December 29

Iowa late season pheasant hunting

This is the last blog post of 2016.  What a great year it has been, and thank you all for following along!  It has been a lot of fun to share our outdoor adventures with everyone.  I hope keep the blog content updated and current through the winter with the edition of more video in the upcoming year.  Cheers to happy hunting and tight lines in 2017!-KK


Late season can be a great time to bag a few birds.  These pheasants were found in Northeast Iowa where bird populations have rebounded the past couple years.  My aunt was home visiting during the holidays and was able to tag along and witness the successful hunt first hand.-KK

 

Happy New Year from Corn Belt Outdoors!

December 22

Merry Christmas to all from Corn Belt Outdoors!  

Our time recently has been spent enjoying family and friends so nothing to report from the woods or waters.-KK

December 15

Minnesota Muzzleoader Season-Final weekend/CWD found in SE Minnesota

Hunt 21 December 11

Temp 18F  Wind W 7mph Barometric Pressure 29.80 (steady) Moon Waxing Gibbous

The final day of the Minnesota muzzleloader season I decided to sit in the Oak Ridge stand over my other food plot. The night before we had 6 inches of fresh snow. In October, I saw several bucks that would be worthy of my muzzleloader tag so the hope was that one would come out and feed after the first big snowfall of the year.  I had not hunted this stand in over a month so the pressure in this area of the farm was very low.  Unfortunately, no deer came out to the food plot.  I have yet to figure out where all of the deer on this farm yard up in the winter months.  It has become frustrating to say the least.  The still evening and snow covered trees at least made for a very picturesque sit.
-KK

CWD found in SE Minnesota.

2 bucks harvested during the MN gun season near Lanesboro, MN tested positive for CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease).  CWD is a neurological condition caused by an abnormal protein called a prion.  I have always been intrigued by CWD since first hearing about it mainly because there is so little that biologists know about the condition.  This is a hot topic in the hunting community, especially in SE Minnesota. There is a lot of biased information shared regarding CWD from many different view points.  Here is a link to a peer-reviewed research paper published by the University of Wyoming on the negative effects CWD has had on their deer herd.  The Minnesota DNR is going to be conducting a special CWD late season hunt which I plan to participate in.  I don't necessarily agree with their management strategy, but I have a friend who is a local farmer that would like some deer harvested from his property.  
-KK

December 8

Minnesota Muzzleloader season

Hunt 20 December 3 

Temp 30F Wind W 5mph Barometric Pressure 30.25 (falling) Moon Waxing Cresent

After nearly 2 weeks off from hunting, I was back in the stand.  I sat with muzzleloader in hand over my Big-N-Beasty brassica food plot in the Oak Flat stand.  We had a couple inches of wet snow the night before which had melted by the time I started my evening sit.  I could tell that the deer had been eating the brassicas in the plot as most of the turnips had been munched on.  It was a very still evening and no deer showed up in the plot unfortunately. 
-KK

December 1

Minnesota Muzzleloader Opening Weekend Recap

It was windy, blustery and overcast on the second day of muzzleloader season in SE MN. Temp 42F. Wind SSE 12mph. I sat in a comfortable box blind deer stand on the corner of a standing bean field.  At 2:30 PM I saw two fawns at 70 yards working into the wind on the far edge of the field. They walked into some heavy brush and disappeared into the woods. It was quiet for the next hour-an-a-half. At 4:00 I saw 9 does and fawns running on the edge of the woods on that same far edge of the standing beans. It appeared they were being chased. I assumed it was a coyote because their tails were up so I didn’t expect a buck. None of those deer gave me a shot. At 4:37 a doe and fawn moved downwind toward the bean field from the exact opposite direction I expected. Before the doe picked up my scent I knew I needed to shoot, so I adjusted my position. I had to wait until the doe came out from behind a huge honeysuckle bush so I would have a clear 60-yard shot. At 4:44 I put my sights behind her shoulder and squeezed off a shot with a cloud of smoke that totally blocked my view of the deer. When the smoke cleared I saw nothing except a white tail quivering in the standing beans. BDD. This was an exciting first-ever muzzleloader hunt for me. I was especially grateful to the landowner who gave me permission to hunt this beautiful spot. -JK

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