Brute 'N Bottoms

[younggun1849]

First I want to say it's been a tough couple of days being a Packer fan, just really tough to swallow, but that's beside the point.

My father and I have had our first farm in Eau Claire County, WI for about a year and a half. We've put a lot of work in and really improved the property, but most importantly we have had an absolute blast doing it! So much so that as of today we officially own another. It was a deal that just kind of fell in our lap, we weren't actively looking, but always keeping an eye open for the right property at the right price.

This piece caught my eye before Christmas, we did our research, studied aerial & topo maps for hours on end, and finally came to the conclusion that it had a ton of potential! Enough so we got an accepted offer on it, and we closed on it today.

It's around 200 acres and about 20 minutes from our farm we already own. It consists of about 30 acres tillable, hardwood ridges and valleys, and river-bottom. The river-bottom ground is where the name came from, "Brute 'N Bottoms". There's a ton of awesome habitat in the river-bottom, some incredible rubs, and I'm anxious to see what bucks are running around in those bottoms.

This is a starter piece that needs a lot of work to get it where I want it to be. I will post all updates I have on this farm on this thread. Chime in with questions or advice!

Here is an aerial photo of the property.



Hardwood Ridges & Valleys



Some tillable ground that has gone fallow adjacent to some hardwoods, and swamp bottoms



Swamp bottoms with some backwater and a river running through it



Some tillable, swamp bottoms, sloughs, and some awesome cover

 

[Jordan Selsor]

Bet your excited! Looks like an awesome peice with wide variety of habitat to work with!
Congrats

 

[phil@thesidehill]

Get out there and do some shed hunting....you'll learn the land and the bucks!

 

[Turkey Creek]

Congratulations! Looks like it has great potential.

 

[younggun1849]

This is an aerial of where all the tillable ground is in the SE section of the property. This is the easiest part of the property to access, and provides some of the best hunting opportunities. Not all of these are going to be food, but they are tillable so food, NWSG, tree plantings, etc are possible. I've put a lot of thought into what should be put where, and I like any advice you guys have on where something should go and why!

The baby blue line is going to be trails that we use to access the property.

Anything jump out at you guys yet? I want to hear it, this place has a lot of potential and I want to hear all ideas!

 

[scott44]

Congrats on the property, looks like it does have a lot of potential.

 

[SmallChunk]

How do you access the property?

 

[younggun1849]

This is the same aerial from above showing the tillable ground in the SE Section, except I added a 6 acre bedding area(white) that will be created. Loggers are going in next week to take out the big timber, and I will come through behind them hinging smaller trees for immediate food and cover. A few years it should have some incredible holding power. It is shielded from wherever we access the property because of the topography. It will be an awesome sanctuary that we never enter except for sheds & trailing wounded deer.

 

[younggun1849]

How do you access the property?

We access the property from the SE corner, where the trail heading east and west meets with the trail heading NW. We will also access the north side of the property from the river. I will post some aerials up of the north side of the property and how I plan on laying it out tomorrow.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Great looking piece of ground with good diversity of habitat. Lots to work with. Best of luck with it - and have fun !!

 

[Fall guy]

Anything jump out at you guys yet? I want to hear it, this place has a lot of potential and I want to hear all ideas!


Nice piece ( No lets just say It does not get much better). Know area as I am sure you do also. You could do nothing, but scout and score quite nicely as I am sure we will see in coming years.

I like to get out this time of year and drag my climber along while scouting and testing wind conditions on different potential stands. You might also consider small plastic canoe.
The river is considered navigable water so you could use river where ever it flows for access if you like, such as putting in off the highway bridge.


Your a lucky guy, good luck although you wont need much.

 

[bwoods11]

Looks great, I bet you will shoot some giants on that farm

 

[shawnv]

I like the name! You'll have to give me a tour sometime. I can say I've come close to killing a few nice ones off the hwy right there with the truck.

 

[kabic]

how many acres north of the river? Also is that a little creek running through the property?

 

[younggun1849]

how many acres north of the river? Also is that a little creek running through the property?

Just a few acres north of the river that we probably won't even touch.

What looks like a creek is just standing water, it's not flowing. You can see from the pictures there are all kinds of smaller ponds, and backwater. I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of pictures of bucks that have mud half way up their legs. Swamp bucks are some of my favorite to hunt!

 

[younggun1849]

The 4 tillable sections in the aerial below I have outlined are all on the ridgetop, then the timbered area drops off into valleys. This aerial you can see the topography changes in relation to where the tillable ground is.



Here are some pics of this south section of the property.

#1 This is along the western border of the southern section. Not sure if I want food here, or plant some NWSG with Pine/Spruce mixed in for a bedding area.



#3 This is the decent sized food plot in the center along the south property line. I plan on planting spruce and hybrid willow along the property line to screen it and make it a secluded food plot.



#4 is where our main access trail comes in at. It's an awesome place for food, I'm just concerned about bumping deer frequently because this is our access point. Any thoughts on what to do here? Ii was thinking screening part of it so I can access it without busting deer.

 

[younggun1849]

Here's 2 other plots I will be creating.

This is in the NW corner of the property close to the river. We will access this from the river, and this will more than likely be a green plot as I'm assuming it will be too wet in the spring to plant.



Same plan with this plot in the NE corner of the property. Plant green in July or August after it has dried out over the summer.



Both of these plots are surrounded by awesome swamp cover and should produce good daylight activity if hunted right.

 

[younggun1849]

I rented an excavator for the weekend, and had a long list of work that needed to be done. Access Trails were the first priority. I put a trail in on the south side of of our property which will allow us to access the 2 open areas in the SW corner. They turned out really good, just need to doze them. There are some pretty step hills that these trails go through.

Here's the aerial of where the trail runs.

 

[younggun1849]

We snuck a waterhole in on a point about 10 yards from a field that will be planted as a full season food source.





I will have a stand in this towering oak tree. It's about 15 yards to the waterhole. I wish I could place a tree like this anywhere I wanted to. Tough to get busted when you're 20 foot up in this tree.

 

[bwoods11]

Seeing some deer while doing habitat work?