(bright opening music) - [Bret] On the next "Prairie Sportsman", join Dan Amundson and myself as we head out bow hunting.

(deer bleats) We'll also learn valuable tips on food plot management from Danny Thompson.

And stay tuned for an intriguing look at nature when we learn about the Awful Wildlife Watching Project.

- Welcome to "Prairie Sportsman", I'm Bret Amundson.

We got a great show for you starting right now.

(mystical music) (upbeat music) - [Voiceover] Funding for "Prairie Sportsman" is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

Mark and Margaret Yael Jolene, on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windham, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

And by West Central Initiative and Western Minnesota Prairie Waters and the members of Pioneer PBS.

- Deer Hunting, it's still number one in Minnesota.

Over 713,000 firearm archery and muzzle loader licenses were sold in 2023.

The way we hunt has changed over the years with more focus on gear, land management, and targeting trophy bucks.

I like deer, I like to hunt 'em, I like to eat 'em and I wanna learn more about 'em, where they eat, where they sleep, what type of habitat they like to use when they travel.

Now this year in Minnesota it's been tough.

Numbers in the north are down and here in the south the weather's been pretty mild and warm despite these snow flurries we're getting right now.

This weather though, has made it tough for us to pattern and predict where these deer are gonna be.

Now as we get closer to the end of the season, my target is starting to shift from the remaining big bucks in the area to finding a sizable doe to fill the freezer with.

In late season doe mode, there's a lot of doughs on this property and a landowner wants us to take a couple out.

So Dan and I both have our bow tag.

He's on one side of the property, I'm on the other.

He actually came to full draw walking in this afternoon and I'm not sure why he didn't have a shot, but it was close.

So hopefully that means good things tonight.

It's normally this time of year, we're in ground blind stress, really warm, maybe a heater going.

It was almost 50 degrees here today, so it's gonna be a nice comfortable sit this afternoon.

Hopefully, the deer is still moving.

Let's go.

(relaxing music) (relaxing music continues) (deer bleats) (bow shot) God dang it, that was a pretty good chance.

You know, I've been waiting all season to have a good opportunity like that and I don't know, I paced it off at 40 yards.

I used my 40 yard pin, I'm not quite sure what happened, but we're probably gonna have to do a little bit of practice working, work on the sites a little bit, make sure nothing got bumped.

But Dan, how'd your night go?

- Well, could have shot fawns, could have shot a little bucks.

No adult does, no adult deer.

So no shots tonight, but a lot of deer running around and we'll get back after tomorrow.

- Well, what happened?

You saw deer when you were walking in?

- Well, there was a bunch of deer actually, and one was just batted down and so did what I was taught to just walk past it, don't acknowledge the deer.

It was watching me, the whole way, walked past, set everything down.

I still had my tree stand on my back, set everything down, took an arrow out, put my release on, didn't have my release on, knocked an arrow, got locked up ready to, just tried to walk back at it and never gave me a shot, but it was hanging out there and so we knew they were deer around and then they kind of scattered and started to filter back as the afternoon went on, but no old shooters.

- I mean that's almost dead on.

I must have either just torque the bow a little bit or just didn't quite have it aligned right.

I was rushed, that doe had my heart racing, but I think we're pretty dialed in.

I'm gonna shoot it a couple more times so just to make sure.

And we got an afternoon to go sit.

(fast paced music) Well, I do have access to some good hunting ground that has food plots.

I wanna learn a little bit more about getting deer closer with better shooting lanes.

Danny Thompson is known more for ice fishing, but in recent years has dug into the world of land management.

- I mean that's just the really cool part is the management, the deer that live here, you know, just everything that kind of goes into it is pretty cool.

- [Bret] Before we start planting food plots, it's good to look at the property as a whole and sketch out a plan.

- You know, right now I've got two food plots that are like that I was able to get done and get established here.

Obviously, I've got a long-term kind of plan for what I wanna do on this property.

It's 80 acres total of property.

There's a great ridge system that kind of runs through the southern portion of it with a nice flat.

Here up on top, we've got one of my bigger, which will be kind of like my destination food plot up on top.

That one's gonna be around, it's 1.3 acres right now.

When I finish that one, it'll be around two acres and then I'm gonna have another one out on the point.

And then right now currently, we've got another one down in the bottom.

So all right, well let's go check out these food plots.

I'll show you kind of what I got going on up top here.

Obviously, weather this year got a little bit weird, but you know, I'm really hoping to bring these deer in.

Late season was kind of my initial plan on this property.

And so we kind of went with some late season plots and you'll see, I mean the green is just like it's neon green in a sea of brown right now.

- [Bret] It's kind of weird to be here in December and not see any snow on the ground.

- Yeah, I mean, so that's kind of the funny thing is my plan didn't work this year and that's the thing with deer season, right, is you know, you can't really predict the weather.

And so we made it through some droughts this summer.

I kind of was hoping to use my waterhole program as kind of my mid-season early season approach and then these brassica plots for a late season approach, but didn't work.

We have no snow, we got 70 degrees.

I mean there is acorns everywhere on the ground.

There's still black bears roaming around and it's, you know, early December here.

- [Bret] After deciding where to put his food plots, he cut trails that connected them and planted those as well.

- You know, I planted all these trails into like a clover chicory mix, something that can handle a little bit of shade and it really just kind of works as like a food highway that connects all these food plots and works really well.

Right now obviously, it's down 'cause of the leaves, but the deer absolutely love those food highways and it just helps create those transition zones where I'm moving them from bedding to food and back to bedding.

- [Bret] Opening up the canopy is important in your woods.

- One thing about deer that I think people really overlook is, you know, you can kind of see the piles of brush here.

So this property was recently select cut and what we're trying to do is get rid of some of that mature timber, open up the sunlight so the sunlight can get to the fourth floor here.

And what we're trying to get is some of these, this new growth whip like this, this is really good forage for white tails.

You can see they're already been picking off the tips of all of these, you know, this guy right here, you can see all of these have all been eaten by white tails.

And so that new growth is actually a really important food source for them.

You know, we've got great food plots like the one over my shoulder, but this like woody brows is really important feed for them in the wintertime.

In fact, it's probably more beneficial to them 'cause it is more natural and what they're used to having.

So you know, working on some of these timber management programs like hinge cutting and also actual forestry and logging some of this out is important for the white tails.

- [Bret] Once you have that food plot location, it's time to plant.

- The trail, we got a good deer trail coming into the water hole right here.

They spent a lot of time in this water hole but you know, leads right back down, right to the rim of the bluff, like I said.

So this food plot kind of comes down to a point.

There's bedding right off of the point of this food plot and you can see they're just hitting these turnips and these brassicas.

Here's one here you can see it's actually take these turnips and just take bite right out of 'em.

And obviously the tops is a great food source during you know, the earlier season and then late season, especially if we had some snow.

These turnips are great.

I think having a variety is a good thing and also having some food after, you know, the rest of the agriculture stuff is kind of gone is also important.

You know, a lot of people like to forget the fertilizer step of the whole food plot and it does cost you a little bit of money, but I mean look at the size of that bulb.

And these are planted later July.

This big sexy mix is a mix of purple top turnips and tiller radishes.

You know, the other important thing I think about, you know, especially being in this hill country is soil erosion is so important.

So you can see this food plot kind of comes down and drops off.

So as soon as we get these stumps and these trees outta here, what I'll probably do is put in an actual washout lane that goes down into this bottom.

So probably have like a clover chicory spot so we can kind of slow this water down.

We don't wanna have all this stuff running off the hill at all.

The other thing that is a key to I think my bow hunting success and one thing I've really been doing a lot of work with is mock scrapes.

And you know, one thing you learn about deer is, you know, they communicate through scent more so than any other type of communication.

And so I've actually got kind of a line of mock scrapes.

So we got one here kind of in the bottom.

We've actually got a hemp rope one right here and then another one up top.

And what I'm doing is almost directing traffic right to these water holes where I'm then, you know, have a deer within bow range and whatnot.

But the funny thing is, you can see right here the deer have actually got a natural scrape going.

I did kind of pull the tree down for 'em, so give them something to smell.

But I mean I've got a camera, that covert camera's looking right at this mock scrape and they hit this one every single day.

I mean you can see where they've got the dirt almost piled up here from hitting this mock scrape.

And basically, what they're doing is every deer is hitting this, it's like a dog walking past a fire hydrant.

Every deer is gonna stop and rub on that stick and you know, even kind of pee right there and just kind of leave their scent and let other deer know that this is their area or just leaving their scent communicating to the other deer in the area.

So it's a good way of getting pictures and kind of giving deer a spot that they want to stop.

A lot of times these big bucks, they're not gonna stop and feed in these food plots, especially during the rut, but they will take time to scent check the food plot.

But they'll also come and they'll smell the stick just to see, you know, what does have been by.

And it's crazy how much information they'll get just from doing that.

- [Bret] When you give wildlife the type of habitat they want, they're not gonna be far away.

- There's a deer, bunch of deer right there.

You see her, she's right there.

Her ears are moving.

There's the big black stump to the left kind of.

- [Bret] Yeah.

- She's just to the right of that or she turned her head to the right.

So exactly like the plan is supposed to work.

These does are bedded right on the downwind side of this point.

And then they'll slowly work right up into these food plots.

I mean these does are here all the time.

They probably, they're used to me being here working in the food plots and working on the property.

It's a pretty good rub here, ground scrape here.

My stand is right there.

- Not bad.

- Yeah, and like you can just see, so we've got a good stump sprouting basswood right here, right here, they love to rub this stuff and they could leave their scent in it.

And like I said, the food plot, I mean we're not more than 40 feet off the food plot.

The drop of the bluff is right here and what all I'm trying to do is get those bucks.

They don't like to walk the top, they don't like to walk the bottom, they walk just kind of down the curl of this bluff.

And you can tell a lot of bucks will spend some time right here clearly checking for these does that are bedded here.

So it's just a great ambush spot.

I've got my wind perfectly on a northwest or west shooting out over the bluff here.

So good spot.

And that's what you're trying to create when you put in these food plots.

Sometimes you need to put 'em in spots where you can have these type of locations versus just putting it where there's an opening in the woods.

So you really wanna do a lot of planning and kind of thinking it out before you actually go in and do it, you know.

- [Bret] Danny has enjoyed managing the land for his own personal deer hunting success, but he likes it even more when it gets to help out others.

- Yeah, absolutely.

You know, last year I kind of dabbled in it a little bit, you know, I've got a tractor and as soon as your buddies find out you have a tractor, then their buddies find out you have a tractor.

- So it's like having a pickup.

- Absolutely.

In fact, I took a a week of PTO last summer just to go do food plots and I really enjoy it and I've, you know, getting the text messages from other people where I went and planted a food plot for them and maybe gave them some ideas on where to put a mock scrape and a water hole and kind of that system I do and see it work for them.

I mean it's just as rewarding I feel like as me shooting a deer, it's almost like being a guide in a sense.

You know, I just, I like doing it.

I like seeing other properties.

I've gone everywhere from, you know, Northern Minnesota, Central Minnesota, Southeast Minnesota doing plots this past year.

And I mean it's super fun and just being able to learn all these different properties is rewarding.

- [Bret] So you harvested a deer, you field dress it, drag it outta the woods, process it and it feeds your family for the next year.

But what about those guts or awful that you left in the woods?

It's feeding other critters, but who exactly is enjoying that free meal?

That's the question that staff and volunteers at the University of Minnesota Extension are trying to answer with the Awful Wildlife Watching Program.

- The Awful Wildlife Watching Program is a volunteer run program where we are trying to understand which scavenger species are coming into hunter provided gut piles.

So the gut piles that hunters leave in the woods after they field dress a deer.

This program is funded by the Environment Natural Resource Trust Fund here in Minnesota and like I said, is run completely by a volunteer effort in terms of how we collect our data.

So hunters will set cameras at gut piles right after they field dress their deer and then send us images back of those scavenger species that visit the gut piles after about a month.

My interest in this really was spurred by my interest in hunter provided food sources, first with my PhD dissertation with hunter bait, hunter deer bait and bear bait in Michigan and Minnesota.

I wanted to understand what other scavengers were using hunter provided food.

I grew up in a family that hunted.

I knew that gut piles are left and every hunter will tell you that scavengers are coming in to use them.

We just wanted to look at that on a huge scale across Minnesota and understand what all scavengers were coming in.

- [Bret] While we didn't have any gut piles to monitor and officially participate in the program, we did have two deer carcasses that we put trail cams on for three months.

One doe that was harvested and a buck that was hit by a car, which we found while pheasant hunting.

Well Wade just found a buck that looks like a big one.

That is unfortunate.

Oh boy.

- Hit by a car?

Yeah, look at the scrapes right there.

Scrapes on the body.

Doesn't look like a bullet hole does it?

- Since this is a a scientific study, we are interested in kind of putting some controls on it.

We ask hunters to put cameras out for a full month after they field dress their deer.

We want them out as immediately as possible because I mean I've heard stories and I've seen myself at gut piles, crows, or eagles watching you field dress your deer knowing that it's there, it's coming.

So we want what's coming in immediately.

That month duration seems super long because a lot of times people will go back to the location that they shot their deer and that gut pile is gone two days later.

We recognize that, we understand that.

But there are some places in the state, maybe up north if you shoot a deer over Thanksgiving or during muzzle loader season in the late winter, that they might get a lot of snow and that gut pile might be covered and it might last a few weeks.

So to kind of standardize that across the state, we ask for a full month.

- [Bret] While this study is being conducted on gut piles in Minnesota, people from all over the world are helping out.

- After a month of having that out on a gut pile.

If they return the images to us, we upload them to an online participatory science platform called Zooniverse.

Anybody with an internet access can go on and help us analyze the images.

We have the location of every gut pile, the exact location for just about every gut pile.

And that's something that when we ask a hunter to share, we guarantee that we won't share that out with anybody else.

That's a very sensitive topic for people.

So using that location data, we can get at further more detailed questions than just biome, what's the difference between these large major biomes?

We can really look at how landscape features or tree cover might impact how long a gut pile lasts, which species are coming in, who's queuing into it.

We haven't looked at that quite yet, but that is something we will.

We started this project in 2018 and we really started it not knowing if anyone would be interested.

So we started it with the Master Naturalist Program 'cause we knew that was a group of people that was really interested in helping scientific efforts and we got a lot of interest.

So we moved and expanded to other hunting organizations, Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, Minnesota Chapter Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, and bluff and white tails have all really helped spread the word about this project.

So since 2018, we've grown and just this year's the first year we've been funded, we had the opportunity to hire a project coordinator with extension to help us really get the word out and collect more data and have more people involved.

- I was attracted to it because it's totally unique.

I think we are a bunch of researchers who are just kinda nature nerds, interested in what is happening with dead stuff in the woods.

And I think all of our volunteer hunters can relate to that.

They are curious about what is happening in their backyards or in the woods that they hunt in.

And we get a lot of great feedback from people who just like seeing what's happening when we humans aren't around to see it firsthand.

It's really neat that I get to be curious in my job all the time.

- So Minnesota's really unique in the biomes and the deciduous forest and the coniferous forest, in the prairie, and the farmland region.

So the scavengers that come in to feed on these gut piles are gonna vary.

So how does that vary and what are they are really the initial basic questions.

As far as scavengers go, we've learned that there's more than 50 different species of animals that feed on gut piles.

Variety of birds including woodpeckers, all sorts of mammals, including deer, that feed are actually feeding on the gut pile.

And we've learned that there is a difference across the biomes of maybe when different scavengers are finding the gut pile, how long they're staying, how many individuals are finding them.

So for example, in the prairie where it's a little more open, birds key in it really quick and then flocks of birds can see other birds and kind of flock.

So there's more individuals in the prairie region than in others.

- [Bret] While observing our carcasses, it was really interesting to watch the interactions between these different species, including this skunk who didn't wanna share its meal with a pack of coyotes.

And a mink that wasn't as successful in fending off those coyotes.

Well that's where the deer was, that's the camera there.

We've had skunks and crows and coyotes and then last night the battery died and they came and picked this thing clean.

And come to find out, look at this guy.

- [Man] A mink.

Look at that.

That's wild.

- I think the deer eating gut piles has been pretty surprising.

Not unheard of, deer and ungulates have been known to, you know, chew on antlers and when their nutrition demands it, they'll eat other things but it does bring up more additional questions potentially about possible disease spread from the deer perspective and then other scavengers as well.

So a lot of what's brought up is our additional questions that we could ask.

- We had some images from before I started of horses.

The landowner that owned these horses said they were eating the awful.

That was definitely surprising.

- Other studies I've read that have looked at similar things will name a few different species.

We've seen at least 50 different species that we can recognize as individual species.

And I'd say the majority of them are actually feeding on the carcass.

Some are maybe passing through, but I think just the amount is pretty interesting.

There are some that will look at like rabbits or woodpeckers that are initially kind of surprising.

But if you think about it, if you have a suet feeder, suet is fat and that's a woodpecker will come to that.

So if you think about it, not too surprising, but I think the variety of species has been pretty, pretty cool to see.

We have basic questions, so what's coming in and how that varies across the state.

And then from there I think we start to answer or ask a few more questions.

So questions about potential for disease spread, potential for the positive implications for a scavenger.

So this is a huge pulse resource on the landscape that historically didn't exist, right?

We have our management decisions have made this resource almost 200,000 gut piles, probably roughly give or take depending on the year, every year in Minnesota on the landscape in a month's time available to scavenger species that in the absence of human hunters would not have that available.

So understanding what that means to scavengers I think is part of the next step.

How are we positively impacting these species?

How are hunters really helping scavengers?

- Hunters can get in touch with us directly.

We have a website, it's awful.umn.edu.

Our email is also awful@umn.edu.

They can sign up to participate on that website and also if anybody needs camera equipment to use, we can help get them connected to a whole setup that they can borrow and then they mail it back to us at the end of the season.

We need more southwest hunters and then we are always looking for more participants.

So anybody who wants to join us, we welcome their contributions.

- Right now we have funding to do this for one more year.

We're hoping to move that forward.

I'd love to make this a long term project and kind of a pie in the sky dream for me is to expand this outside of Minnesota and compare between different states, maybe different management methods.

So where they might bait in Wisconsin, how does that affect what scavengers are coming into a gut pile versus in Minnesota in a similar biome.

(crow cawing) (relaxing music) - [Voiceover] Funding for "Prairie Sportsman" is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

Mark and Margaret Yael Jolene on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windham, Minnesota.

On the web, at shalomhillfarm.org.

Live Wide Open, Western Minnesota Prairie Waters, and the members of Pioneer PBS.