Mohican Land Tour

roymunson

5 year old buck +
It won't be as organized or sexy as some of the other ones on here, but here's a quick look at my little slice of heaven.

I have about 50 acres and a buddy of mine has 180 up against mine. Another buddy has 25 too, so all told we have about 250 acres in 1 block that we control. We've decided to hunt it as 1 piece and work together rather than "his side" and "my side". My piece is south of his and we made a sanctuary that's essentially the middle of our combined properties.


The fields were all hay/fallow fields that the previous owner would have mowed once or twice a summer. I took possession on mine last October, but my buddy bought the bulk of his in 2014.
The majority of the ag is SW of our place, but after the beans defoliate and corn gets pulled, we have a lot more deer move in.

We did a selective TSI cut late spring and took a bunch of blocking and mature trees out of the sanctuary and some nicer walnuts and oaks from south of the pond.

Spent most of the late winter cutting grape vines and hinge cutting a bit. The woods SW of the field was a viney, trash tree mess, so they took anything with any value and did everything they could to make it thick and turn it into bedding habitat.

Everything southwest of the sanctuary was the new property so we finally had a way to get around the lack of food from previous years. Several open fields made for almost turnkey food plots.

I tried some corn without prepping the soil (lime and fertilizer), and it grew, but not how it should have. Coons and deer wrecked it. So the first week of August I broadcasted a brassica mix into the standing corn before a rain.
Here is is with about 10 days of growth


Another Pic 9-1-18



Southernmost 1/3 of the field was completely failed corn, so I Throw N Mowed wheat, radishes, peas and overseeded with some brassicas-
An Early pic about 5 days after seeding and getting some rain


A pic 8-28-18


Another Picture 9-1-18



Just north of the power line we put in a raised blind and I did a T&M of wheat, radishes, forage peas, and then overseeded around the blinds with a brassica mix:



The next plot north of there we call the Sanctuary plot because it's on the southern end of the sanctuary.

Planted the same mix T&M style


Here's my tree-coy and raised blind in one of the tree islands south of the sanctuary, Pic taken 9-1-18



The plot NE of the Sanctuary Plot is going to be cut into an X. It's about 5 acres. The northern triangle on the X will be planted into Switch next Spring. The East, West, and Southern parts of the X are a triticale mix with a 5 yard wide border around it in clover. You can see the tilled vs T&M pretty distinctly. Pics were 8-28-18
 
North of the Sanctuary there's an interior plot (labeled Food) that's about 3 years old. Essentially dozed a 5 acre plot on the top of a ridge (aptly named, the ridge plot, super original)

Here's us prepping the northern-most area for chicory & oats


No great pics of growth yet as I was too lazy to go buzzing thru everything to see the growth, but it's coming along.

Here's a couple of pics of the good times my boys and I have had already thus far



We have a warm place to sleep, take a shower, and a couple of blank slates on which to use to attract a bunch of deer.
I didn't really know how blessed I was until I put this thing together just now.

Lot of goals to get going yet. and it's not a finished project, but man, it's a heck of a lot of fun getting it there.
 
As far at trees, I have 3 bartlett pears that I bought bare rooted as "leftovers" from a guy who sells Schlabach's Nursery fruit trees in the Sanctuary Plot, and I put a Dolgo crab and another apple that was kinda a mystery (or I just forget what it was) in the NW corner of the power line plot.

I would love to start putting a bunch of mast bearing trees in the plots, but I think I have a lot of stuff to take care of as it is. That'll be my long game...

This thread is also an attempt to force myself to take pictures. Looking back on a lot of things, I wish I'd had more pictures. So I'll try to take pics and post them on here and it'll make me keep track of my exploits and screwups
 
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Would also love to hear input and tips/questions from you guys. Being mostly wooded, food was our biggest challenge. We're working on rectifying that.

Deer numbers are not a problem. 3 of us saw 60+ different deer in 1 sitting last year on this piece in October.
 
It looks like you have a lot going for you - the greatest of which is that happy bunch of boys. I can imagine the great times you are going to have with them on that land in the coming years.

I'm also impressed with the way you and your friends have come together to combine those properties and work together. That will pay big dividends in the future on the quality of your bucks and the age structure.

I also like the idea of the TSI you have done. It will thicken the cover in the short term and improve the quality of the forest in the long run. Looking forward to following along with your thread.
 
Looks like you have your act together. I bet there are some nice deer running around that turf!
 
Was out Friday and took a couple pics. The driller radishes and wheat are doing well. I have to look long and hard to find any of the forage peas still around.
Deer are using the plots and am getting a little action on the scrape tree occasionally


I think I need to topdress my brassicas in the corn w/ some N


This is my buddy's neighboring field that is gonna be oats and radishes this year, and have some switch planted in the spring


Ran turkeys out of it when I came in to take the pics

Trying to build soil and get the balance where we need them to get a little more creative with the crops, but for this year its radishes, peas, and wheat on most of it.
 
a bonus corner that I T&M'd some rape into



Don't really have a good set to hunt this little piece, but it connects to the bigger scrape tree plot
 
This was the same rape plot 2 weeks earlier
 
Quick update on our place...
In December we planted some pear trees, and my buddy next door planted a bunch of persimmons.

February and March saw us cut a lot of junk timber in the sanctuary. hinge cut what we could, opened canopy where the trees were too big, but we now have bedding areas.

In May I planted some beets that didn't come up, and did a strip of "conceal" that's pretty stunted, but that's ok, we're working things out.

August 5 I planted turnips via Throw N Mow, and they're coming up nicely (Pic 1)

August 16 I planted Imperial Clover and Triticale via Throw N Mow

I also disced in my failed beets and planted forage oats plus. Hoping to have an early season honey hole.

Had 2 of my 3 boys with me and they got to run the cultipacker.

Before school started we wanted a get away just us boy, so we shot the 22 and a 410, shot the crossbow, fished, watched deer, fished some more, and generally did whatever mom would think was a drag if she'd been there.

Last picture is of a tilapia I'd put in the pond earlier this spring. they seem to have cleaned things up quite a bit, vegetation wise.
 

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Making memories!
 
been a while since I updated this... No real pictures to speak of, but as of last Wednesday, signed the contract to add 100 acres to this piece. Gives me a load more road frontage, access from front and back side of the property, another pond, and about 50 acres of tillable/crop field/planned switchgrass bedding.

I'm incredibly pumped and blessed. Can't wait to get on it and start working the plan.
 
Congrats on the land!
 
What’s the old saying? When the neighbors sell, buy it, because it will only happen once....
 
Thats great added some acres to my place same way.Never heard of stocking talpia we use sterile grass carp
 
Thats great added some acres to my place same way.Never heard of stocking talpia we use sterile grass carp

The tilapia did WORK to the grasses I had growing. Completely cleaned things up. Very pleased with them.
 
Ok, worked up a couple pics off of google maps.
to the east is what I already own, my buddy/hunting partner owns a to the northeast, and the new piece gives us some really good options on access with a road running thru it, (access on east and west sides)
We hunt the highlighted piece as 1 small co-op. Its just 2 or 3 of us land owners, but if the wind is right for him to get into one of my spots, he does. And vice versa. We both have kids getting into the hunting game and hope we can manage it with everyone involved and enjoying it.
 

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Here's a picture of the new piece and how we tenatively plan to cut it up. There's a lot of field involved, but I think we can use that to our advantage. We plan on share cropping pieces and leaving our share stand. The primary action is the North/Northwest side of teh farm where we're planning on having a mix of bedding. Whether is old field growth that we quasi maintain to keep from getting to grown up with trees, or a switchgrass blend, the goal is to hold deer in the middle and hunt the edges. The dead center of the piece is where we want to draw deer thru via edges and food to the south.

Haven't put any plants in the ground yet, but am open to opinions and/or thoughts on it.
 

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Looks like a good chunk of land between you two with diversity.
 
Looks like a good chunk of land between you two with diversity.

That's what excites me the most. The differing land makes it pretty appealing. I know guys around there that got all timber and had to clear woods to put food in. We've got the best of both worlds
 
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