Warm and sunny, finally

It is warm and sunny today. The high temperature pushes near 60, so sitting around the house is out of the question.

With the snow rapidly melting, it is becoming easier to walk around. I took the opportunity to walk down to the edge of my property by the Kickapoo River. I wanted to get the boundaries clearly marked and located. The snow was a little deeper in some spots than I liked, but I managed to get to both edges on the north side of the property. I had also wanted to explore the inside part of the bend where I intend to plant crops, but decided to look over other parts of the property instead.

I headed up toward the ridge that towers over the place. It is not really that much higher than the rest of the land, but the climb is steep. I reached the area where I had been lucky with the deer in season, and relocated some of my favorite spots (which looked different with half the snow gone). I located a few well used game trails and worked my way toward the ridge. Parts were tricky to navigate, since the ground itself was still frozen in several spots, but I made it up to the top (or at least to the point where there was only the rock face above me).

Exhausted, I sat down to cool off. Finally, I decided to look around more carefully. This place was a treasure. I found several small caves and overhangs, obviously used as dens by some critters. Then I located several piles of droppings and identified what had been there. It was a coyote den. It had been used often, but not too recently. I made careful notes to be ready for later activities with the coyotes.

After that, I worked my way down the steeper back side of the ridge to the parts of the land I was more familiar with. Finally, I walked past the “deer condo” and back to the house.
While out and about I heard at least one turkey several times near the river. I later heard several Canadian geese in that same area.
It had been a good morning. But as warm as it was, I could not resist a chance to try my luck at the pond. This warm weather had melted about 60% of the ice cover. Probably half of what remains was slushy and unsafe to even try walking on. I grabbed my spinning gear and some wax worms (left over from my ice fishing adventures) and cast out.

It may be due to the pond turning over from the ice melt or perhaps another reason, but I had almost no luck. I worked my way around the entire pond with not so much as a strike. Finally, I went out on the dock and cast toward the newly open area by the float (that had never been pulled out for the winter). I was rewarded by a nearly instantaneous strike and brought in a nice bluegill. The next cast (which bounced off the float) yielded an even bigger bluegill. However, that was it. Just when I thought I had figured out the pattern, it changed.

Nevertheless, it has been a pretty good day. I caught a couple fish, and explored a large part of my property. Once all the snow is gone, I can explore the parts I have missed so far. Then I can try figuring out where to put the food plots and crops.

Finally, I put the raccoon hide in the freezer after giving it a good coasting of preservative. I can work on the actual mounting when the weather is warmer, and going to stay that way. Anyhow, there are several other critters to get ready, and I can order the needed taxidermy supplies in one big order.

The turkey and the coyote trap

I just returned from checking my coyote traps, for the second time today. Normally, once first thing in the morning will do it, but today I had a little more bait to put out.

The traps are set near a deer carcass I found on the property last December. Some slob had trespassed and shot the fork horn and not even tried following it up. I discovered it a few days later, by which time some critters had already started eating it. There was nothing salvageable by then, so I kept an eye on the carcass and noticed a steady flow of opossum and raccoon using it, as well a strong likelihood of a few coyotes. After the deer season ended, I set some traps nearby.

The weather has been pretty cold this winter, and the carcass was covered with snow most of the time. However, when it warmed and the snow began melting down, there was quite a bit of activity. I set my trail camera in several different locations near the spot. Most of the time I got pictures of crows. Once a red tailed hawk stopped by. Last night I got a picture of a raccoon on the infrared.

During the trapping season, I managed to catch 2 raccoons. On another occasion, I shot an opossum on the kill site.

I caught a rabbit in one of the traps, near a trail approaching the location about a week ago. Normally, this would have been fine with me, but when I found it in the morning, most of it was gone. Something had eaten it in the trap. Possibly a coyote, but more likely a raccoon. I reset the trap and left the remains nearby. A few days later, the remains were gone.

When I reached the area late this morning, I noticed the space around my main coyote trap was all torn up, and the trap was gone! This upset me since it had been there 4 hours earlier. I had located it under a tree, near a game trail where a lot of varmints left droppings. This made it quite unlikely to catch some other animal accidently.

I carefully checked the area for signs in the snow. There were several sets of long curved marks looking like 5 claws raking the snow. If this was a B grade horror movie, I would have been in real trouble. Then I found a feather and saw the other tracks. Several turkeys had come though the area. The “claw marks” were from the wing feathers. Apparently one had gotten caught by the trap and been able to pull the rig clear of the tree to which it was attached (How I do not know since it held a raccoon several weeks earlier).

I could not let a turkey go running around with a trap attached, so I began tracking. The soft snow made the tracking possible, but certainly not easy. I could indentify the bird with the trap and keep to that trail. However, after a couple hundred yards, the trail ended. I was even more upset until I saw my trap there on the ground. Apparently, the bird managed to get just one claw caught and was able to pull that free.

I was relieved, picked up the trap, and relocated it on another game trail for the coyotes (who were howling away at 1:15 in the morning the day before). Hopefully, with the warm weather we are having today, there will be some activity this evening.

Of course, I am glad the turkey made its escape, since it might have been a real challenge to get the trap off it otherwise. Sadly, I had pulled the trail camera this morning on my earlier visit, and thus did not get any pictures of the turkeys. I am glad to see the wild turkeys moving around a lot more. I saw several others beside the road while driving into town this morning. I was concerned with the weather we have had this past winter.