My Little Slice of Paradise

[Paradise725]

My best prospect so far. I don't recognize him but hopefully I'll get more pictures to determine if he's mature.

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[lakngolf]

DID you tell him "welcome to paradise "?

 

[dogghr]

Great buck and place looks great. We have drill that we can rent but doubt I have enough tractor to pull it. I need to ck on that. Would be a learning curve for me.

 

[Paradise725]

Great buck and place looks great. We have drill that we can rent but doubt I have enough tractor to pull it. I need to ck on that. Would be a learning curve for me.

Thanks! I forgot to post an update on the beans we drilled... they look great!

We are going to try drilling our fall plots, which are scattered across the farm. I'm nervous as to whether I can get the seeding rate down correctly given that we are very much amateurs at this and we will be dealing with seeds of different sizes. I'm also nervous as to whether I can get the drill into (and out of) some of the more rugged locations. I'm hoping I can reach all but one, but I might have trouble reaching up to 3 of my plots.

Also forgot to mention our broken part of the trip (there's always at least one), the front wheel bearing on the tractor. It had evidently been going out for a while but I didn't notice anything wrong until the wheel started wobbling wildly. By the time I got stopped (maybe drove another 10 feet), the wheel literally fell off.

Both bearings were disintegrated. I pulled the hub and took it to napa where I bought some new bearings. Unfortunately, the inside bearing was not the correct size for the spindle so although the outer race of the bearing fit in the hub, The inner race wouldn't fit the spindle. I ended up pulling the whole spindle and am taking it to a guy to rebuild this week. It's always something!

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[lakngolf]

Beans look good. Fall drill plans good BUT better to drill most plots safely than break something on the remote one. Hope the fix works on tractor

 

[Paradise725]

Beans look good. Fall drill plans good BUT better to drill most plots safely than break something on the remote one. Hope the fix works on tractor

True words of wisdom. I'm comfortable with broadcasting the plots I can't reach, but it would be nice to use the drill! Thanks!


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[Paradise725]

To update from post 145 (hinge cut bedding area): this spot looks incredible now. We were able to keep most of the trees in the hinge alive, and there is a huge amount of green growth down near ground level now. The picture doesn't do it justice, but you get the sense of what this 1/8 acre spot has become. We found plenty of beds and droppings in this spot, so it's clear the deer are already using it.

I plan to spend a good bit of time this winter adding more hinge cuts to strategic locations near the core of the property. I'm headed up tomorrow for fall plot planting and last minute chores before the season opens up on Labor Day weekend.


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[Chainsaw]

Very nice looking bedding spot. Glad the deer are taking to it. It makes it so worthwhile.

 

[Paradise725]

Made it up to the farm on the weekend of August 5th for fall planting. Picked up the seed drill at the local southern states. $8/acre or $100 flat fee, whichever is greater.

I ended up doing 4.5 of my 6.5 acres with the drill and then either disced and broadcast or just broadcast the remainder. I planted the following mix per acre: 5# Radish, 5# PTT, 5# Ladino clover, 50# cereal rye, 50# wheat. This is loosely based off the LC mix but I added the wheat after seeing Grant Woods' pitch for wheat over rye. Ideally, the wheat will provide a little more food in the spring for deer and turkeys when they eat the seed heads. The rental I got was a 10' haybuster brand. In spite of not having a manual with the drill, I was able to get the seed rates figured out.

I can see why farmers use drills for large fields. Once you get it set, you can plant A LOT in a hurry. It wasn't as time saving in small cramped food plots as it would be in rectangular or linear plots, but I still think it saved time and I know it will provide better germination rates than broadcasting. I plan to plant fall plots with it again next year.

I also discovered a wild crabapple of some sort back along the main access trail, over a mile from the blacktop:

I took a picture of the bark too for anyone who knows how to ID:

I'll be taking a play out of chainsaw's book and releasing this crabapple over the winter.

The beans were looking great. Browsed significantly, but my utilization cage shows that overall they aren't doing that much damage.

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[Paradise725]

And finally, because I know everyone enjoys seeing trail camera pictures, I'll share some from our last card pull. A few nice ones starting to fill out:
3.5 yr old we call Tex:

4.5 yr old that we called the massive 10 last year. He must have damaged his right side this summer early, as now he's got a drop tine for a G3:

A couple new 10 pointers that I'm not sure if 3.5 or 4.5 yet, but I'm leaning toward 4.5:

A interesting 3.5 I'm going to call Stub:

And a couple of honorable mentions I don't have any known history with:

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[buckhunter10]

Great updates! Place looks fantastic.

 

[Paradise725]

My buddy checked plots for me today... fall planting was a 90% success!
Camper trail:

Log yard:

Powerline:

And finally, the horsebarn plot turned out a little spotty. The best I can figure is I planted it too deep, or possibly ran out of seed before I realized it. You can see the edges have the best stand, but the center is pretty weak. I refilled the drill with seed about 1/2 way through planting this plot, so I'm guessing I just got the radishes and turnips too deep. I'm not giving up on it yet because I think another good rain might make the rest of it start to pop. We shall see! I should have some more trail cam pics to share soon too.

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[CTM1]

Some very nice bucks you have.

Wish we had a place to rent a drill as I would like to try one.

You have to love it when you discover fruit trees that you never knew were there.. I found a few more today. We had virtually no apples last year so I think that is why I never noticed what they were.

 

[buckhunter10]

Wonderful- plots look great!

 

[j-bird]

looks like the plots are coming along as well as the bucks.....looks to be a productive season in store for you.....good luck!

 

[dogghr]

Your place is aptly named. Nice

 

[Paradise725]

Thanks guys! As promised, here are a few more trail camera pics. No new bucks, but the regulars are just about finished growing and ready for velvet shedding! I'll be hunting the opener this weekend with hopes of a big velvet buck encounter!
Massive 10:

Massive 10 with Texas 8 and another 8 yet to be named:

Tall 10 yet to be named:

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[Paradise725]

Opening weekend was successful! We had a solid pattern of bucks feeding in our bean field, so we knew it was just a matter of having the right wind. As luck would have it, opening afternoon we had a WSW wind, which was good for our best stand on the bean field, but not a single other stand on any of our food plots. I opted to put my buddy Jonathan in the bean field stand as he had a rough season last year that started with wounding and not recovering a nice buck in this same bean field. We just set this stand this year based on some of his observations in the early season last year. At 7:15, our big drop tine buck stepped out at 10 yards and Jonathan made the shot count. He was the 9th buck and 13th deer in the field that evening. This buck was 4.5 and weighed 225 live weight. He was the heaviest deer we've ever weighed from our farm. We had encounters with him as a 2.5 and 3.5 and even have his shed from this spring. Perfect ending for a great buck with a great history.

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[Chainsaw]

Congratulations to your buddy Jonathon for a great deer and and congratulations to you for opting to have your buddy sit in that stand; Knowing you it is not surprising you'd do that.

 

[Paradise725]

Our deer season officially closed this week so I figured it was about time to do a season recap. On a scale of 1-10, I think I would give this season a 7. We closed the season having killed one buck and 6 does on the farm, of which ZERO were killed by me. I had plenty of chances at younger bucks but didn’t see any 4.5+ deer from the stand this year. I switched jobs and moved from Alabama back to KY during the middle of the season, so my time in the woods was a little more limited than normal. I only got to hunt 2 days during rifle season, and passed on three different 3.5 yr old bucks and witnessed some of the best buck activity I’ve ever seen while hunting. It just wasn’t meant to be.
If I had to sum up this year in one phrase, I’d call it “The year of the Neighbors.” Our neighbors on a couple different properties flat out killed some bruisers. Here is a highlight reel:

All of these bucks spent time on my place last year but unfortunately we weren’t able to connect on them. Honestly, I’m happy for these guys and I’d much rather see pics of them taking mature deer than pics of them shooting spikes and fork horns.



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