March is over already!

Well, I figured I better get at least two posts in March so I'll get this one in on the last day!

I've been back down to the land a couple times this month since Cathy was out of town anyway. I got a ton of new trail camera pictures including several of this beautiful buck!



There are a ton more pictures on my website photo gallery with the newest pictures starting on page 14 and going onto page 15.
Link to Trail Camera Pictures

Eli is growing up fast and turned 15 months old this month. He is at 90% for his age for height and right in the middle for weight. Work has been very busy but I guess that's a good thing in some aspects.

I trapped 6 more raccoons to make a total of 15 in the month of March, I think that means that I had more than my fair share to begin with! I'm still getting pictures of them on my trail camera pictures. I trapped 1 skunk also. I shot 2 wild pigs this month as well and am going to try to make a ham out of the last one I shot.

Techincally there are only 2 more weeks of busy season but some of my audits are going to run a little later than that I'm afraid. I still am hoping to get some work done on the land in April (planting sorghum on 33 acres and planting 5 acres in food plots for wildlife) and around the house as well putting in a lawn for Eli to play in and some trees that some friends are giving us.

Well I think that gets me up to date for the most part.

Nathan

Raccoon Trapping

I've known for the last year that I have way too many raccoons on the land in Fisher county. I have one picture on a trail camera with 13 raccoons in it under one of the feeders. Raccoons are also big nest raiders and if you have a lot of raccoons you will probably end up with fewer quail and turkey. I bought a cage trap this past summer and set it several times but never was successful at catching a raccooon. I did some research online and found a neat trap called "'Lil Grizz Get'rz". They are made specifically for trapping raccoons as they have to reach their hand in a little pipe and then pull back on the trigger to spring the trap. They are also very easy to setup and I ended up buying a couple. I asked around some more and several folks said I would never make a dent in the raccoon population trapping a couple at a time so I ended up buying a dozen more of them. I wasn't able to get out right away but this past weekend I got to go out and I set up the 14 traps. I set them out about 4 in the afternoon and baited 8 of them with sardines and 6 of them with marshmellows (I read about this online and about 1/2 the folks recommended sardines and 1/2 the folks recommended marshmellows so I figured I would try both). Well, I caught 9 raccoons overnight! 7 of them were caught on sardines and only 2 on marshmellows so I guess I'll be using sardines in the future. The sardines are easier to use anyway, they just make somewhat of a stink! I was very happy with the results for my first time trapping.

I got some trail camera pictures of a new buck too. I'm going to call him "Stickers" because he almost looks like a cactus he has so many points.

You can see from the raccoons in the picture that one other benefit from reducing the raccoon population will be that I should save some money on my feeding bill. I think I had more raccoons eating out of the feeder than I had deer! Oh well, I think that's about it. Getting to where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on my busy season. Nathan