JKR Ranch

[OKbio]

Well I used to stalk the QDMA forum (finally joined and posted once or twice) and have followed some of the regulars from there over to here. There seems to be a pretty good OK contingent on here, and I'll add myself to the list. Our place is in south central OK, in NW Pontotoc county. Original property was bought by my folks in `02 or `03 as basically their retirement farm (dad calls it Sanity Acres). I grew up on a wheat farm in eastern CO, but attended a private HS in western OK and started college in OKC. I pretty well decided I'd stay around OK, and my sister wasn't interested in taking up the farm, either, so they decided to sell the equipment and some of the land and move down where there was actually some trees and water. Found this amazing 110 acre spot with a 12 ac (+/-, up to hundreds of acres during the last couple years floods) watershed lake. Shot some nice deer there since that time, plus try to take 2-3 does per year off as well, plus opportunities for turkeys, waterfowl, crows, squirrels, coons, and the last few years feral pigs. Neighbor north of them was looking to sell out a few years back (`08-ish), and my folks weren't interested in getting their name on more property, but said if we were interested they'd help my wife and I in purchasing it. Got a farm loan through FSA and became property owners of an 80 acre farm (JKR Ranch) that August. The 80 isn't prime wildlife habitat, but does have some desirable features, and really, other that asphalt, there's not a habitat that doesn't have at least some use for deer. The 80 has a 20+ acre ag field (yellow) that we usually have into winter wheat, but have done soybeans a couple years, a 10 acre conservation easement west of the ag that I'll be converting back to native grasses, a few farm buildings, and an overflow creek from watershed lake, with the remainder in Bermuda grass with pecan trees scattered across. The folks original 110 is mostly grown back "native" grasses (mostly broomsedge bluestem, but does have some big blue, Indian, and grama grasses), with some smaller Bermuda paddocks and then mixed oak/hickory timber with some scattered pecans. Couple of food plots across the properties (green). Besides the watershed there are two ponds on SA, and 3 on JKR, plus two seasonal creeks running into the watershed and the seasonal outflow, plus one ephemeral that comes in halfway up the west side of JKR (in the middle of that food plot).

 

[OKbio]

First deer taken off the place, 2002.


First "good" buck taken gun season, 2006

 

[OKbio]

Gun Season, 2011.

1 of 2 mallard bands shot at lake.


Last good duck season we had down there (been dry or too hot pretty well since then).

 

[OKbio]

Had trail cam pictures of several very nice deer after close of season last year, so had high expectations for this year. As summer wore on, the trail cams didn't disappoint. Don't get out to archery hunt a lot, have too many other chores to try to get done while I'm down there to get enough time put in to be successful, but did go out to spend some time in the woods while carrying my recurve a couple weeks back and walked up 80 yards behind a pretty nice buck. Don't know how nice, as soon as I saw him I backed down and tried to cut him off. Saw the three does he was behind, but never saw him again, so apparently he wasn't really following them all that close. Muzzleloader season opened this past Saturday and it was a nice morning. Shortly after settling into my stand I had 5 does come out. They fed to about 15 yards of me (downwind) before finally getting nervous and heading to the north. Just about any other time I would have shot the first full-sized doe that came by, but with the pics I'd been getting I wanted to keep the element of surprise as much on my side as possible, so I passed and prayed it wasn't a bad decision. Shortly after a small buck came by, but he got a pass too. Saw some more does (or maybe the same ones coming back) north of me later, but they didn't come out in the meadow, apparently deciding to filter through the trees. Picked up a couple deer bolting in the trees a little later, so thought the fawns in the group were playing around. Picked up the binos to see what they were up to and saw a deer at the edge of the woods, but it wasn't a doe.


He came out, made a bit of a scrape (worked over a branch and kicked out some dirt). Cut angling across the meadow, unfortunately not getting any closer to me (ranged at 163). Slipped out the side of the blind and walked doubled over toward him to cut the distance. Made it about 20 yards before some turkeys in the meadow started getting worked up. Knew I wasn't going to make it much further before everything came loose, so laid out prone, got him stopped and took a longer-than-I'd-prefer shot (140ish yds). Being prone on the cool ground with a muzzleloader means I had no idea where the shot hit. Long story short I found blood so knew I had a hit, called dad for an extra set of tracking eyes, and after nearly 2 hours and close to a 1/2 mile we finally got to lay hands on him. Tooth estimate at 4.5 yrs.

 

[OkieKubota]

Welcome to a new fellow okie!

Place looks like it has some promise. Love the lake!

 

[OkieKubota]

That's a great buck! Love all the mass!

 

[OKbio]

With some of my work I get to take some aerial photos of the property.
Here's the ag field.

The lake (at approx. normal capacity)


The lake at some of our recent drought levels


And one of the food plots, with a 4x8 tower blind I built a few years back (approx. 5' elevated, sheeted in barn metal).

 

[OKbio]

Took a couple prescribed fire classes in college, and try to put them to use when I can down there.

 

[OKbio]

The folks run about 15 head of longhorns, now with an Angus bull.

Besides the game animals, we also get some interesting non-game-type visitors.

 

[OKbio]

Yes, there are some fish in the lake (and a couple of the ponds), although its gotten to where I don't make it out a lot with a pole anymore. Hopefully in a year or two that will change as I introduce my growing daughter to the outdoors.


Some of the management-by-trigger-finger is done to control or reduce certain species.


Albino coon

 

[OKbio]

It is a working farm as well as a recreational retreat. Here's a new hay barn we built a couple years back.


Recently finished putting in our wheat for this year (picture is from last year's planting).

Wheat harvest


Tried growing soybeans a couple of years, but first time was a severe drought, second time the field flooded 3 times after planting.
Here's the crop early in the growing season after a couple of the floods.

 

[OKbio]

Here was the lake in overflow stage.

And the crop field (downstream) shortly after.

 

[OKbio]

My graduate professor always said about food plots, "When you need them, you can't grow them, and when you can grow them you don't need them". Man was that true last year. My most preferred food plot plant is turnips. Usually get the BOB Evolved Harvest Shot Plot for the convenience of a mix in a bag (especially when I can catch it on sale), but have done straight purple top from the feed store before as well. Usually grows fairly decent, but last year was incredible. To start out with I thought it was a miserable failure. Worked plots up (yes, I still do pretty well full tillage) in early August. Weathermen (and women) on multiple channels were calling for an 85-100% chance (depending on how cocky the weatherperson was) for a 3 day window there in mid-August. Made a trip down and broadcast on all plots (turnips and oats). The 3 day period passed and not a drop of rain there. Didn't get any rain until late September (the week of the Wildlife Expo). Figured the songbirds and turkeys had cleaned the plots out. Dad went out and broadcast a little wheat before that September rain in the hopes of getting at least a little something in there.
Here's one of the plots shortly after the rain came.

I was impressed by how much turnip base was still there. We kept getting timely rains from then on. Here's a picture of that plot in early or mid-Nov.

Finally got a good hard freeze on our gun season opener, and I expected deer to be in there heavy mowing them down. 4 days after the opener we got a 6" rain, lake came up and flooded that whole area. Amazingly, turnips hold up very well to flooding. Here's the plot after the water came back down.

The deer, however, never touched them (that we could tell), and mid-December another large rain came and flooded it again. On the learning side, apparently Canada geese will graze on flooded turnips, as when the water came down later the entire patch had been uniformly clipped at a certain height.
This spring I disked the most amazing turnip patches I've ever grown into the dirt. On the plus side, there was a tremendous addition of green manure back into the soil.

Why didn't the deer use those plots much this winter? Well, here's a picture that was fairly common around our place last fall/winter.
Acorns

And pecans

 

[OKbio]

Even with their fickle nature, I still like to play in the dirt. Here's a shot of some Laredo soybeans growing in one of the plots.

And this is this falls food plots coming up (again turnips and oats, although trying a spot or two of radishes)

To provide for a currently-lacking resource, I have been buying and planting several soft mast (pear and apple) trees around the place. Got first fruit on some last year, but a late freeze this year wiped out this year's crop.

These two about killed me with heat stroke this year.

When I'm down I usually have more projects than time. Currently I have a few of this year's planted trees that are unprotected. Really need to get something up around them ASAP. Snapped this picture as a reminder a couple seasons ago (fortunately the rubbed tree was not one of the fruit trees).

 

[OKbio]

I was fortunate enough to find dogdoc on the QDMA forums and reached out to him late in 2014. Spring of 2015 I got to meet him (his place is only 15 miles from where I live) and learn firsthand about grafting trees, namely persimmons. He also set me up with some scions to go do good things at my place. Unfortunately, spring is a busy time of year at work and I didn't get to put as much time into it as I would have liked, but I got 12-15 done. Also unfortunately, again being shorter on time than chores, I didn't do a good job of protecting what I'd worked on by staking or tubing. Cattle, deer and/or pigs took out 4 or 5. Several of them I'd done were down in the bottom, and May and June of 2015 were record wet months, so another 4-5 ended up 10 foot under water for 6 weeks. Have two that have persisted. Really want to do more, but have been trying to be more realistic about what I want to do and what I can do. Here's a couple of pictures from the grafting process (these were some of those that were 10' under for a while).




I also was quite intrigued by the starting-trees-from-acorns idea. A few years back we had a bumper burr oak production, and at the time burrs were my favorite tree (now chinkapins have topped them, but burrs are still very high on my list). Collect quite a few, got about 2 dozen started in tubs, moved some to pots and direct seeded some others. Had some mortality on them, but in general they've been doing well. The best one is pushing 5 ft tall after 2 years of growth.


I also happened across some potted sawtooth oaks this spring at Orsheln's (a regional farm store down here). Picked up five and added them to mix out here. Had dad watering them every 2-3 days through this dry summer, but they seem to be making it (they've also been fenced since this picture).

 

[OKbio]

Usually run a couple of cameras 24/7/365. Been impressed with what I've caught on there before, and also maybe somewhat surprised about how much I don't see while out in the woods, but also what the camera doesn't see. Of the bucks I have pictures of, last year was the first time I've actually taken a deer I have a known photo of. BTW, last year my granddad passed down his Savage 99 in 243 to me, so this was a special deer for me to take.


I've also found sheds for a couple of my camera deer.
This non-typical (got a later picture where he had broken off his brow tine)


Found this "dirty" shed while preparing for a prescribed burn this spring.

Making the assumption it went with this guy from a trail cam photo 1/2 a mile away, but taken at the right time.

Glad to see he survived, but not surprising, his right side is really weak this year. Looking at his body size from last year's pictures and the ones I've got this year, if I see him in gun season I'm pulling the trigger.

 

[MarkDarvin]

That's a hell of an intro, and very well documented! Those acorns are crazy! If you're not getting use outta your big fall plots in a given year, i'd maybe shift into easier and more affordable plot species like oats and clover. I'd still keep planting a buffet of the rest to gauge preference. Those brassicas may grow on them over time.

I've hunted two different areas of MN and seen night and day differences in what deer eat in one place vs another.

 

[buckdeer1]

Nice looking place,I hunted SE Oklahoma for my very first deer hunt over 40 years ago,first case of buck fever also.

 

[OKbio]

Thanks Mark. Really only a couple acres of food plots (pushing 3 ac. the last couple years as I've started using a strip along the west side of the ag field to plant specifically for wildlife). The big ag field is exactly that, an ag field. The wheat is a draw for deer, geese, doves and turkeys, and I definitely take advantage of it, but come May/June we're harvesting and hauling to the elevator. Do try to leave some small uncut strips, which I'll mow and use for dove hunting later on, but anymore the pigs have made that a waste as well. They can mow .25-.5 acre of standing wheat in a night. Kind of interesting, they don't root it up, but its like they run that snout right along the ground and shear the stalk off.
Even from the first year of planting turnips the deer have hit them pretty well. As with most everyone else, its after a good freeze or two has hit before they start eating on them, but they'll mow off the top, then start pulling bulbs out of the ground. Unless, of course, there's several tons of acorns per acre, then it doesn't really matter what's around. We had good amounts of acorns on the ground well into spring this year and the turnips were starting to bolt, so I needed to get something done with those plots.
Radishes were a first for me last year, and again, the deer seemed to take to them immediately. Also saw decent grazing on them well before any freeze, which is why I expanded my acreage/percentage of them this year. With it hitting 85 at the end of Oct., a good freeze seems a long ways off, so having a winter plot they'll hit before that is nice. Used to do AWP, but with relatively dry falls they seemed to be slow starters and the deer browsing was more than the limited acreage I did could take.

 

[dogdoc]

Hey partner. Glad you had a few of my scions work for ya. Looks grea . Several of the trees you practiced on at my place are doing great as well.

Place looks great. Glad you found your way over here.

Todd