500 ac Ohio Land

[Warner32]

Alright guys this is my first post on here. Yes I am another one of the QDMA transfers and I recognize some of the same guys on here that have made the transfer as well.. I have learned sooo much from all of you that I have been following that I decided to finally post and keep up with all the updates you guys have made on your habitats. I don't comment a lot on other guys threads and I apologize but believe me I do follow them closely. Busy time in my life right now so I barely have enough time to update my own thread haha which is why its taken me this long to finally transfer some pics over...

But for the guys on here that have been on here for a while let me say hello and hope to hear your input and see your habitat improvements and learn from you guys as well!

Here we go.. Ill start out by saying I hunt 500 acres in Ohio since I was 4 years old. I do not own the land but maybe own some of it someday. The landowner is a good friend of the families and has aloud us to hunt along with many other things habitat wise we would like to do. He is open to a lot of different ideas to help out the land to harvest deer. There is a lot of land here that I am very fortunate to hunt but it needs some improvements.. Im going to start by posting a lot of pictures of just the land

Rough estimate of property lines.. As you can see a lot of Timber with a few little fields

Box Blind is circled in one of our small plots Red dot is another box blind over looking our biggest food plot

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Cool Place! Wish I owned it!

 

[Warner32]

Now ill post some pics of the bucks in the area the last couple of years

All these bucks were on cam last year

one shed from a big pair we found 2 years ago.. My little brother is holding this one



Probably the biggest buck we have had visual of on the property.. pic on left was when he was 4 or 5 years old... pic on the right is him 2 years later...could of been 6 or 7 years old and was starting to decline a bit

One of his sheds







Buck my dad got here a few years back


Sheds we found last year from one of our bigger deer. Should be interesting this year



The buck I shot last year but found him a little late due to a bad bow shot :/ Not proud of it but glad I found him



Another one of my bow bucks from 3 years ago

 

[Warner32]

Now that we got some of the past out of the way its time for the current and future

Decided to try our first go at a Soybean plot by hand broadcasting which these deer here have never seen a soybean field before.



Make shift drag haha






Very happy with the results soo far! These pics were taken 2 weeks ago.. Cant wait to get back down there and see the new updates

Will be putting in a couple Brassica plots here within the next 2 weeks.... Just trying to play the weather



I also planted a plot screen by Frigid Forage to help block some visual for the deer towards our box blind along with access for us to enter the field

 

[bueller]

Nice property and bucks. Keep the pics coming.

 

[WTNUT]

Is this a fenced property or a preserve? The reason I ask is because most folks don't have a live deer standing by them in their profile pic ha ha ...


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[bwoods11]

Wow incredible bucks!!

 

[Warner32]

Is this a fenced property or a preserve? The reason I ask is because most folks don't have a live deer standing by them in their profile pic ha ha ...


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Haha!! Yea I guess it looks that way doesn't it? But no this is definitely not a high fence at all! In fact the property is pretty much surrounded by a National Forest which is all public.. Both bucks pictured were technically shot on public land about 50 yards off the property line... So the surrounding area gets hunted really hard... But the property being a lot of rolling hills/mountains and a lot of big timber it actually makes the property hard to hunt...

As for the deer in my picture I do actually have a couple pet penned raised deer just for fun towards NE Ohio where I grew up.. We never bred them just had them for fun.. And learned a lot watching them everyday.. We have 2 does .. Soo my engagement photo we wanted a picture with the one Doe I bottle fed as a baby..


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[WTNUT]

Well can't blame a guy for including a strikingly beautiful woman and a live deer in his engagement photo!!!!


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[CentralKyHunter]

Nice spread , looks like it's got a lot going for it

 

[Weasel]

Glad you continued this over here. Incredible bucks & nice work. Looking forward to your future stories.

 

[scott44]

Nice looking place! Congrats on all the nice deer you've got

 

[Merle Hawggard]

Really pretty country warner and the deer are unbelievable up there!

 

[Eggman]

U have a great looking farm to hunt.

 

[Warner32]

Alright guys just went down to the farm today to check on the Soybean plot, put in a brassica plot, check some cams and put in a new stand and setup in an area we haven't hunted in years...

Well I haven't checked on the Soybeans in about a month and let me just say I was a bit shocked since last I saw it... We had great germination with our plot so we have had very high hopes... We knew there would definitely be some deer browse but we weren't seeing much if at all a month ago



we spot sprayed our plot at this time as you could see we sprayed it a little late but did just a little bit to try and get rid of the ragweed...
Well here is a picture of the results... The deer absolutely destroyed the areas that we sprayed :( and the area we did not spray got taken over by weeds.... But inside the tall weeds we actually have tall ungrazed soybean plants inside.... Soo that's where I would like to have a discussion seeing how I am new to Soybean planting



As you can see everything to the left was sprayed as there is no weeds but you can see the weeds on the right have gotten very tall and kind of taking over the beans... But as I said the beans in those weeds have not been touched by the deer so they may be the beans that save us come late season



Doubt we will get much pods at all in these areas... But as I said all of the Beans that are mixed in and hidden in weeds will most likely produce a decent amount of pods.. So I ask myself... Should I have even sprayed in the first place? It seems to me that the deer don't feel like picking through the weeds as much compared to a weedless bean plot? I figure once the end of November hits and Dec which is right around our Gun season here hopefully these weeds will be pretty much dead and these hidden soybeans will be getting hit by the deer because they are the only ones that have made it to pod






Obviously I have had many Does hitting the field and you can see the first 2 pics are right after I sprayed and the last cam pic is a week later with less weeds but the deer have already done a number on it

So another question for everyone on planting soybean plots .... For people who have heavy deer browse what would you recommend? I have see those Hot Zone electric fence setups but they are just too expensive to justify us using that... Unless anyone has a lot cheaper idea that they do?
Also do many people plant some type of cover plot for their beans? The weeds left in the plot have seemed to help as a cover crop.

 

[Warner32]

On a better note my plot screen for the plot was looking pretty good...10 to 12 feet tall in a lot of areas and I never did hit it with Nitrogen






The wife got on top of the truck for this one just to see over the screen

Heres a few trail cam pics

Couple decent young up and comers



These picture here are not at this Farm they are actually at my strictly bow spot about 2 hours north

This little buck has a nasty looking growth on him



Got this picture last week... Id say as of now definitely my #1 shooter but I know there will be some studs show up in October down at the farm that will give him a run for his money


Also got this the other morning.. This bobcat picture is very rare in this part of Ohio.. I have plenty of pictures of them down at the southern Ohio farm but not this far North.. Only my second picture of one here in the last 15 years

 

[Eggman]

Good looking bucks and a nice cat!

 

[Warner32]

Good looking bucks and a nice cat!

Thank you!

 

[H20fwler]

The whole thing is nice..well done!

 

[Bill]

As far as the beans go, I think you need to start with a bigger area of you want them to do much. Especially now that your deer know they taste good. I doubt the ones in the high weeds are going to on many pods.

If you don't want to fence maybe try eagle forage beans. They seem to handle the browse better and grow taller. But their expensive.

Personally, I think the beans look good for that small of a plot. Broadcast some winter rye into them in early to mid Sept and you'll have some late fall food in the mix.