Working towards Paradise!

[Sam]

I'm lucky enough to have access to some family property that i get to work, manager and hunt. Honestly i enjoy the off season work just as much as the hunting. It's a great way to step away from the office and the daily rat race and enjoy the better parts of life. I started hunting here in 2011 and have spend endless hours working toward improving the habitat but its never ending. I have been doing everything with a chainsaw and a small atv with a set of disc and hand spreaders. Each off season i try to focus on one area but never seem to get enough done. Any ways the properties are both around 70-80 acres and about 800yards apart. One has been planted pines for 40yrs and the other has about half planted but the soil was so poor that lost all the trees and were advised not to replant. The pines are going to be thinned this fall so hopefully i will be able to plant and develop some of the area before the replant. The food plot names are paintball, shooting lane, pines, and soon to come horse pasture etc. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Property lines highlighted in orange.

The two green areas are small 1\4 acre plots with feeders and stands. The red area is about 2 acres of horse pastures that i'm working on converting into a food-plot/orchard. The blue is swamp and ponds that have water year around.

Red dote is a large oak tree that i built a tree house in last year and the red line is the cleaned rows that i can see down from the tree house. The blue is a creek and swamp that has water most of the time.

 

[Sam]

Paintball Food-plot standing in front of the box stand

Looking back towards the box stand

Shooting Lane Food-plot

Rye is coming up

 

[Sam]

From the tree house in the Pines

Abt 150-250yds from the tree house down the pine rows.

 

[Sam]

Some of the hardware. Im working on rebuilding a bush hog and i have a sprayer tank setup. Next is building a roller to cultipacker like JohnL48 posted

 

[Bowkl]

Nice looking place. Enjoyed all the pictures.

 

[dogghr]

I'm liking this real good. That shot into the pines from stand, I could sit there for a while.

 

[dogdoc]

I love the view into the pines also. Beautiful place you have.

 

[lakngolf]

Like what you got going on, Sam. Look forward to more updates. I have been there with you using the ATV and disc. It works!!

 

[Brushpile]

Beautiful pics.

 

[outdoorstom]

Nice looking property! I hear you on liking the habitat work as much as hunting.

 

[Sam]

The new food plot has been a horse pasture for the past 13yrs. I plan on using the LC planting plan on this plot

 

[Sam]

I spread a couple of left over bails of hay from the hay barn to get some bio mass and soil cover until i can plant the plot that right way. A couple good rains and the abt a month of time and you can see most of the area is growing well.

 

[Sam]

Got the new and stronger feeder stand setup. Hopefully it will keep the bear from tearing up the feeder this time.


View from the tree house

 

[Sam]

A couple of bucks

 

[T-Max]

I spread a couple of left over bails of hay from the hay barn to get some bio mass and soil cover until i can plant the plot that right way. A couple good rains and the abt a month of time and you can see most of the area is growing well.

I like the use of old hay to create soil. Obviously the hay is best used as feed for livestock, but once they reach the point that they are no longer good food, might as well use them up. It has been my experience so far that when applying old hay to poor soil, it takes forever to break down. Must be a lack of soil microbes in the soil. I have had problems broadcasting seed into the thicker mats of hay and getting poor germination.

 

[dogdoc]

Love the tree house/deer stand. Old hay works great other than all the seeds but should help getting your OM up

 

[Sam]

One of my neighbors has a feeder hog in a pen and a wild hog has been hanging around for 6 months. Anyways it finally got big enough and started messing up the road so I setup my trap and 72hrs later fresh bacon.

 

[Flyfixer]

Nice property, brings back lots of Florida memories. I grew up in Tallahassee and miss the Florida landscape but not the mosquitoes! Used to fish Orange and Lochloosa lakes which I think straddle Cross creek.

 

[dogdoc]

Good job on the hog

Enjoyed some pork chops for me

 

[Brushpile]

Nice healthy bucks!