Harvesting game is only part of the attraction of hunting. The camaraderie, land management, watching the sun rise and set, the good food and libation all are more important than the harvest.

Nevertheless, we’re hunting not camping and we should track the harvest results.

Our 2014-15 hunting success was way off the prior year.

Our results were negatively affected by:

• The bumper mast crop this year. Whereas the acorn crop failure in 2013-14 caused the deer to travel far and wide to find food and to spend more time in the fields, the bumper crop of acorns this year drastically reduced the distance deer had to travel to get food and limited sightings in and around the food plots
• Apart of the Big Field, a mini-drought struck just after the fields were planted in late August causing a near complete failure of our food plots, most notably in the Tirrell field and in the New Field.
• We also passed on a number of deer during bow season, thinking that, based on last year’s results, we’d have plenty of other chances later in the season. Alas, as the season wore on and the hunting pressure increased, our sightings dropped sharply.

On another negative note, we saw a lot more bear this year.

On the positive side, Mike also connected with a coyote.

Overall, the results of our big game hunting look like this:

	2013-14	2014-15
Deer	8	2
Turkey	3	TBD During Spring Gobbler
Coyote	0	1

Regrettably, we weren’t able to donate any venison to the Hunters For The Hungry program this year.

We had a productive year hunting during the 2013-14 hunting season. It was the first year with the food plots in place and the mast crop failure during the Fall really caused the deer and turkey to use the fields extensively.

All together we took eight deer (six doe and two bucks) and three turkey off of the property. The 2013 DMAP report is located here. For comparative purposes, the report for all properties enrolled in the DMAP program in Buckingham County is located here.

Not pictured: Does harvested by Hugh during muzzleloader season and by Phil Luci and David Sterling during firearms season.

We planted 50 new apple, crab apple, and pear trees in four different food plots in March of 2014.

It was a team effort, with Mike Cerruti, Hugh Shytle, Herb Coleman, Lee Owens, and Jimbo Sadler all working a very long day to get the trees planted, staked and fenced. Two weeks earlier, Duane, Hugh, Mike and Herb had spent a couple of days using a tractor/augur to dig the holes and had pre-positioned the cages, t-posts, and top soil at each hole location.

All together the group has three days of back breaking work invested in the project, but it will really improve the hunting and carrying capacity of the land over time. Not to mention, we’ll have lots of yummy fruit for ourselves!

Here’s a list of fruit trees that we planted, the descriptions of the cultivars we planted, and an index showing where we planted the trees.

We planted apples in the snow on Sunday, March 24, 2013. These trees are located in the front of the cabin.

We planted Honeycrisp, Sundance, and WineCrisp on B.118 and MM.111 rootstock. The trees are from Cummins Nursery.

We planted the first of the apples on 3/11/13; these are located on the west side of the cabin.

We planted Newtown (Albemarle) Pippin, Hewes Crab, and Esopus Spitzenberg all on MM.111 rootstock. These three were apparently Thomas Jefferson’s favorite apples. The trees are from Century Farm Orchards.

Not long after acquiring the farm, Mike needed new toys!