Someday Isle - Property tour

[Someday isle]

Then I put some new reflective rope on my access trails. I put these out the first year we had the property (2016) so the boys could find their way in the dark. It turns out I use them too. The old ones were pretty dry rotted and and the trees have grown some so it was time for a redo. It might seem silly but the reflective rope sure makes it easy in the morning and late evening when walking to the stand.

 

[Someday isle]

Took a few pictures of my pear trees. I’ve got 14 of the 17 I planted over the last three years doing okay. 8 of them are doing great. Three of my three year old trees are 12-15 feet tall and four of my first year trees are over 9 feet. The others are just “okay”. Hopefully some fruit in a few years.

 

[Someday isle]

I‘m planning an evening hunt next Saturday. I’m not much of an antler hunter anyway but we’ve only got a couple little bucks hanging around and a handful of does and fawns. Four years ago That would have thrilled me. Last year I harvested three deer with a bow and we’ve taken 10 deer in four years. We’re spoiled and we know it. We’re very realistic as small property owners and our goals haven't changed, but something is different this year. There are absolutely no bucks around and it seems like fewer does too. I don’t know what it is and maybe it’ll change as the season progresses. There is one new property owner next door but we’re all small Property owners around here and I don’t think we impact the herd much. Maybe I’m overthinking it.

 

[Telemark]

I've seen that happen before due to food and predation. At my uncle's place, the nearest at fields have an incredible impact on the deer numbers. If the fields are planted in corn and harvested early, the deer numbers are insane. If they are not planted, there's very little deer activity.

At my place in Canada the deer numbers seem to be completely dependant on available food and presence of coyotes. We have huge coyotes up there, and when a pair or pack decides to live at my place there's maybe a doe or two on the entire 300 acres. Conversely, when there was a new food plot and no sign of coyotes, there was the largest density of deer I ever saw up there.

Here this year the entire southeast part of our woods terrain cleared out when the neighboring farmer put up a deer fence around his pasture.

 

[Someday isle]

Realized I never posted anything in this thread with our seasons results. I did start another thread on my archery buck harvest. We had another successful season. Last year I harvested a little seven pointer and filled two antlerless tags - all with my bow. This year I harvested a nice buck back in October and then my son and I filled three tags opening weekend of rifle season. He and I both shot a doe and I harvested what I thought was a big doe that turned out to be a strange buck. He was probably a two year old. I don’t have any pictures but he had about one inch bases right at the top of his head with tiny little nubs sticking out maybe a half an inch. It looked to me like maybe he broke his antlers off in velvet and then these two little nubs started. Very strange. My archery buck went to the taxidermist and he said I timed it perfectly. He was all caught up from last year and was just getting started for this year. I’ve attached a picture of him from the taxidermists wall. He’s not only the best buck from our land he’s my personal best buck ever. Four deer off of our 35 acres in our fifth year and it’s the best hunting we’ve ever had. The neighbors also harvested four this year from his 40. We shut it down after that feeling like we should let things recoup for next year. Very happy with the mount. He did a half sneak with his best side forward. Coincidentally it as just about the way he was positioned when I shot him. That’s kind of fun.

 

[Bill]

Good thinking.

I always forget to put harvests in my land tour. And isn’t that why we do anything on our land....

 

[Someday isle]

What a great weekend in Missouri to spend some time in the woods. I did some hinge cutting in an area where IKve seen deer bed before. In fact, two years ago while I was sitting in my stand I kept noticing what I thought was the glint of an antler. After watching it for a while it finally became a deer and stood up. I harvested a nice little seven pointer. I spent the day today hinge cutting, clearing out some smaller saplings and scrub trees and drug out all the debris. I created multiple potential bedding sites and really opened the floor up to some sunlight. This little area is on the other side of a creek about 75 yards off of a food plot. There’s one little pool in the creek that always holds water and the deer cross a flat spot In the creek and walk uphill to the food plot. Granted there’s no leaves on the trees yet but you can see a lot of sunlight hitting the forest floor and when I look up there’s plenty of blue sky between the trees.

 

[Bill]

Indeed a nice weekend. I picked the right time to show up. To wet for field work but the weather is great. I opened up a woods road along one property line on my new ground. Almost Perfect weather for a saw, Maybe a tad warm when your working but it’s not 90 and humid........

 

[Someday isle]

Sometimes it just works out! We’ve had a dust bowl here the last month or so. Every rain we got at home missed us out at the property. Yesterday was really my best chance for getting plots in so I spent a long day discing, seeding, and cultipacking - and just hoping for rain. A couple days ago we had a 56% chance of rain today. It’s been raining steadily all day out at our property since early this morning. Not only does it look like we’ll have enough moisture to germinate there’s enough rain coming today to keep plenty of moisture in the soil for a little while. And as a side note - DANG ITS NICE HAVING A TRACTOR! After five years of food plotting with an ATV and mowing everything with my DR having a tractor this summer has been wonderful.

 

[Bill]

The dust on the tractor is a tell tale sign of what the weather has been like. we got rain last night

 

[Someday isle]

The dust on the tractor is a tell tale sign of what the weather has been like. we got rain last night

Yeah! Monday’s todo list starts with washing the tractor.

 

[Someday isle]

Guess I should have put my seed rates in for history’s sake. 100 lbs if rye, 50 lbs of oats, five pounds of radish, 10 lbs of medium red clover on the main plots, 8 lbs of synergy ladino on the logging road clover trails. While there was still a little clover hanging on this hot dry summer pretty much crushed my clover so I seeded pretty heavy on the trails while still hoping it comes strong out of dormancy this fall.

 

[Tree Spud]

Guess I should have put my seed rates in for history’s sake. 100 lbs if rye, 50 lbs of oats, five pounds of radish, 10 lbs of medium red clover on the main plots, 8 lbs of synergy ladino on the logging road clover trails. While there was still a little clover hanging on this hot dry summer pretty much crushed my clover so I seeded pretty heavy on the trails while still hoping it comes strong out of dormancy this fall.

That mix should pay dividends for you in both food and OM! Congrats on the nice deer.

 

[Bassattackr]

Guess I should have put my seed rates in for history’s sake. 100 lbs if rye, 50 lbs of oats, five pounds of radish, 10 lbs of medium red clover on the main plots, 8 lbs of synergy ladino on the logging road clover trails. While there was still a little clover hanging on this hot dry summer pretty much crushed my clover so I seeded pretty heavy on the trails while still hoping it comes strong out of dormancy this fall.

Dbltree mix eh? Tried and true!

Love the pics, agree on the tractor! Game changer.

 

[Someday isle]

Dbltree mix eh? Tried and true!

Love the pics, agree on the tractor! Game changer.

Yep! It’s what I’ve been using from the beginning on my property. Some years, like this year, I tweak it a little and don’t always do the peas. I get some germination from them but they get wiped out so fast. I’m sure they’re a great attractant but now that the deer are so conditioned to coming to the plots I save a little time and money once in a while. The radishes are a huge draw every year and I love seeing the deer eating them right out in front of me or on camera. I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that I could easily get by with nothing but cereal rye and red clover but the oats and radishes seem to just take it up a notch. If I had better soil I’d probably see more pea growth too. The Ladino and white clovers really do well on my logging road trails and have been a good decision. Some of them were five years old this year and after our hot dry summer I lightly disced them under this year and started them over again with a cereal rye cover crop. Hopefully they’ll come on strong another four or five years again.

 

[Someday isle]

Went out last weekend just to take a peek and do some last minute tree stand work at one of my stands. After 8 days I had a little hint of green filling in. We got a little rain again Tuesday night so hopefully theres been even more good stuff happening this week. Our archery season officially opened yesterday so I’m planning an afternoon sit tomorrow. My first hunt or two are usually just to get the kinks out of my system and get myself reorganized but you never know What might happen. I think maybe my best habitat project of the last year was finally getting all of my stumps ground down - except the yardage markers.

 

[Telemark]

My first hunt or two are usually just to get the kinks out of my system and get myself reorganized but you never know What might happen.

Shot the biggest whitetail of my life on a hunt like that. It was a few weeks before the Ohio gun season. Had just arrived at my uncle's place to prep blinds and help with firewood, etc. Had about two or three hours of daylight left and just got changed real quick and grabbed my pack and my uncle's crossbow and went out to see what I could see. At last light a big buck came by trailing a doe. Shot him at about 20 yds.

 

[Bill]

One more rain and it will be lush.

 

[Someday isle]

One more rain and it will be lush.

I was a little disappointed In our lack of moisture yesterday. It’s just a dust bowl out there. A chance of rain a couple days next week so I’m sure it’ll get better. First sit of the year was still fun though. I didn’t see any deer but had a few turkeys around me and even saw a bunny in the plot. It entertained me for a while - he’s come out and eat a little them duck back in the cover, then come back out and eat again. That went on for a couple hours. It was really warm. We were forecast for mid 80s - which is still warm for September in Our area but it was 90 degrees when I left the truck. Still great to get up in a tree.

 

[Someday isle]

After I got in the stand I kind of regretted my stand choice but by then I was committed - cleary
No reason for a deer to enter this plot right now. I should’ve sat by one of the water holes. Oh well…