Ohio 500 ac

[Warner32]

Great advice guys! You guys are definitely talking me out of it haha yea that was the main thing I wanted to hear is if the amount of money put into it is really going to help much.... and definitely sounds like it's not with just supplemental feeding
Dgallow thanks for breaking it down for me cost wise... and yes the deer I shot this year had circumferences in the 4.5-5 inch mark... we do have an acre pond in the middle of the property and the property has valleys with plenty of running water

CAS hit it in the head tho.. so much vertical land up and down.. not much field browsing at all.. the biggest flat piece of property we have for planting is about a 4 acre field on the top of a hill and that's on the entire 500 acre farm

And yes I agree it's hard to grow Giant deer with the native browse we already have in our part of the state
We have been select cutting some areas the last couple of years.. we have picked about 50 acres here and there to cut..


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[Warner32]

Warner32

Congrats on a great season. Your land has many mature bucks and most of us would kill for what you are enjoying. Your wife's buck is a super first deer. I would say continue with the food plots and improve what you have started. I have not reading enough to know if you have pears and apple trees.

Improve your timber some by getting rid of trash and add bedding areas where you can. Like DogDoc said, we should be watching what you are doing.

Obvious you have a great farm - improve it some and keep the hunting pressure as low as you can.

Thanks for sharing.

Glad to see you found our forum.

Wayne

Haha!! Thank you for the kind words! You know no matter what you do to the farm there is always ways that you can think to improve it and you want to do this and that no matter your past success! Haha


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[Warner32]

And as you guys said Age is the big thing and I can say luckily that is something we have had good luck with is getting deer to a mature age.. we have had a couple 7 year old running around on the farm the last couple years that got to that age just based on difficulty of hunting the terrain alone.. it's a hard place to hunt so they get old because of that.. but we do pass anything 3 or under that we know of
We just get a lot of deer at age 5+ maxing out at 140 class... 4 years ago we had a 6 year old in the 180 class but he was a rarity


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[Fish]

Dang man, you might have learned a lot from the folks on this forum, but i have a feeling we could learn a lot from you.... and your wife!
Enjoyed the pics.

 

[Warner32]

Dang man, you might have learned a lot from the folks on this forum, but i have a feeling we could learn a lot from you.... and your wife!
Enjoyed the pics.

Thanks fish! Yea I will definitely chime in on things I think I know what I'm talking about haha.. but before being on forums like this I wasn't real knowledgeable on the best ways to plant food plots and what food plots and soil health! Also hinge cutting and what not


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[Chainsaw]

Glad you found this forum Warner and congratulations to you and your wife on a great season. You and her each took a nice deer ; wives often turn into great hunters and that is so very special. Your property is off to a good start. The deer on your property are eons ahead of the deer on mine and I've owned mine for close to thirty years. It doesn't mean you can't make yours even better than it is now but just keep in mind that every property has it's limitations. The major limitation that many of us have is the inability to grow deer to older ages; It is huge that you are already there in growing older deer.

I feel funny giving any advice to someone who is shooting 140's when I never have so don't let me change your thinking too much. The thing that is working for us that has gotten us from spikes to 125 type deer ( 125 are generally 3 1/2 or 4 1/2 years old here) besides keeping the trespassers out is trying to think like a deer and set the property up so a deer has less desire to travel. Of course they will still travel but the longer they are on me--the longer they live. And as importantly the more chance that one of us on this property will benefit from our efforts of creating as much natural browse as we can on the property as compared to our deer population.

I have been full circle on food plots from our first plot almost thirty years ago. Food plots are expensive and take away work from other enhancement projects. Food plots are a must here but I keep them small and try to match plot size to demand. It does me little good to have a ten acre clover plot when a fifteen ft. wide section along the length of each of my plots takes care of the clover demand. We all have a limit on what we can spend in $ and time so it is important to be sure the $ and efforts are focused to do the most good.

I am glad you are here and look forward to learning what ends up working the best for you on your property. So think like a deer and keep on chipping away at it. It is a wonderful journey to see one's land improve.

 

[Warner32]

Glad you found this forum Warner and congratulations to you and your wife on a great season. You and her each took a nice deer ; wives often turn into great hunters and that is so very special. Your property is off to a good start. The deer on your property are eons ahead of the deer on mine and I've owned mine for close to thirty years. It doesn't mean you can't make yours even better than it is now but just keep in mind that every property has it's limitations. The major limitation that many of us have is the inability to grow deer to older ages; It is huge that you are already there in growing older deer.

I feel funny giving any advice to someone who is shooting 140's when I never have so don't let me change your thinking too much. The thing that is working for us that has gotten us from spikes to 125 type deer ( 125 are generally 3 1/2 or 4 1/2 years old here) besides keeping the trespassers out is trying to think like a deer and set the property up so a deer has less desire to travel. Of course they will still travel but the longer they are on me--the longer they live. And as importantly the more chance that one of us on this property will benefit from our efforts of creating as much natural browse as we can on the property as compared to our deer population.

I have been full circle on food plots from our first plot almost thirty years ago. Food plots are expensive and take away work from other enhancement projects. Food plots are a must here but I keep them small and try to match plot size to demand. It does me little good to have a ten acre clover plot when a fifteen ft. wide section along the length of each of my plots takes care of the clover demand. We all have a limit on what we can spend in $ and time so it is important to be sure the $ and efforts are focused to do the most good.

I am glad you are here and look forward to learning what ends up working the best for you on your property. So think like a deer and keep on chipping away at it. It is a wonderful journey to see one's land improve.

Thank you for the great insight!! I totally agree!
As for wife's making good hunters I feel like a lot of times women in general are almost better shots under pressure than men haha she makes her shots count! Not that women don't get as excited but I feel like they can hold it together more than a lot of men when shooting under pressure haha

I totally agree you have to understand your properties limitations! And hey don't worry about not shooting 140's I'm sure you guys have shot plenty of mature deer.. a 4 year old deer is a 4 year old deer whether he is 125 or 185 a just because he scores better doesn't mean he is any smarter!

I know for us what is frustrating is we can get bucks to 4+ years of age but a lot of them aren't getting over that 150 class hump like a lot of bucks in the rest of the state are!
To me it is somewhat nutrition but also from growing up on a deer farm I know Genetics are a huge part and probably the majority part


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[buckhunter10]

Welcome to the forum buddy! Happy to see ya on here!

Maybe next year, ill get the tractor over to your place and help y'all out! Be a bit easier not he back! Great thread, property and deer!

 

[Warner32]

Alright guys it's been a bit but here is a little update..

Here are some of the bucks that we have pictures of that have survived the last part of our muzzleloader season and should be around next year seeing how the season in Ohio is now over

We did get out on the last weekend of archery season here on a buddies 200 acre farm in Guernsey County to do some doe management which he probably needs even more taken out... but it was fun got to film him Live on Facebook and broadcast it to my fiends and family while it was happening

Also got to get out just for s little bit this last weekend just to walk some fields and got lucky to find a few sheds with my better half... was pretty pumped about the bigger shed... we have never seen this deer before... planning on waiting about another 2 weeks before we go again

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[buckhunter10]

Great updates! 200 acres in Guernsey county - that is some prime land right there I bet!

Awesome sheds as well, next year is gunna be one for the records!

 

[Triple C]

Warner...That's a slice of paradise your hunting right there! Great bucks harvested as well. I could do an overlay of our upper-lower / lower-lower plot over you long linear plot and they would be almost identical judging by your pics. Only thing we're missing are those big stud bucks you guys have.

Glad you're here and thx for sharing!

 

[Warner32]

Great updates! 200 acres in Guernsey county - that is some prime land right there I bet!

Awesome sheds as well, next year is gunna be one for the records!

Yea he does have some great property.. A ton of deer.. he manages it really well he is the only one who has been hunting it but last 2 years we have been trying to help him take some Does off because he has wayyy too many..He has some nice bucks but not really any true giants on cam or that he has shot.. all right under the 140 mark...

Yea I'm hoping man... I'm hoping the bucks put on some inches and I'm hoping for a lot of fawns


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[Warner32]

Warner...That's a slice of paradise your hunting right there! Great bucks harvested as well. I could do an overlay of our upper-lower / lower-lower plot over you long linear plot and they would be almost identical judging by your pics. Only thing we're missing are those big stud bucks you guys have.

Glad you're here and thx for sharing!

Thanks Triple C! Is that right? Yea that is the biggest plot we have.. We have tried a bunch of different things in it and have been trying to observe what the deer hit the most.. Besides that plot we maybe only have another 10 acres of tillable land on the entire 500


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[Weasel]

Man that's one heck of a family friend to allow you to hunt and manage habitat on his 500 acres all your life. Me and all my surrounding neighbors don't own that much land combined LOL. Nice looking bucks and habitat work!

 

[Warner32]

Man that's one heck of a family friend to allow you to hunt and manage habitat on his 500 acres all your life. Me and all my surrounding neighbors don't own that much land combined LOL. Nice looking bucks and habitat work!

Haha yea I know tell me about it! He is an older guy never been married retired now and worked with my dad for years.. he's had it for over 30 years and that's how long my family has been hunting it but only started out with 60 acres I believe and just started buying his neighbors.. now he has around 500 all adjoining about 15 different parcels. We have a 30 year tradition of us and a few buddies go down every gun season but just last few years have we really started managing it hard! And bowhunting it hard ..But I'll say the deer density in our area isn't what it was.. but the quality of bucks we are harvesting are better..but a lot I think because we have gotten smarter lol


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[Warner32]

Alright guys here is a bit of an update since I finally got down to the property after not being there since February... did some shed hunting.. freshened up some clover plots right before a big rain hit ..and did some turkey scouting put out some cameras on time lapse mode overlooking the fields

Found just a few dinky sheds.. we usually find a nice one or 2 here but not this year so far and I know we have plenty running around

As you can see there is alot of land to cover..this is just one of the 90 acre parcels.. giant north and south running ravine..Most here run East and West but this one does not and catches the most sunlight which is why it's a hot late season area
We have 2 stands on this parcel it doesn't get touched much because of difficulty of access but go figure this is where some of the biggest bucks on the property are

This is our Pine field plot with an Oak Ridge blind on it.. this is way up on top of a ridge above the Cabin... 2 years ago the landowner shot a 130 class here during shotgun season and I shot a 140 on the other side of the field with my bow

I also walked some ridge tops and listened for some birds.. heard quite a few.. had 3 roosted within 100 yards when I took the picture on the logging road
I also overseeded some clover in this little plot that I killed my buck out of this past season that we planted brassica clover mix in

Here are just some other pictures I took of a ridge top that we hunt that if we had enough time and money we would plant in something up there as well but just tuff to do when we live 2 1/2 hours away and we are doing other more important plots




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[DocHolladay]

Me and some friends hunt in Hocking and Athens County every November. We were hunting in Perry and Muskingum Counties, but shifted a little south. We used to stay at Dillon State Park and hunt Blue Rock and smaller WMA's, but we now stay at Smoke Rise Ranch and hunt some private land and Wayne National Forest. Great country and we have seen some STUD deer. One of my friends filled his tag on a Monday this season and had a 160+ class buck in front of him on Thursday and couldn't shoot it. Don't think we didn't give him a hard time.