Garry, urban sprawl in my area in northeastern Illinois has wiped out most local hunting opportunities. There is some bird hunting allowed on a few pieces of public land but it’s very restrictive so I generally head up to Wisconsin, more hunter-friendly.

Oh my! Those are some nice osage orange. A friend here would love to have some pcs of that to make his long bows with.

Richard, there are, at least used to be back when I was shooting a recurve, several bowyers in Missouri that used Osage for their stick bows. Osage fence posts cost more than treated wooden posts here, and they last longer. I like seeing their twisted forms in fence lines. They have so much more character. You can burn your wood stove up using it, and it is very hard on chainsaw chains.

I asked Elaine to take this photo when we were hunting in Iowa earlier this season. The pile of bulldozed trees and shrubs was a fence row that had held birds the year before. It was an old Osage fence row that had been "harvested" for fence posts many times (the trees sprout back well from cutting) over the course of years. I guess the farmer wanted a tax break this year. Thus the bulldozer. One year we had a covey that would not leave a bulldozed fence line. It was sad to see them running about in the debris.

Ah, thus is progress.

Lordy, what a waste!!

From a hunter's perspective, not necessarily from a farmer's perspective. It may be exactly the opposite if your "drive" is crop production, not pheasant production.

We need to remember that a farmer's means of making a living is the acres of land that produce. We like to go on his land and hunt his birds, leave him a couple as a gesture of good will, and come back later. His goal is likely not getting a couple of birds for the table, but producing a crop that he can sell for a profit. Remember, the taxes must be paid on those acres, even if they generate no income at all.

SRH

I hate to ponder the future of farmland in this country. With trillion dollar deficits and “stimulus” checks the new norm, my speculation is a great wealth divide that ends with the government and Bezos & Company owning most everything.

-Victor

I was referring to the wasted osage orange wood in that pile! That stuff is almost worth it's weight in gold.

My apology for misunderstanding your meaning, Richard.

It's hard, too! I was given some dried osage orange many years ago. It would ring almost like steel when hit with a hammer. I have a custom drop point skinner that was scaled with it. Not really that pretty to look at, but tough!

Garry,

There is still time for you to do a KS hunt! Your pictures remind me of some of the areas I hunt in KS. Osage orange (or horse apple trees) are everywhere and getting through them to get to another field can be time consuming. I brought a pickup bed full of split Osage orange and it burns very nice. I'll head out next week for a day before the season ends.

Thanks for all the pics!

Ken

Hey, Ken,

Good luck with your end of season Kansas hunt. In a different year, I would definitely head west, but will have to make day trips to snow-covered Iowa do.

How's the new pup doing? I hope you'll post a few pictures of your dogs and hunts from this season.

Take care.