A highlight from the September issue of D&DH, which will hit newsstands in about a month:

Field Editor Bob Zaiglin reports on the latest findings from the Southeast Deer Study Group. Among them is a recently completed study by Charles Ruth, Deer Project Leader in South Carolina.

Among his findings, Ruth and his associates studied how supplemental feeds are used throughout private lands in the Southeast. They learned that corn was distributed on 94 percent of the properties with an average of 18 locations per property, 7½ months per year. An average of 34,600 pounds of corn was distributed per property equating to 1,200 pounds of corn per deer harvested. At a price of $4.50 per bushel, this represents a cost of $94.50 per deer harvested. Extrapolating survey results to the region yields 80,000 bait stations and 2.33 million bushels of feed at a cost of $10.4 million.

Baiting and feeding deer is as big a business as it is controversial!

Be sure to read Bob's full report in the September issue.

Dan Schmidt, Editor

In the January issue of the magazine, Tes Jolly presented an informative piece on how Southern landowners have used pre-established honeysuckle to their benefit as a deer browse source. One thing we should have done a better job at (and I will take blame for this) is that landowners elsewhere should not introduce this plant to their properties, especially in the upper Midwest.

My good friend Aaron McCullough of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was kind enough to share his expertise on the dangers of honeysuckle:

1. Habitat
Japanese honeysuckle  readily invades open natural communities, often by seed spread by birds. An  aggressive colonizer of successional fields, this vine also will invade  mature forest and open woodlands such as post oak flatwoods and pin oak  flatwoods. Forests with either natural or unnatural openings are often  invaded by Japanese honeysuckle when birds drop seeds into these light gap  areas. Deep shading reduces the amount of invasion.

2. Life  History
Japanese honeysuckle climbs and drapes over native  vegetation, shading it out. It is capable of completely covering herbaceous  and understory plants, and climbing trees to the canopy. The semi-evergreen  condition of this honeysuckle allows for growth both prior to and after  dormancy of other deciduous plants. The prolific growth covers and smothers  vegetation present including understory shrubs and trees in forested  communities. Although this prolonged growth period is beneficial to the  plant, it is also beneficial in controlling the plant. Vegetative runners  are most prolific in the open sun and will resprout where touching the soil,  forming mats of new plants. This honeysuckle will display little growth  under moderate shade. In deep shade, runners develop but often die back.  Flowering and seed development are heaviest in open-sun areas. Seedling  establishment and growth is slow in the first 2 years of development of a  new honeysuckle colony.

3. Effects Upon Natural Areas
This  aggressive vine seriously alters or destroys the understory and herbaceous  layers of the communities it invades, including prairies, barrens, glades,  flatwoods, savannas, floodplain and upland forests. Japanese honeysuckle  also may alter understory bird populations in forest communities. 

4. Current Status
Japanese honeysuckle is categorized as an  exotic weed under the Illinois Exotic Weed Control Act of 1987. As such, its  commercial sale in Illinois is prohibited.

Please keep these factors in mind and opt for native browse plantings when planning your next project.

Dan Schmidt, Editor

That old saying is certainly ringing true for the deer near our home offices. Here is a picture I took off the front porch of my house yesterday evening. The photo doesn't show all of them, but 15 deer in total showed up just before nightfall. What were they eating? Willow leaves and twigs. Yes, things have gotten that bad around here. We still have about a foot of really hard, crusty snow in the woods and the deer are really feeling the effects of this long winter.
--Dan Schmidt

Although the majority of white-tailed bucks have shed their antlers from last year, I am still receiving reports of deer still holding on to one side and, in rare cases, both sides. The following photo was taken by a good friend of mine (and loyal D&DH reader) from Waupaca, Wis., which is just south of our editorial offices here in northeast WI. This photo was taken Sunday, March 16. We are keeping track of dates for sightings across the country, so please add your notes to this post.
--D.E.S.

I've suffered from a selective memory these past few years. It seems that I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, yet I can nearly recite all of Robin Yount's offensive statistics from his MVP season in 1982. A coworker says I have "stress-induced ADD." Maybe he's right!

In any event, I do vividly recall a conversation I had with another D&DH fanatic in 1995 when I was compiling the state-by-state deer hunting statistics for our Deer Hunters' Almanac. We were talking about our home state of Wisconsin's then-impressive annual archery harvest of 69,158 whitetails. This number was almost unheard of at the time. "Nearly 70,000 deer taken with bow and arrow?" my friend said. "Amazing, but that will likely never happen again. Once we get this herd down, we bow-hunters will be back to the days of killing 40,000 to 50,000 deer a year...and liking it."

Not quite.

Wisconsin's bow harvest has not only increased expotentially since then (our five-year average is 101,000 deer per year), there are no signs of it ever going back to those averages of the "old days."

The numbers from this past season were released yesterday. Brace yourself. In 2007/08, Wisconsin bow-hunters established a new season record of 116,042, eclipsing the previous record of 113,918 that was only one year old. Gun deer hunters brought in 402,531 deer, their third best season ever.

The overall harvest of 518,573 deer is the second highest in state history and sixth highest in U.S. history.

--Dan Schmidt D&DH Editor

Here are some snapshots of the state's amazing run: