COOP NEWS
Oak Ridge Management Cooperative News
ORMC continues to grow since
its inception in February of 2003. There
is now nearly 50 members! I have
been talking to a few of the members and they have been seeing bigger bucks and
better ratios than they have at any time in the past.
My brother and I have personally witnessed some of this, at one time
seeing five bucks in a soybean field and no does at all.
We also witnessed three very nice bucks on their way to an alfalfa field.
We have found some very nice sheds as well.
Its working guys! And its only the beginning of year two. I really wasn’t expecting this for a couple more years.
Its very important that we continue the discipline, as we truly won’t
realize the fruits of our labor for 2 or 3 more years.
You may even want to consider raising your standards a little bit this
year.
We will be having a meeting
on Sunday, October 3rd at 1 pm.
I hope this is not too early, but I plan on having a field day in which I
will take everyone on a tour of our food plots and habitat improvements that we
have made. I want to have this
early enough so we don’t chase off any deer, but if it will be a problem,
please let me know and I will considering moving it back if enough people
can’t make it. We will go rain or
shine, so be sure to dress appropriately.
We will meet at my Dad’s farm. For
those of you who do not know where this is, it is 1 ½ miles north of the Old
Mill State Park and ½ mile east. It
is on the north side of the road and is the only farm on that mile. As always, the single most important thing you could do to
help our cause is to bring along a friend, especially someone who hunts in the
area. We have to start filling in
the gaps and educating those in our area who may not be aware of our cooperative
or those that just don’t understand yet.
I hope you will be able to learn a great deal from this.
If there is something in particular you would like me to bring up, please
let me know. We will set our
harvest guidelines for the next year at this meeting.
For those bowhunters who will be hunting before that, just use last years
guidelines: Only mature deer and bucks that have at least 8 points AND a spread
at least the width of the ears when in the alert position.
We will also talk about some MN QDM events, including the next banquet.
As always, I will invite John Williams from the DNR to be available to
answer any questions you may have. I
will also give an update on some of the things we have been doing with the MN
DNR to promote QDM.
As usual, I will be making
reminder calls a couple weeks before the meeting to get a better idea of final
numbers. Please mark this date on
your calendar and make it a point to attend.
We will likely only meet twice a year and we need your input.
Feel free to call me at 612-282-2431 or my brother, Craig, at
218-874-5477 if you have any questions.
EVERGREEN
WHITETAIL NEIGHBORHOOD CO-OP
Our MNQDM Co-op was formed on June 13, 2004
with 15 members and growing. We adopted standard QDM guidelines - buck
must have 4 or more points on one side or rack wider than ears at alert
position. Also selective does harvest, shoot mature does only. Some
of our neighbors hesitate to join our co-op because of their frustration of so
many deer in the area and loss of their crops, so to shoot only mature does to
them was a problem. At our next meeting which will be at Wolf Lake Lions
Club Sunday, Aug. 29, 2004 at 4:00 pm, we again will encourage everyone to shoot
mature does. If we do this as a group effort, this will start the process
of controlling the size of the herd. Also, during this meeting we will all
learn together how to score a deer rack by using the Boone and Crockett
method. We would also like all our co-op members to keep track of
does/bucks shot in their respective hunting parties. We will record the
in! formation each year, compare results from year to year and share this
information with our co-op members.
Forming a QDM Cop-op, so far, has been a
positive experience for me as president of our co-op. I've met most of my
neighbors face to face and enjoyed sharing our deer hunting stories. Just
last week I was contacted by a person who just bought land by our co-op and
wanted to join. That was fun to see happen. So, as neighbors, we
will work together to control deer herd population and use selective buck
harvest so all can enjoy seeing more and larger bucks in the future.
Last point to make, our co-op is located near
the town of Evergreen, which is north and east of Detroit Lakes, MN. If
you own land in this area and would like to join our co-op, you can e-mail me
direct at mkaywhite@hotmail.com or
call 218-847-6197, leaving a message if there is no answer. Have a fun and
safe hunt this fall.
Paul White
Straight River QDM
This co-op was originally formed with 11 members. These members brought to the co-op over 1300 acres of contiguous land and another 600 plus acres of non-contiguous land. We are currently planning for our fall meeting/membership drive. I have talked to Clyde about coming down and giving his power point presentation to those who attend. I have talked to the editor of our local paper and he is willing to do a write up about us and what we are trying to do and invite anyone wanting more info about QDM to come to our fall meeting. . I am currently working on a letter that will be sent directly to specific land owners that are bordering or close to the original co-op members land. This letter will introduce them to the concept of QDM and invite them to our fall meeting. There is currently a great deal of excitement among the current members about the potential of QDM, hopefully we can expand the number of acres and members of our co-op.
Sincerely,
Craig Rossman
Park Rapids, MN
President
Straight River QDM
Dalton Coop
The Dalton
QDM Coop was formed out of local interest after experimenting with quality deer
management on some area farms for the past 4 years. I thought it was
necessary to get the neighbors more involved and make this more of a group
effort. The Coop is a great way to get an area started into this type of
management with everyone practicing the same techniques. As of now we have
22 members with an area compromising of about 2000 acres all under QDM. We
started up in early April of this year and Clyde and Annette were here April
17th and did their power point presentation to help educate all of us on what
Quality Deer Management is all about. This is the number one thing we all need
to do is educate others so they can fully understand our management beliefs. We
have had good response in our area with new members trickling in. Our first
meeting was held on May 24th and our Fall meeting is scheduled for Monday
September 13th at 7:30 PM in the Dalton Fire Hall. Our president is myself Rob
Westby with the vise president being Dwight Hintermeister. The Coops
Secretary/Treasurer is Tim Sporre all from the Dalton Area. If anyone practicing
QDM wants to really get the full benefit from it I would strongly recommend
getting a local Coop formed for your area. It is a great way to get to know your
neighbors and what kind of hunting practices they believe in and strengthening
the State level of the Minnesota QDMI through memberships. You would be
surprised at how many of your neighbors want what the Minnesota QDMI Promotes.
We at the Dalton QDM Coop are all excited to see the results of our neighborhood
effort in the future. I am happy to answer any questions about starting your own
Coop through the MN QDMI. I can be reached at 218-589-7502 or e-mail me at thewoods@prtel.com.I
know Clyde and Annette can also help you as they did our area.
Rob Westby
Birch Cooley Coop
The Birch Coolie Area Coop was starded by myself along with a couple
other members after reading and understanding what QDM stood for.
We had been trying to better our areas deer herd on an individual bases
without success. We realized that with a little work we could educate our
neighbors on what we were doing in hopes they too would be interested in
building a more balanced herd along with us.
We found that many of our members had deer management on their minds, but
didn’t know where to go with the new concept until now.
We as a coop in the past years are now working with around 35 members and
3000 acres of prime Minnesota River Valley habitat.
We have seen a change in our deer in just the first year and are looking
forward to the future. All we can say about the great new, but proven concept is
“get out and talk to your neighbors.” The
are probably thinking about QDM, but don’t know where to start.
I have met many new friends and gained a great amout of knowledge about
the whitetail deer and encourage you to do the same.
Tim Wertish (320) 523-2247
Birch Coolie Area Coop, President