. I have my 2014 deer season expectations set low. I have expect going back to doe permits for much of Zone 1.

One of my hunting partners took a trip out to out hunting land last weekend in North central minnesota last weekend and he said he does not see how any deer will make it up there. He put many miles on the sleed all around the area and said he saw very little deer sign at all. 2 tough winters and a decent wolf population have put a real hurt on them. Doe permits will be the least they will need to do to try to get the #’s back up. My guess is that the turkey are not doing much better. We were just starting to get some decent #’s in the area. Iam sure this winter will cause a decent setback in those #’s as well. As much as I’ve disliked this winter I am sure the critters like it even less.

I have a rabbit in my front yard who is going to go. He has on shrub chewed to the ground and has started on #2. .22 shorts coming out of the box soon.

I got some encouraging news up by our property from my dad. He said the deer have trails that they’re using and they’re packed down pretty good. However, it doesn’t appear to be a lot of deer.

I’m more concerned about the thaw. When this deep stuff gets the crust on top, the predators are going to have a hay day!!!

Spent the weekend up in the Hackensack area at the cabin, and man o man is there a ton of snow! Had the snowmobile stuck over the windshield, it reminded me of the pictures from out west in the mountains.

The deer have been hammering the backyards. I haven’t seen a deer out in “the woods” in a long time up there, they are all herded up in backyards…can you blame them! Started with 3 deer using the feeder, and now we are up to 11 or 12 They are quite feisty when there is food involved, can’t keep their hooves to themselves!

The snow still isn’t holding them back, some of the little ones looked like they were having fun playing around in the snow!

I have a rabbit eating the branches off my front yard apple tree. He/she must be loving it since the snow is about 5′ high and it can climb around like a squirrel.

As for deer in the area. Most of the sign and deer are in residential areas. Hopefully this week is the last arctic blast for the winter.

Not looking good for the fall and my personal bar of 140″+ might be lowered to 130″ to be considered a shooter.

I for one am hoping that our melt is going to be significant enough so that the deer will be able to run once it happens and freezes back up. If it doesn’t happen that way, they’re are still tough critters, just don’t know…

I know that my boss and local guide to some of our guests over to a well known spot on Lake Minocqua and even beat down, it was a slushy mess… Just don’t know what will happen, when it starts to melt…

Mark

I am feeding black oil sunflower seeds on the ground and have 6 or so squirrels and 2 resident rabbits as regular visitors as well as the usual cardinals, chickadees and blue jays.

I actually saw turkeys yesterday, WOW!!!

Mark