I almost had to myself I was in the stand five minutes that night when I stuck it sure was hard waiting 45 min to track it. From the same stand a few years later my son had to go to a basketball tournament on opening day gun season so the stand was empty when a BIG 12 walked in front of the trail cam at 11:00am. We grow some big bucks around here.
Yeah, that's a nice buck. The farmlands around there really do produce some big ones. That's a shame about those ash trees and EAB. It's great they will be put to use as BTUs, but it's just a shame about it. When I drive to my cutting land from my house, I see many ran affected trees near where supersparks lives. When you can see the trees at 45-55mph, that's bad.
Horkin, here in s/e Michigan I see thousands of dead ash trees everyday. It's so sad that the majority of these trees will just rot. Most dead ash trees around here are free of bark by now. They are starting to lay over now.
Polarbear, we are having a lot of them tip over now too and the reason is that the roots are rotting and as they weaken, the tree goes over. I cut a couple of those back in December and January and was surprised that there was still quite a bit of moisture in the trunk but it only went up about 6' maximum.
I pulled several leaners here at my property with the old diesel ram. Actually my wife did most of the truck driving and I did the rigging. We have one big ash that is leaning hard into a couple of oaks. My buddy is a arborist and a pro climber. He came by and looked at that big leaner. We put a rope on it and it didn't budge. I want that wood but it is to far for the truck to reach. When the snow melts down a bit I might try a come along just above the roots see if I can get it to move. We also found a lot of moisture in that first 6' to 8' of the main trunk of the standing dead trees. Beyond that was good old ash. As long as the tree is down and not on the ground I have had better luck with the whole tree moisture wise.
Thanks Gasifier with this cold weather I think I'm going to get the Yamaha out and get some elm the rivers froze tight again. High of 10° this weekend but I may work on the honeydo list instead of getting wood and when it warms up get some elm.
Great pics supersparks! Thanks for sharing. Looks nice some nice time spent out in the woods, wood hoarding and hunting..double whammy!!
