‘22 Iowa whitetail

[Gellar]

5 does, 1 buck. I decided to move slowly straight ahead from my position in that previous picture. About 100 yards ahead I saw a doe, then 2 then 3 about 75 yards ahead. They were the same 3 does that are always first into the field. The bucks follow them by 75 yards or so. I got up behind to be ready when the boys showed up. The does crossed the ravine and worked up the edge of the field, never going out into the open. I get that sense like there is something watching me from behind so I turn around and sure enough there is a doe walking right down my trail 30 yards away. We make eye contact and I assure her she is safe. She seems content and turns off my path and keeps feeding. I turn to the other deer and a 2 more deer have appeared. I’m not sure where they come from. The binoculars confirm one is a doe and one is a buck. The smaller one I’ve seen a few times already. I wait hoping another one will show up but they never do. The walk out was miserable, into the wind and through drifts. When I got home I told my wife I needed help getting a deer. She got completely dressed in her gear before I told her I was joking and didn’t kill one. I’ll need to sleep with one eye open tonight. When I got back to the house it was -2. I did what every logical person would do, started the traeger to grill elk burgers and brats.

 

[Gellar]

I wasn’t able to hunt for a few days from Christmas Eve through the 27th. Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas I was able to scout the field I had been hunting near. Monday there were around 25 deer in the field with 5 or 6 bucks, but none were shooters. Tuesday December 27 the weather turned and the temps were in the 30s. Wednesday I with higher temps yet I decided to hunt a timbered ridge I hadn’t hunted in a few years. The last time I hunted it during the late season it was -11. I had buck at 20 yards that would have been close to b and c but for the life of me I could not pull my bow back. I haven’t bow hunted in the late season since then. But back to Wednesday. I hiked out to the ridge with way to much clothes on. As I was cresting a hill about 40 yards before the timber 3 does jumped up. Stupidly I kept walking thinking that was all the deer but after another few steps a buck jumped up. I only saw it from behind, but it looked like something deserving of a second look. I sat down the ridge in the direction all four of the deer had run off earlier. Right at the end of legal shooting a doe and small buck came through at 10 yards.
Today I hunted the same spot, this time I stopped as I crested the hill. I glassed the entire woods but couldn’t see anything so I got in my ladder stand and waited. About 10 minutes before dark 2 does came through. It was near 50 degrees today. Activity has slowed to a grinding halt with the warm temps.

The view from my stand this afternoon. The round spots without snow are conical burial mounds. They go as far as you can see down the ridge. On the left side of the picture is a straight up and down bluff to the Mississippi River. I have seen deer appear and disappear over that edge. Turkeys like to roost in the trees over the edge. If they get spooked they roll off the branch setting their wings and glide to the islands across the main channel of the Mississippi. I could hear people talking while they were ice fishing in the other side of the river.


Sun dogs from Christmas Eve while I was watching 25 deer feed in the field.


Not hunting, but occasionally at work we find deer on the ice below our office. Sometimes they are still alive with broken legs. We surmise they are crossing the bridge when a vehicle comes and they jump. This one was fresh on Tuesday morning. By this afternoon the eagles had picked it over pretty good and it was almost gone.

 

[Gellar]

I Went out Friday and didn’t see a deer. Yesterday and today I don’t have a good wind for any of my spots so I’m at home.

The Dnr called last week and one of the bucks we shot during the shotgun season came back positive for CWD. It’s the first positive one we have had in 10 years since the first wild CWD case was found in Iowa about a mile as the crow flies from where we hunt. All of the meat was separated by deer so all we had to do was get that deer out of the freezer and discard. The dnr gave us two options for disposal. Either place the meat back on the land where it was shot or they would come and get the meat to discard.
We went with option 3 which the dnr was ok with. The guy who helped me process the deer is a veterinarian. He has an incinerator so we incinerated the meat and bones.

 

[Nick87]

Either place the meat back on the land where it was shot

Seems odd

 

[BrentD]

We went with option 3 which the dnr was ok with. The guy who helped me process the deer is a veterinarian. He has an incinerator so we incinerated the meat and bones.

That was not a good choice. Prions do not incinerate at normal incinerator temperatures. You need something closer to a smelter to do it. They are stunningly stable. Those prions will fall back to the ground perfectly viable.

The USDA National Animal Disease Lab in Ames created a chemical maceration facility that will do the job, but reportedly, for the last 15-20 yrs it has held the contents of left from some scrapies sheep from Connecticut. No landfill will that the remains, although it is safe. Scary stuff.

 

[Gellar]

That was not a good choice. Prions do not incinerate at normal incinerator temperatures. You need something closer to a smelter to do it. They are stunningly stable. Those prions will fall back to the ground perfectly viable.

The USDA National Animal Disease Lab in Ames created a chemical maceration facility that will do the job, but reportedly, for the last 15-20 yrs it has held the contents of left from some scrapies sheep from Connecticut. No landfill will that the remains, although it is safe. Scary stuff.

Idk what to do. Putting it back on the land doesn’t make much sense to me. I don’t know what the dnr is doing with them, but they don’t have CWD dumpsters anymore because the landfill won’t take them. So I bet they are just going to place them back on the land at a wildlife management area.

 

[Nick87]

Idk what to do. Putting it back on the land doesn’t make much sense to me. I don’t know what the dnr is doing with them, but they don’t have CWD dumpsters anymore because the landfill won’t take them. So I bet they are just going to place them back on the land at a wildlife management area.

Drop it off at Brent's house.

 

[BrentD]

Idk what to do. Putting it back on the land doesn’t make much sense to me. I don’t know what the dnr is doing with them, but they don’t have CWD dumpsters anymore because the landfill won’t take them. So I bet they are just going to place them back on the land at a wildlife management area.

Putting it back does make sense to a degree. The disease is already there. You are not spreading it.

I don't know what the IDNR does with it either, but that would be my first choice. Presumably, they "have a plan".

Know of any abandoned wells or coal mines over there?

 

[Gellar]

Assessing the Ability of Incineration to Inactivate CWD Prions from Carcasses | U.S. Geological Survey

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), a fatal neurologic disease of cervids, presents a monumental management challenge, in part because the etiological agent, an infectious prion, is extremely difficult to inactivate and can be transmitted directly or indirectly to hosts. Due to these attributes of...

www.usgs.gov

This lab study says incineration will affectively inactivate the prions. But incineration has not been affectively studied outside of labs.

 

[BrentD]

Assessing the Ability of Incineration to Inactivate CWD Prions from Carcasses | U.S. Geological Survey

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), a fatal neurologic disease of cervids, presents a monumental management challenge, in part because the etiological agent, an infectious prion, is extremely difficult to inactivate and can be transmitted directly or indirectly to hosts. Due to these attributes of...

www.usgs.gov

This lab study says incineration will affectively inactivate the prions. But incineration has not been affectively studied outside of labs.

Interesting. Was it with CWD prions? Perhaps they are susceptible at lower temps.

 

[Gellar]

Interesting. Was it with CWD prions? Perhaps they are susceptible at lower temps.

I assume so since it is a study on the effectiveness of incinerating CWD infected carcasses to destroy the prions.

 

[BrentD]

I assume so since it is a study on the effectiveness of incinerating CWD infected carcasses to destroy the prions.

Yeah, I just looked at it. So, maybe a good option after all. Good luck either way. In the end, however, it will be everywhere, just like Emerald Ashbore and every sort of invasive there is. This is no different.

 

[Gellar]

Yeah, I just looked at it. So, maybe a good option after all. Good luck either way. In the end, however, it will be everywhere, just like Emerald Ashbore and every sort of invasive there is. This is no different.

No argument there. We’ve all seen how devastating invasive species are whether it’s a plant, insect or animal or if it was purposely introduced into an ecosystem or brought in by accident.

 

[Gellar]

My dad killed the top buck 7 or 8 years ago. The bottom buck was killed this year by my brother about 2 miles from where the top one was killed. The angle is different but they are almost identical minus the broken points.

 

[Nick87]

View attachment 258694
My dad killed the top buck 7 or 8 years ago. The bottom buck was killed this year by my brother about 2 miles from where the top one was killed. The angle is different but they are almost identical minus the broken points.

I love the display is that above a staircase?

 

[Gellar]

I love the display is that above a staircase?

Yes, the Wood is from my barn that was built in 1927. The wood for the barn was milled from trees that dropped the seeds to grow the trees where the 2 bucks roamed. The barn might be exactly 1/2 way between where the two bucks were killed.

 

[Nick87]

Yes, the Wood is from my barn that was built in 1927. The wood for the barn was milled from trees that dropped the seeds to grow the trees where the 2 bucks roamed. The barn might be exactly 1/2 way between where the two bucks were killed.

Very cool l, just finished painting our rear entry way which leads to the basement. Just gave me an idea. I've got some barnwood saved up but its not from our farm unfortunately it's from next farm south, late 1800s I believe. Cool that your still able to enjoy that. It's almost all subdivisions and shopping malls where that came from now.

 

[duckhunt]

I've never even thought about getting my deer tested. Is there any evidence of illness do to eating cwd deer?

 

[Gellar]

Very cool l, just finished painting our rear entry way which leads to the basement. Just gave me an idea. I've got some barnwood saved up but its not from our farm unfortunately it's from next farm south, late 1800s I believe. Cool that your still able to enjoy that. It's almost all subdivisions and shopping malls where that came from now.

My wife was showing me Pinterest things she wants to do with our stairwell and my mounts just last night. If I ever meet that s.o.b. that started Pinterest….

 

[Gellar]

I've never even thought about getting my deer tested. Is there any evidence of illness do to eating cwd deer?

No, CWD is in the same class as scrapies and mad cow disease, but it has never been passed to humans that we know of. It was passed to monkeys in a lab last year.
The Ia dnr will test it for free if you shoot a deer in a CWD zone. There was a positive deer this fall north of Lansing.