Side yard visitors this evening

Winelover said:
Our birdfeeders pole/post is covered with 4" diameter stove pipe, below the baffle. Keeps the squirrels and racoons at bay.
Click to expand...
We find the squirrels entertaining. The coons, well, if eagles had teeth, they might chip one on steel T shot.
 
smokeywolf said:
I qualified for the lifetime hunting lic last birthday.
Click to expand...
Boy I would not wait to grab that license. WI used to have some senior life time deal. As soon as there were lots of seniors in the Baby Boom pipe line they cancelled that option.
 
Fox squirrels aren't too common, here. Opposite in Michigan. I do have a pair but they rarely come near the feeders. Mostly stay in the food (turnips) plot. Gray's are the most common here. Have a half dozen, trying to get in the feeders. They mostly scavenge, underneath.

Coons, I trap when there is evidence of defeating the feeder deterrents. I use a paw trap and dispatch them with a 22 LR. We too have plenty of eagles, hawks and owls. Occasionally, I've seen them hunt successfully.
 
Winelover said:
Fox squirrels aren't too common, here. Opposite in Michigan. I do have a pair but they rarely come near the feeders. Mostly stay in the food (turnips) plot. Gray's are the most common here. Have a half dozen, trying to get in the feeders. They mostly scavenge, underneath.

Coons, I trap when there is evidence of defeating the feeder deterrents. I use a paw trap and dispatch them with a 22 LR. We too have plenty of eagles, hawks and owls. Occasionally, I've seen them hunt successfully.
Click to expand...
Come March, or maybe earlier if we get an early Spring, the coons will start showing up under the feeder at night. If it weren't for a couple of hobby trappers and cars running them over we'd be up to our back sides in coons.

I would prefer to use a .22 with a precision head shot and will do so when possible. I have a S&W .22 fake AR with a Primary Arms red dot that works splendidly in low light. But.....one of my machine sheds is in the line of fire if I cannot carefully line up the shot. Thus, the coons usually run. I have managed to successfully nail a couple on the run with the .22. But for after dark certainty, my 11-87 with 3" steel T-shot and a light really does the trick. The coon will go barreling down the driveway and come rolling out of a cloud of gravel dust, never to depredate again. The steel shot prevents giving the anti lead crowd any birds of prey with lead in their gizzards to use against us.
 
We had venison St. Hubert for my birthday and venison steaks Diane last night, so I guess we can put up with this. The birds are not amused.IMG_3719.JPG
 
The very reason, I paw trap coons. They usually hang down from the top of the feeder..................not going to take a shot and destroy the seed level window of the feeder. The adults are not the issue, they've learned. I'm guessing. Game cameras pick them up in the food plot all the time, which isn't that far away from the feeders. I leave them alone, if they leave me alone. Any sign of mischief at the feeders, out the traps go, armed with mini marshmallows.
 
9:30 tonight i looked over my computer out the back window. There was our local Bobcat walking the edge of our yard 20 yards from where i sat. He turned and walked towards the house. I turned to my left and rolled my chair to the window looking to the east but couldn't see the cat. I looked straight down below the window. And their he was rubbing his side against the foundation of the house. He actually looked more like a leopard with small spots. His hole body was spotted. He looked much bigger than all of the Bobcats we have seen this year.
 
Kevin Stenberg said:
9:30 tonight i looked over my computer out the back window. There was our local Bobcat walking the edge of our yard 20 yards from where i sat. He turned and walked towards the house. I turned to my left and rolled my chair to the window looking to the east but couldn't see the cat. I looked straight down below the window. And their he was rubbing his side against the foundation of the house. He actually looked more like a leopard with small spots. His hole body was spotted. He looked much bigger than all of the Bobcats we have seen this year.
Click to expand...
Fabulous, just fabulous! We took our evening walk right as the sun was going down last night and saw 27 deer in two miles.
 
Early this AM. This guy showed up, alone.

7-9-21 (1).JPG

7-9-21 (2).JPG

Not the clearest pictures, I would have hoped for. Low light and through the window. Cindy just shipped her Canon, back to the factory for refurbishment, yesterday.

I just mowed down the food plot, over the holiday weekend.
 
Winelover
The wife and i would stay by the window most of the day if we had the probability of seeing some of the bucks you do. In our house everything stops when a visitor comes in the yard.
 
Kinda strange, John (Winelover) lives a 15 minutes drive from me and I get does here fairly often but a lone buck maybe once every 2-3 years. He gets bucks all the time. If his bucks were smart they would be over here where the girls are. :)
 
Or over here where the girls outnumber the boys 10 to 1.
Been seeing deer in the yard lately at least twice a week. Sometimes during the day, sometimes at night. When I take Tasha out for her last potty the deer are often out there. Half the time they no longer bother to run away.
 
We have a high coyote population despite the fact that everybody but PETA members shoot them on sight. I think we have does that have and raise their fawns right in and around the yard because of all the shooting here. We have had to call cease fires on a number of occasions to allow the deer to wander through in front of the targets.
 
I do get more than my share of bucks. The first year we built on this acreage, Cindy and I were sitting on the lower back porch, one evening, About 80 yards away, a procession of eight very large racked bucks, filed out of the woods. This was ten years ago. Every year after that, there has been a bachelor group of four or more mature bucks. This year there was six hanging out together. Last year there was five.

Several years ago, after our generous hunting season (third weekend in Sept. till Feb 28th) I photographed a group of eleven bucks in March. At first, I thought they were does. Until the last one that appeared had antlers (8 pointer). when I glassed them, I could see the others had dropped theirs............bosses/bare spots on their heads, were apparent.

We get does but not as many during the day light hours. Game cameras pick them up, most nights, in the food plot. Just this morning Cindy saw a doe drinking from the birdbath, at 7 AM.

I manage my property to attract and hold deer. I'm also mostly surrounded by thousand of acres of wooded land that is inaccessible to the public. No agricultural crops are grown in the immediate area.
 
Cindy just went out to photograph one of her new plant that finally bloomed.

7-10-21 (1).JPG

While she was out front, she took this photo, too.

7-10-21.JPG

Probably, the same deer that was drinking out of the birdbath, earlier. I had just returned from taking Bella out for her morning constitutional.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.