retired guy
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Snow
Hi guys
I hope your area is faring better this winter than mine. We have very unusual snow depth in the woods of about 2 feet now with an icy covering.
We have had deep snow and below freezing weather now for weeks and I am starting to really worry about winter kill of our deer and turkey populations.
I know this isnt unusual for areas like my camp in Pulaski NY, deer there migrate in the winter a lot. Ours dont generally do that and I fear they are in deep trouble. Our Turkey population may also be stressed. I havent seen a bare hillside now for a very long time and wonder about their food sources.
A bad winter can really mess things up for a few years.
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Dr. Trout
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We got alot of ice covered snow around here.. the deer have not been at the feeders since Monday evening... I'm hoping with the sun shine today they can make their way there from the hemlocks this afternnoon or evening thought.. I even put out EXTRA just in case 
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Dr. Trout
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I took this picture this morning and you can see from the hay shed how much snow we got and you can see the horses are NOT sunk down in the snow that much because of all the ice and you can see some branches that came down Monday night with the ice build up on them...
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retired guy
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Darn I wish we still had Hemlock groves- they held a lot of winter game and made great Turkey roosts. Ours all got a blight a number of years ago and most all of them died off. Huge groves are no more. Used to drive around in winter and see all that green on the hillsides- now its a memory. Thats one of the reasons I'm so concerned with this weather. Long time ago in a winter like this I snow shoed out to places and set out bales and high protein feed-carried it on a toboggan - cant seem to do that stuff anymore.
post edited by retired guy - 2011/02/03 15:15:05
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S-10
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Same problem as Doc 40 miles North of him. 16"-20" of hard crusted snow. The deer stayed hunkered down ysterday. The PGC said we needed to thin the herd to make sure they had enough food to get through a hard winter. Well-- the herd is thinned and we have a real winter. I wonder if they are going to issue spud bars and snow shovels so the remaining deer can get to the extra feed that's left on the ground.
The turkeys have been staying in the trees budding but should be able to travel around now on the crust.
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Dr. Trout
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retired guy.. maybe this will bring back some memories for you. I took it the first light snow we had in rifle season..
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retired guy
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Thanks Doc not much of that around here anymore- where it still is ( rare) it holds deer.I have trimmed the hardwood around every evergreen on my place upstate NY just to wathcem grow. Even been known to spray them in the spring-wife thinks I'm nuts- running back and forth from the woods with my little gallon pump sprayer.
post edited by retired guy - 2011/02/03 15:39:11
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retired guy
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Been seeing 3 deer stuck between a highway fence and the road itself for a few days now. The fence is only 4 ft and they dont appear to have even tried to jump it. They are in a strip of real thin stuff about 50 Ft wide and its covered with iced over snow.. One is in real tough shape and the other two arent much better. Cant even stop and park where they are holed up so as to throw in a bale or some feed to perk them up a bit.
Looks like a 4th tried to break out and got squashed. I fear this is happening in our forest too cause the weather hasent broke yet.
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S-10
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The deer have only been to my feed twice since the snow crusted and I haven't seen any tracks crossing the back roads. The turkey are moving around though. I've had 21 on feed since the crust came on. The temps are supposed to moderate some next week which may help some but this has been a rough winteer so far in the Northern tier.
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Dr. Trout
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My feeder is back to having visitors as of Tuesday.. only now I see 6 visiting, two more have joined the group.. they all showed up late on Tuesday (10pm), so no pictures yet ...
My wife tells me while I was at work yesterday (5:30pm)they showed up and she saw one that is about the size of a July fawn but no spots...,she says it travels by itself following the others, but the others all chase it off when it gets near... ????
I have not seen this one yet... hoping to get a pic .. we'll see what happens this evening ???????
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psu_fish
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our deer havent been back since ice storm
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RSB
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I have been traveling about seven miles across a gated game lands road they have kept open for me since I hope to trap and band some turkeys there for the ongoing hen mortality study.
Even though the snow was starting to get a little deep, up until the crust came on the deer were still on the ridges where the acorns were the best this year. Once the crust came on the deer sign on the ridges came to an abrupt end and the only place I was finding any tracks was in the wintering grounds valleys. Today I saw about 20-25 deer all in one group in one small section of the wintering grounds. Though they are all still doing good the fact they pulled down into the valleys, away from the acorns, is one of the early signs of winter stress beginning. Hopefully this warm weather coming in over the next week or so opens things up enough for them to at least start using the south facing slopes.
I also saw about 50 of so turkeys. Some of them might end up with a new leg band to show off in another week or so.
R.S. Bodenhorn
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bingsbaits
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RSB, they have been raiding my Dads birdfeeder on his deck.
Poor things are really searching for food here.
"There is a pleasure in Angling that no one knows but the Angler himself". WB
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S-10
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I also saw about 50 of so turkeys. Some of them might end up with a new leg band to show off in another week or so.
R.S. Bodenhorn Is this still part of the hen study? If so how much longer will this study be going on? Some folks might be interested in the purpose of the study.
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jkrunningdeer
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ORIGINAL: RSB
I have been traveling about seven miles across a gated game lands road they have kept open for me since I hope to trap and band some turkeys there for the ongoing hen mortality study.
Â
Even though the snow was starting to get a little deep, up until the crust came on the deer were still on the ridges where the acorns were the best this year. Once the crust came on the deer sign on the ridges came to an abrupt end and the only place I was finding any tracks was in the wintering grounds valleys. Today I saw about 20-25 deer all in one group in one small section of the wintering grounds. Though they are all still doing good the fact they pulled down into the valleys, away from the acorns, is one of the early signs of winter stress beginning. Hopefully this warm weather coming in over the next week or so opens things up enough for them to at least start using the south facing slopes.
Â
I also saw about 50 of so turkeys. Some of them might end up with a new leg band to show off in another week or so.
 R.S. Bodenhorn
RSB any of the deer you saw carrying antlers?
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RSB
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ORIGINAL: jkrunningdeer
ORIGINAL: RSB
I have been traveling about seven miles across a gated game lands road they have kept open for me since I hope to trap and band some turkeys there for the ongoing hen mortality study.
Even though the snow was starting to get a little deep, up until the crust came on the deer were still on the ridges where the acorns were the best this year. Once the crust came on the deer sign on the ridges came to an abrupt end and the only place I was finding any tracks was in the wintering grounds valleys. Today I saw about 20-25 deer all in one group in one small section of the wintering grounds. Though they are all still doing good the fact they pulled down into the valleys, away from the acorns, is one of the early signs of winter stress beginning. Hopefully this warm weather coming in over the next week or so opens things up enough for them to at least start using the south facing slopes.
I also saw about 50 of so turkeys. Some of them might end up with a new leg band to show off in another week or so.
R.S. Bodenhorn
RSB any of the deer you saw carrying antlers?
I didn’t see any antlers but I didn’t look at them through the binoculars. I just kept moving to avoid having them running and burning up any needed energy reserves. Some of them ran a short distance as it was. Running isn’t a bad sign (because it indicates they still have the energy) but it isn’t something I want to force on them either. If the winter lingers on and they start getting weak they will usually just stand there looking at you and avoid running unless you start a direct approach on them. I have seen them during some of the worst winters when they wouldn’t run at all and just slowly walked away with their heads low if a person started to approach them. I highly discourage people from trying to approach deer once they get locked down to the winter survival mode. It sounds like we are going to get a major warming trend over the next couple weeks though so I suspect the deer are going to be able to move back into the better habitat areas again before too long, at least in this part of the state. R.S. Bodenhorn
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RSB
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I also saw about 50 of so turkeys. Some of them might end up with a new leg band to show off in another week or so.
R.S. Bodenhorn
Is this still part of the hen study? If so how much longer will this study be going on?
Some folks might be interested in the purpose of the study.
Yes the trapping will be part of the ongoing hen mortality study. You can learn more about the study here: [color=#800080 size=3]http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt Go to #3 which should be 27010-09z.pdf and open the pdf file for project 06270 and job code 27010. It will explain the objectives and methods of the research project. Basically the research project is intended to measure hen mortality from different hunting season lengths. It will also be a pretty good measure of none hunting mortlatiy and natural movement of the hens fitted with the GPS monitoring systems. I believe this is just the beginning of the second year of a four year study. R.S. Bodnehorn
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Dr. Trout
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Back in Febraury of 2010 I was lucky enough to be invited to join RSB and others on a turkey trapping adventure... here's a report I made about it for those that may not have seen it before ... it was quite enjoyable and interesting ----
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deerfly 
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The herd in 2G is now about 47% below the previous DD goal of 15 DPSM. How much more should the herd be reduced in order to prevent the winter stress you reported?
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Ironhed
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Here we go again...
Ironhed
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S-10
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Weather report is calling for scattered light snow. The reality is I've got 4" since daylight and it's snowing and blowing so hard visibility is about 6o yards. I'am going to shoot that damm ground hog if this keeps up.
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bingsbaits
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Was brutal here also, strong winds and snow.
Now the sun has come out and the temps up to 32..
Let's hope..
"There is a pleasure in Angling that no one knows but the Angler himself". WB
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retired guy
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Heard the Pulaski NY area had a couple of feet of new white poop the other day yuuuk- gotta go up and clear the roof again I guess. Those three poor starving deer Iv been watching along the highway here in Ct have turned into seven starving deer in the past day or two. Fortunately the weather has turned here and its supposed to hit 50 this week. Hope some bare spots show soon on those S/E hillsides. So far its still 2 feet deep and so hard on top, can walk on most of it. Good luck with the winter kill guys its been a hard on all over. Guess we will know how the Game made out when Turkey starts. BTW- Doc, great story and photos
post edited by retired guy - 2011/02/12 13:29:49
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Dr. Trout
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Snowing and BLOWING so bad here it took me 20 minutes to go the 3 miles to work.. could not see anything in front of me..... and have had about 4 customers since noon.... 
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S-10
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Part of the problem is we got that hard crust on the old snow and with the wind all the new snow just slides across it and fills in all the low areas or else blows up in a white out. I only got 4-5" of new snow but was plowing 12-14" in parts of my drive. The police and fire dept have been chasing after wrecks all day.
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deerfly
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Here in 5C we had around a foot of snow with a crust for the past couple of weeks but we won't have any winter mortality and it won't effect fawn recruitment. Our deer are corn and alfalfa fed going into the winter so they can handle anything nature may throw out them. Of course the PGC says 5C can only support 6 DPSM even though they haven't figured out how to reduce the harvest below 10 DPSM!!!
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retired guy
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Havent got a farm in miles around me darn it- even in the middle of Ct my deer are "big woods" animals. If you spook one in the AM and track it out on fresh snow they will go for miles when pushed, all through available woodlands. ( cant do that track with a gun- too much PVT property w/no hunting around).
The deer eat just like far North animals-thats why Im so concerned with the snow. If they were farm fed it would be different.
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deerfly
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That is what is so crazy and frustrating about how our herd is being managed. The PGC only consider the habitat value of forested habitat and completely discount the habitat value of farm land. The result is they assign a carrying capacity to areas that are 90% forested, that are 3 times higher than areas with mixed farmlands and wood lots.
post edited by deerfly - 2011/02/12 18:04:49
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spoonchucker
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"The PGC only consider the habitat value of forested habitat and completely discount the habitat value of farm land."
Might that be, because crop fields, are supposed to be CROP fields? Not deer "habitat"?
Get Informed, Get Involved, And Make A Difference. Step Up, or Step Aside The next time you say "Somebody should do something", remember that YOU are somebody. GL
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S-10
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That ole stirrin stick must be plumb wore out by now.  
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