Kaleo Hills-Property tour

The turkey population is pretty good in the area. I don't have many pictures of them but I think a lot of that has to do with the logging and the mess that's left as a result. There will be great cover during the spring for pults but all the tree tops don't make easy walking for turkeys in general.
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Glad to see your property tour starting weekender. Your property had a lot of nice deer visiting it this fall. Your property must be in a good neighborhood to have so many two and three year olds.
 
Glad to see your property tour starting weekender. Your property had a lot of nice deer visiting it this fall. Your property must be in a good neighborhood to have so many two and three year olds.

It was basically a 100 acre sanctuary this year, hopefully some of those deer pictured make it. The area I'm in only allows 2 bucks/year, pretty conservative for a southern state.


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IMAG0397.JPG IMAG0888.JPG IMAG0975.JPG IMAG1076.JPG IMAG1861.JPG IMAG2086.JPG IMAG3171.JPG While watching the weather forecast on our property from afar, I was really looking forward to these pictures. Maybe I've been in Hawaii too long but I really love the snow pictures.
 
Good thread Weekender. Glad you like the snow but with below zero temps this past 2 weeks I could use a little Maui love. Your place looks to have lots of browse food. That's good. Thanks for showing..
 
Beautiful pictures of land, family and deer. From Hawaii to NC you give new meaning to the term "Weekender"

That handle has been with me for over 15 years and started on an offshore fishing forum when I lived in southern CA. It's certainly easy to live up to now! We're relocating to western NC in a few years, this land purchase was the first step.


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Good thread Weekender. Glad you like the snow but with below zero temps this past 2 weeks I could use a little Maui love. Your place looks to have lots of browse food. That's good. Thanks for showing..

I hear ya, back in flip flop weather now and it's not so bad after all! It was 2F at our NC property last night!


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Apples are a major draw on the property September through November and range in size from tiny green crabs to pretty large varieties that must have been planted long ago.

There are plenty of apples but I plan to plant more further from the road. "Road hunting" is a problem in the area.


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There aren't many oaks post logging operations but the few that exist seem to get the attention of the deer. I did find one on my property boundary that still had acorns on the ground last week. They look like northern red oak acorns. I'm not sure why the deer left them alone, there is a red oak 600 yards away that was a big draw in October this year. The acorns pictured are from a preferred tree back in early October.

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This fish has all the characteristics of a wild stream born fish. The river I caught him in is hatchery supported. About half the fish I catch in this section are wild.

Brook trout are the only native species we have in NC, browns and rainbows were introduced a long time ago.


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2018 Plans:

1) Cover. The 2-3 year old clear cuts produce large amounts of cover May-October but the entire property is very bare by mid November. Unfortunately this is when rifle season opens and my property just doesn't offer much as a sanctuary without quality late fall and winter cover.

A short term solution could be hinge cutting a few areas where I still have trees. I'd also like to plant some pine and fir trees this year. Fraser Fir trees are grown all over our area for Christmas trees. I'll likely plant some Fraser fir, white pine, and Norway Spruce.

2) Hard and soft mast. I've planted about 85 mast trees so far and will continue this year. Several hundred apple and crab apples already exist along a creek on my eastern border but all of them were bare in late December when I visited the property. I'm planning to add a few late dropping apple and crab apples to my 2018 tree order. They'll be planted further away from the road in hopes to keep the deer busy and away from road hunting poachers before dark.

3) Deer and predator inventory. I've had 7 trail cameras on the property since the first week of October. I have a pretty good idea whats using the property but will continue to monitor all year to get a better feel for age structure and ratio of the herd as well as predator density. I may or may not hunt this season. I'm not in a huge hurry to hunt the property prior to really knowing what's going on.

4) Erosion prevention. I need to get some type of reclamation seed mix on the logging roads. A few big rains this fall created some serious ruts.
 
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