INTERESTING UP DATES from the Wildlife Acivityt Research Project

[T.R. Michels]

Hello Hunters,

I woke up at about 5, with excruciating pain in my neck, due to the arthritis I have in it, which pinches nerves in both arms, so I took 90 mg of morphine, a glass of milk and a tangerine, and got on the computer.

Basically I got up, brushed my one good tooth (the rest are false), looked out my one good eye (I have blind spots in the other one), put my hearing aid in one ear (I'm deaf in the other one), looked out the window, and said - "It looks like a beautiful day to be alive, thank you Lord for what I have. Amen.

If you did not know, I am in my second year of the Wildlife Activity Research Project (WARP), researching the activity of whitetails, black bears, turkey, geese, ducks and bald eagles. I'm looking at how weather affects when and where the animals move, how their activity changes from month to month, or how it changes as they go through their breeding seasons and phases, if there is any correlation between the moon and hourly, daily, weekly or breeding activity.

The moon phase does not affect the breeding activity of deer. I say this with absolute confidence after looking at the breeding dates of over 1,500 whitetail does over an 8 year time frame. I talked deer biologist Dr. Karl Miller into following up on this, and his student came to the same conclusion. BUT, I was the first person to be able to prove it, and write about the fact that the moon had no effect on whitetail breeding dates. It may affect monthly activity (I'm just not sure yet, after 10 years of research), but you sure can't use any game activity table or Guides to accurately predict when they will move -unless they predict morning and evening every day (because every deer study ever done, shows that peak activity of whitetails occurs every day within 2-3 hours of sunrise and sunset).

Anyhow, the bucks on the property look like they are about 3/4 done growing racks, velvet will be shed the last week of August / first week of September for many deer above mid Arkansas, and they will immediately begin scraping and making rubs.

I'm not seeing much nighttime activity at the feeders yet, but if last year is any indication, the bucks will start feeding a lot at night within a week or two of when they shed their velvet. So, you have a chance to pattern them between late August and mid September, when bucks in some areas go through what I refer to in as the Fall Home Range Shift / Dispersal Phase, which is when they move to fall breeding territories, after their testosterone levels get so high they can no longer stand the sight of each other. So, they have to spread out, some may end up a mile or more away.

Which means the bucks you are seeing now, may move sometime between September 15 and October 15. The way to find out where they have gone, is to get out and look for new rubs and scrapes, in areas where they have not previously occurred that year. When you see them, it tells you a buck has moved into that area, and you can either do a lot of glassing in the mornings and evenings, or use game cameras to find out what he looks like.

But, if you archery hunt, those first two weeks of September are a good time to connect on a buck that semi-regularly travels a rub route (the same route, at about the same time - everyday) going and coming to food sources.

Whiskers, the 300+ pound black bear boar I've been watching for a year and change, learned how to crawl on top of the 8 foot high feeders this week, and open the lid to get at the corn, at two different feeders about a mile apart. There is a video of it on You tube. Incidentally boars may travel 5-8 miles per day, sows more like 3-5 miles. So, if you have baits out, don't expect the same bear to hit it all that regularly. It may be off looking for other food sources for a while before it returns to your bait. Be patient.

The bears are still moving in broad daylight, with activity peaking around 9-10 in the morning and 4-6 in the evening, and they do it in temperatures over 90 degrees (which shocked most of us researchers), medium size boars and sows will typically spend 30-45 minutes at a corn feeder, large boars will spend about an hour.

I expect them to become more nocturnal as September roles around and they go through "hyperphagia", which is when they spend up to 20 hour per day feeding. Many of us thought bears went nocturnal because of the high heat in September and early October. It turns out it is partly due to hunting pressure, but has more to do with this need to eat 20 hours pr day. With only 24 hours in a day, they have to spend more time eating after dark than normal.

Turkeys are in three semi-distinct groups, with toms in their own groups, jake in their own groups, and the hens, with their female offspring, in their own groups. Since hens stay like this until spring, what you see in the spring with large hen flocks, is a mother and her female offspring. Much of the calling you hear after the older hens have nested, is the younger hens looking for mom every morning.

The loud yelping, is a social contact call, which basically says 'Here I am mom, where are you?" It is not a hen calling to a tom to get bred, but toms do respond to it, to see if they can get lucky. So -go ahead and think loud yelping is a "hen in heat" call, because toms will respond but, the hen is not using it for the same reason you are. Make it loud, like one of you children would do if they were lost at Disney World. That way every tom in the neighborhood will hear it, and if they are not with a hen already, they may come looking for you, so keep your butt down - you don't want to be a victim of specialized cells - jumping the species barrier.

If you have questions- fire away I'm here to help.

While you guys and gals are out there goofin' off, I'm working at trying to figure out when, where and how to get you close enough for good shots. Hunting, researching and photographing game animals for a living - is a tough job - but someone has to sacrifice. It might as well be me, still going after 11 years of research. Good thing I have a computer, because there is not enough room in my old head to store everything I've learned in 11 years of game research.

I hope to see some of you at my seminars at the Anoka, MN Game Fair Aug 6 7 8 & 13 14 15. if you come to one of my 12 seminars, you will receive a chance to win a FREE Trophy Whitetail Archery Hunt, in sw Missouri, with an outfitter who has taken over thirty 140 or better bucks in 6 years. He still has hunts available.

God bless and good hunting,

T.R.