Absolutely agree on the Bowlite and Millennium stands! One's good for tight spots and the other for more open areas where the height is an advantage. They're pretty much all I run with.
Keith...Did my 1st sit of the year Saturday afternoon on one of the Ol Man Bowlite ladder stands. Obviously not as comfortable as the Millennium but very easy to sit in with good size platform and easy to shoot out of. Had a great wind into my face and 5 deer in front of me that I just knew would bust me by looking at me but they never did. I felt like I was somewhat exposed at 15 ft. Interesting observation I had while on stand...I was wearing no face mask, gloves or camo. Shirt was one of those tan colored, thin fishing shirts. Of the 5 deer that fed underneath me, 2 of them were less than 5 yds from the ladder. Several times, they would do as deer do while feeding and look around. Several times I felt like they were staring right thru me. Many times in the past I've been blown out by deer simply seeing me in the stand. Only thing different about this sit is that I was wearing prescription sunglasses. The thought occurred to me that perhaps the deer not being able to establish eye contact had something to do with them not busting me. Prolly not the case but think I'll be wearing sunglasses again. Gave em all a pass and just decided to watch them. There will be plenty more opportunities but it is always thrilling to see deer on the stand. Here was my view from the stand. 2 large white oaks loaded with acorns just in front of me that brought the deer in close.
Work on the expansion of our bean field plot continues. During our logging operation, I had the logger clearcut about an acre on the south end of our bean field along with removing a row of pines on each side of the field and small clear cuts on each side of the north end of the field with the goal to increase the size of this plot from 4 acres to 6 acres and allow areas for additional tree plantings. Last week the work began on stumping the clear cut areas and cleaning up the edges where much of the slash from logging was piled. In this aerial view, the green section of the field is where the clear cut occurred. It was full of 17 yr old pine stumps and needed stumping before we can begin the conversion to a food plot. The brown is where we sprayed gly 6 weeks ago.
Here is the equipment being used to remove all the stumps and debris along the edge of the field. That is one huge burn pile behind the excavator!
Here's the view from the lower end of the field looking north. This area was stumped last week and a dozer will come in later this week and clean up. Hard to see all the stumps in this pic but it is full of dug up stumps. After all stumps are removed, we will lime it and prolly just throw cereal rye out to serve as a cover crop in preparation of our 1st planting next Spring.
A week ago today, we planted 4 of our plots. Thanks to reading so many threads over the years about planting methods, we've come up with a method that works so well for us. When I first purchased the property it was all about tillage with a disc harrow. Disc and disc and disc in the early years to get a nice looking "seed bed". Now...we spray in mid August to kill anything growing. We wait until the end of September and then plant. By waiting 6 weeks, the dead matter is completely matted down on top of the soil and is dead, dead!
We use a Plotmaster 600 tractor series to plant. It's one of those "advertised" one pass planters with 2 sets of disc harrows, a row pf spring plows which we removed, 2 seed boxes, a chain drag and a steel cults-packer that folds down when planting. I purchased this in 2011 when I bought the property. It weighs in the 1300 lb range and has proven to be a very useful piece of equipment. In the early years, we would disc repeatedly. Now, after waiting 6 or more weeks after spraying, this thing truly is a one pass planter. Here's a pic of the Plotmaster.
Here's a pic of the upper lower plot after one pass. We planted brassica, rye and a little clover added in. Just filled the seed bins with the seed and set the seed gauge to the proper seed drop rating. Electrical hooks to tractor batter with clamps that engages the augers in the bottom of seed box to disperse seed. Seed drops on metal shield and then onto ground. Discs set on light aggressive provides a nice furrow for seed to drop and cults-packer firms it up. If I didn't own this piece of equipment I would do the same thing - spray...wait 6 weeks, run over lightly with disc harrow and broadcast seed followed by a drag or culti-pak. I like the Plotmaster. Very durable, heavy construction. I expect it to last for many, many years and it does a great job planting, assuming you have a decent field to work with that is not full of roots, stumps, large boulders.
Took this pic Sunday morning of brassica and rye already germinating in the plot. Not discing prior to planting with the dead matter on top definitely helps conserve moisture. Plus, we got .25 inches of rain on Tuesday after planting that helped.
We couldn't plant all of our plots like this. The ones that were used for logging decks have been subsoiled and disced to break up compaction. We won't plant the bean field until work is finished this week with removing stumps. Already sub-soiled it where it was needed.
Not sure I've ever posted a pic of this area of our property. Our west boundary is bordered by our neighbor cattle farmer. We maintain a firebreak trail that runs for most of the length of our property. It meanders thru a couple of hardwood sections in addition to pine sections. With the dry weather we've had the leaves are beginning to fall. Always like the looks of this trail when it is covered in leaves in the hardwoods section.
Days gone by...Remember the old Trebark camo pattern? It was my favorite pattern. After getting back into hunting around 1990, I bought a Trebark camo chamois shirt and cotton pants. The pants faded relatively quickly but the shirt just seemed to never fade. I had this shirt for years and somewhere during one of our moves, I lost it or misplaced it. At any rate, this pic was from around 1994 or so. Wish I still had the shirt. Any of you guys ever wear the original Trebark camo?
And nice buck. We sure have gotten spoiled. Kinda miss just shooting at first decent buck days. I bet new plot will be awesome. Photo shot from your drone?
