Herron Ridge … Trials, Tribulations, & Some Good Stuff

Tree Spud

5 year old buck +
Thought I would share our place and the various experiences we have had.

It has been often said that a piece of coal can only become a diamond after many years of pressure & stress. Well that sums up habitat work from my perspective.

We purchased this property in 2012 and it was our “feet out first property”, a place we would eventually retire to. We have owned several hunting properties over the years. They were all good deer hunting properties, but we learned a lot about neighbors, Govt interference (WRP) with goals, and that you can only change a properties landscape so far before you begin to disrupt the wildlife balance.

The property is 350 acres and has very diverse terrain going from very dense tag alder/ROD marsh thickets to ag type land. The property is 1.2 miles north to south and 0.6 miles east to west. From the lower marsh the property rises 60’ to the hills on the north end.

My wife named the property Heron Ridge as we often see Heron’s in the marsh, ponds, and flying overhead.

Hope you enjoy the journey on Heron Ridge … I'll try and share what we have learned after many years of habitat work.

This is the view on the highest ridge on north end of property looking south. You can see the 30 acre lake looking south. There is about 40 acres of tillable ground split into 25 acres on the north end and 15 acres in the mid area of the property.

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Here is the view from the back deck ... a great place to enjoy a beer after working.

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Soybeans waiting for the deer to munch them ...

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As mentioned, we have some very dense marsh & thickets … Tag Alder, ROD, Grey Dogwood, Tamarack, and some Cedar. This area is about 200 acres of the property.

There are 2 other neighbors that connect with us and surround the lake. The lake is surrounded by about 500 acres of similar dense marsh & thickets. This gives us some incredible sanctuary. The lake is pretty shallow but has all the food sources for ducks & geese. It is also protected by the surrounding bog & marsh. The waterfowl hunting, if you can get to the lake, is incredible.

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The ag land is divided into 2 parcels. On the middle of the property we have a15 acres of tillable ground. Soil is sandy loam so crop rotation is important. We also have issues when we get a mid to late summer drought which can stunt crop growth. Attempting to over seed with brassicas in mid August is a waste of time as we would typically only get some top growth and very little bulb production. That is why I always will overseed with red clover in mid August and then with WR in 1st week of Sept.

Below field is outlined with red dotted line showing east-west boundaries. Our property east boundary is about 300 yards from the road on the north half. This provides a nice barrier from the round plus the neighbor has ~40 acres of ag and then more ag across the road. Green area is tillable. The tillable land is elevated and the blue line shows a ridge that surrounds this area. The drop to the marsh is ~25'. The point that extends above the ridge drop is an excellent spot as bucks scent checking to the west during the rut use this point to enter the field from the west. From the north side of the ag to beyond the creek is excellent bedding area also. We leave these areas as sanctuary and really only go in during the winter. The couple of time I have tried to hunt the creek bottom area had constant wind direction changes making it very hard not to get busted.

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The ag land on our north end has similar soil but it gets a bit better on the lower 3rd. We do not lack water on the property. There are multiple springs (lavender dots) that they tried to create drain dikes to move the water away to the creek. Not sure if they ever farmed these areas as the soil is heavy peat. On one are into the marsh where I bow hunt, they is a 1/2 acre higher spot. I only sprayed with herbicide and broad cast spread brassicas & clover. Everything grew very well.

Everything to the south of the Ag is great bedding area and we keep as sanctuary.

I also noted the "dreaded" beaver dam. He is my constant nemesis and I will get to him later.

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We got 1.9" of rain on Sunday and another 0.5" yesterday. April rain was only 50% of monthly average so we were desperate for rain as all of our tree plantings last 3 weeks were in need.

May is starting out wet!
 
We got 1.9" of rain on Sunday and another 0.5" yesterday. April rain was only 50% of monthly average so we were desperate for rain as all of our tree plantings last 3 weeks were in need.

May is starting out wet!
I'm Jealous. wow that looks like a great place. Keep us posted on the progress. What part of the country are you in?
 
I have advocated for years the caging of pines. We have hi deer numbers and they will browse the top leader growth buds and side buds in the winter. If they don’t get browsed, they can be rubbed by bucks and destroyed. I have had several rows of 8-12, 4’-5’ high spruces rubbed by a single buck at night where the spruces were all broken down by rubbing.

On a 100’ roll of 2x4 fencing I get ~15 cages that are ~2.5’ diameter. At $70/roll, that comes out to about $4.60/cage. Pretty good investment to protect your trees and they can be used over.

Here are some spruces that are 2-4 years in the ground.

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I had almost a 90 to 95% failure rate until I started caging my conifers and I am in a low deer density area.
Started using mostly old farm fence cages on mine and that was enough to make them walk on by and give the trees a chance.
 
The one thing we do not have enough of on the property is thermal cover during the winter. So we have been building pockets of spruce and red pine areas to increase the thermal cover. These will be good for not just the deer, but also game birds & other birds.

For spruce pines, we have gone to planting larger stock. We are planting primarily Norway & Blue spruce, and Red pine. The sock is 2.0’ – 3’ from the root collar has a good developed root system.

We get a great price on this larger stock from our county’s tree program and have planted ~1400 of these size trees the last 4 years.

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In my younger day I would plant 1500+ seedlings with a tree spud each season. Moved up to an Earthquake auger which was a real good work out at times. We now are taking advantage of the tractors mechanical advantage and have added a 9” post hole digger. This allows us to get good depth for the longed roots on the large stock which helps when we get dry spells. The roots are also not bent or curved in the hole. Still use the earthquake auger for areas I cannot get the tractor into.
By planting the larger stock our survival rate is probably over 90% and the tree is tall enough to deal with grass or weed growth

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My best planting partner my wife. She gets an A+ for being a real trooper during planting seas as this year we planted 380 pines & spruces. It usually costs me in the form of a good dinner & drink afterwards.

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My sister joined us in our madness this year so we were glad for the help.

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Nice planting crew! Great to have the family involved too.

We did kind of the same thing for same reasons with white pines in the pasture, just planted them in a few closer groups/clumps of 6-10. We had to protect ours to keep the deer from browsing on them year round and beating the shit out of them in fall.
 
Had something destroy one of my trees. They mangled some concrete remesh and bent the 3/4" steel conduit. Pretty significant impact. They also snapped the main leader on a Droptine crap. Looks like this tree will be an open canopy design if I can't get a new main leader started. Think maybe a deer got it's head start in the remesh and struggled to get out as the cage was up and over the conduit pipe.0522211458c.jpg

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As young as that tree is you should be able to train a new leader fine.
I think you are probably right with the guess to what happened to it. It sucks but at least it was a DropTine they are one of the toughest most vigorous growers I’ve ever seen.
 
Out mowing the WR I broadcast seeded last September. Was about 4' high and seed head started to form. Should lay down a nice layer of OM.

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Do you ever hit any fawns mowing this time of year? I've been seeing some small fawns in the grass recently, so I'm holding off on any mowing for a while.
 
Ben, in our area, this is prime fawn time. I leave tall grasses alone from mid May through mid June, and even then I will walk them first, because I have came apon some little ones the first week of July. I usually take my dogs with me on my walks through it. They will usually find them and basically sit there sniffing them. They are black labs.
 
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Do you ever hit any fawns mowing this time of year? I've been seeing some small fawns in the grass recently, so I'm holding off on any mowing for a while.

+1. Be careful!
 
Do you ever hit any fawns mowing this time of year? I've been seeing some small fawns in the grass recently, so I'm holding off on any mowing for a while.

I have never hit one, but I did bounce one out of the field while I was cutting. Was only 24" chest to butt, figured only and few days old as it was on wobbly legs when it ran into the field edge and layed back down under a tree.

I try to keep a good eye out for fawns, they are hard to se.
 
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