My Little Slice of Paradise

[Kennychestnut]

Well, my 2020 buck tag has officially been punched! I’ve copied and pasted my FB post from Sunday below to save myself some typing:


Yesterday was a wonderful day to be in the Kentucky deer woods. I had been getting pictures of a number of nice bucks in one of our food plots, and the wind from the NNE coupled with the cold front pushing through created the perfect conditions for sneaking in to hunt yesterday afternoon. Within minutes after getting into the tree stand, I noticed a large buck bedded in the brush about 200 yards away. I kept my eyes on him all afternoon while also observing several deer using the food plot at close range. I decided to grunt at the buck an hour before the end of legal shooting time with the hope of coaxing him into bow range prior to dark. After the first grunt, he immediately stood up. After the third, he began slowly heading my direction but quickly disappeared into the brush and woods. About 20 minutes later, I heard a deer walking my way through the damp leaves from the direction I had last seen the buck, and soon I saw antlers. The buck stopped behind some limbs and worked a scrape and licking branch at 30 yards while I held at full draw. Once he finished at the scrape, he stepped into my shooting lane and I grunted at him with my mouth to stop him. I made the 25-yard shot and watched him run away, then heard him crash just out of sight. This 10-pointer is the biggest antlered deer I’ve taken, and I’m happy to have been able to take him quickly and cleanly with a bow.

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Wow nice Buck ! Nice story along with it


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[Paradise725]

It was a good year on the farm. I don’t have much time to post anymore with three kids and a full time job, but a picture is worth 1000 words!

My uncle killed stickers, our number one target this year, on November 11th. Rough scores 161”

My buddy Jim shot this buck from about 200 yards during rifle season. In hindsight, probably a deer we wanted to let grow another year, but a solid 3.5 nonetheless.

Habitat projects are in full swing on the farm. We cut two bedding thickets this weekend, and talked to a local farmer about turning our limited open ground into crop fields. I think that with a little bit of dozer work, I’m going to have around 14 acres planted in beans this summer. The farmer is going to leave 2 acres standing in the field where i usually do my food plots so it’s a win-win for me.


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[buckdeer1]

Place looks great and you guys harvested some great bucks this year

 

[weekender21]

It was a good year on the farm. I don’t have much time to post anymore with three kids and a full time job, but a picture is worth 1000 words!

My uncle killed stickers, our number one target this year, on November 11th. Rough scores 161”

My buddy Jim shot this buck from about 200 yards during rifle season. In hindsight, probably a deer we wanted to let grow another year, but a solid 3.5 nonetheless.

Habitat projects are in full swing on the farm. We cut two bedding thickets this weekend, and talked to a local farmer about turning our limited open ground into crop fields. I think that with a little bit of dozer work, I’m going to have around 14 acres planted in beans this summer. The farmer is going to leave 2 acres standing in the field where i usually do my food plots so it’s a win-win for me.


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The archery buck is a toad!


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[Chainsaw]

Congratulations Luke on a great season. Your property is growing some super deer.

 

[George]

Congratulations on one heck of a season. Stickers is/was some buck.

G

 

[Paradise725]

Congratulations Luke on a great season. Your property is growing some super deer.

Thanks Dave! It really came together for us this year. We had some really nice bucks hanging around, and our hunting strategy allowed us to continue having daylight movement even with a fair bit of hunting pressure. That’s the biggest deer we’ve ever killed off my property.


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[Paradise725]

Congratulations on one heck of a season. Stickers is/was some buck.

G

Thanks. Yes he was. I’m just glad he decided to live most of his life in the center of my property where he could grow to maturity before getting killed.


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[Paradise725]

Some pics from around the farm this year...

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[Chainsaw]

Thanks Dave! It really came together for us this year. We had some really nice bucks hanging around, and our hunting strategy allowed us to continue having daylight movement even with a fair bit of hunting pressure. That’s the biggest deer we’ve ever killed off my property.


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That's wonderful Luke; getting daylight movement while hunting plenty is an ultimate property achievement. It is a hard thing to accomplish.

 

[LetThemGrow]

Snow day here in PA so I read this whole thread thru. Kudos on this awesome property and all your blood, sweat, and tears. The transformation is amazing! Great 2020 buck as well!!

Most of all kudos on being a dad and husband, not having time to post “due to family life” speaks volumes about your priorities.

 

[Paradise725]

Snow day here in PA so I read this whole thread thru. Kudos on this awesome property and all your blood, sweat, and tears. The transformation is amazing! Great 2020 buck as well!!

Most of all kudos on being a dad and husband, not having time to post “due to family life” speaks volumes about your priorities.

Those are very kind words. It has been a journey and a transformation for sure. The game changer for me was getting the aerial photo property plan from Steve Bartylla. Once we had our conference with him and really got the strategy into our heads, the difference has been amazing. We pass up more and bigger bucks every year with a bow than we’d have been lucky to even catch a glimpse of rifle hunting the rut 6 years ago.

The other game changer of course has been the growing family!


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[Paradise725]

Speaking of the growing family, I’ve been meaning to post about an amazing memory made this season... I took my 4-yr old daughter on her first real deer hunt during our early ML season. We installed a redneck blind this past summer on our biggest food plot, a short distance from the barn, with the expectation that our kids would be starting to join us on hunts in the coming years. Even though the wind direction was dead wrong for the afternoon we chose to hunt, we kept all of the windows shut on the blind and had high hopes for the evening hunt. About an hour before dark, we peeked out the window of the blind and spied two does coming out of the woods 20 yards to our left. They were so close that I was afraid to open the windows until they got further away so we watched them feed in our turnip/rape/wheat/rye plot for several minutes. My daughter was very excited and bouncing from window to window to observe the deer, which were nearly directly under us for some time. Eventually, they moved further out into the plot about 40 yards so that I got comfortable opening a window to shoot. After opening the window, they soon started getting spooky from either the noise or the scent coming from the window. I got ear muffs on my daughter and prepared for the shot. I bleated with my mouth to try and get the steeply quartered away doe to turn for a better shot angle. My daughter, having watched many hunting shows with me in the past, decided to join in by bleating several more times while the doe stayed alert and unmoving. Finally, she took a step and gave me a better angle so I took the shot. Maria was so excited and bounced up and down as the does ran into the woods. She exclaimed “that girl was quick, daddy!” She immediately wanted to get down and recover the deer. I was confident in my shot and could tell she wasn’t going far when she got to the woods, so I quickly obliged.

We were blessed with a great blood trail, and I got lots of photos and video of Maria walking down to the doe. We said a very reverent prayer over the doe, and she told me how much she loved that doe. It was a very heart warming and memorable experience that I will never forget. Maria had a great time as we drug the doe out, field dressed her by the pond, and loaded her up for the trip home. Of course, my son got to help with the processing when we got home too.

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[Native Hunter]

Speaking of the growing family, I’ve been meaning to post about an amazing memory made this season... I took my 4-yr old daughter on her first real deer hunt during our early ML season. We installed a redneck blind this past summer on our biggest food plot, a short distance from the barn, with the expectation that our kids would be starting to join us on hunts in the coming years. Even though the wind direction was dead wrong for the afternoon we chose to hunt, we kept all of the windows shut on the blind and had high hopes for the evening hunt. About an hour before dark, we peeked out the window of the blind and spied two does coming out of the woods 20 yards to our left. They were so close that I was afraid to open the windows until they got further away so we watched them feed in our turnip/rape/wheat/rye plot for several minutes. My daughter was very excited and bouncing from window to window to observe the deer, which were nearly directly under us for some time. Eventually, they moved further out into the plot about 40 yards so that I got comfortable opening a window to shoot. After opening the window, they soon started getting spooky from either the noise or the scent coming from the window. I got ear muffs on my daughter and prepared for the shot. I bleated with my mouth to try and get the steeply quartered away doe to turn for a better shot angle. My daughter, having watched many hunting shows with me in the past, decided to join in by bleating several more times while the doe stayed alert and unmoving. Finally, she took a step and gave me a better angle so I took the shot. Maria was so excited and bounced up and down as the does ran into the woods. She exclaimed “that girl was quick, daddy!” She immediately wanted to get down and recover the deer. I was confident in my shot and could tell she wasn’t going far when she got to the woods, so I quickly obliged.

We were blessed with a great blood trail, and I got lots of photos and video of Maria walking down to the doe. We said a very reverent prayer over the doe, and she told me how much she loved that doe. It was a very heart warming and memorable experience that I will never forget. Maria had a great time as we drug the doe out, field dressed her by the pond, and loaded her up for the trip home. Of course, my son got to help with the processing when we got home too.

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There are so many things I like about this story....a big congratulations on starting them out right!

 

[dogghr]

Great hunt story w your daughter. Just plain awesome. Congrats on everything.


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[buckdeer1]

Enjoy it,I would take my daughters and coloring books when they were young and they still deer hunt but now married and full time jobs.Goes by faster than you think

 

[Paradise725]

Shed season is upon us! Last weekend I took my two oldest and my niece to spread 100lbs of ladino and crimson clover on my plots. Jonathan and his daughter joined us. We also managed to squeeze in a little shed hunting..

And yesterday I went back with just Robby and we got into a bunch of sheds in the area around our biggest plot. We found these 4 all in about a 45 minute span.

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[lakngolf]

Love that load of youngins!!

 

[Paradise725]

Love that load of youngins!!

Yeah it’s hard to beat a bunch of kids excited about being in the outdoors!


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[Native Hunter]

Those are some awesome pics of the kids shed hunting. You will treasure them even more someday.