Beginning off season habitat work - soil test

[Someday isle]

My son Austin and I went out and began our off season habitat work today. It started with a soil test and walk around. Our food plot trails have been hit hard the last couple of weeks. Most of the oats have died off, the radish tops are all but gone and we never really had any roots of consequence develop, some of the clover has been nipped to the ground and all of the rye is nipped down to only an inch or two high in most areas.

 

[Someday isle]

Austin taking a soil sample and putting it in the bag. We divided our trails into two areas and took six samples like this from each area. We then went down to an area alongside a dry creek bed where I'd like to put in a half to three quarter acre plot in the future and took six samples from that area as well. What I learned today is that it's pretty rocky soil in that area. We'll see. I'll take these sample to the University of Missouri Extension in St. Louis and have a comprehensive test done. I'll post the results when I get them. It should take a couple weeks.

 

[Someday isle]

Then we split a little wood. I'm the old fat guy. Austin is the long armed kid who can't seem to get far enough away from the logs. It's good to be young and strong.

 

[yoderjac]

If that is your food plot, your next step should be a pass with a side discharge finish mower, or if it is small, a leaf blower. Removing those leaves as soon as possible will really help the plot take off in the spring.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Someday isle]

Interesting you mentioned that. That is a wide spot on one of our food plot trails. Austin and I were talking today about bringing out the leaf blower next week and blowing the leaves off. Before the deer really started hitting our plots the rye and oats were probably over 8 inches tall or higher in most places and the leaves weren't so noticeable. Now that they've hit it hard the leaves seem more prevalent. I really do love our trails and they performed well this year for a first season attempt. I've also come to the realization that shaded trails will certainly require a fair amount of maintenance. Two of them will hopefully become long term clover trails and the other two will stay in a similar mix to what we used this year. One of them is reasonably wide and I'd really like to widen the other one to 30-45 feet wide when we clear out the new section we have planned. It's about 175 yards and winds around a little.

 

[Someday isle]

I also took down my two game cameras and of course viewed the cards. I've just got a couple cheap wild game innovations cameras and can already tell they won't last long. They've gotten some moisture in them and and the display is hard to read. We get more pictures of nothing then we get of something - but they were cheap and on clearance and served their purpose this year. We only had a handful of deer pictures today. All does.
We got our first turkey on camera, a nice Tom posing for a closeup. We also got our first coyote and our not so friendly neighborhood dogs. On a previous post I had mentioned how they were on camera a lot and had even run off a small buck that was out in front of me on my second bow hunt of the year. We didn't see them or have any pictures of them beginning the weekend before firearms season. I'd wrongfully hoped they were gone. The dates on the cameras have them showing up frequently after the end of the antlerless season. My assumption is they are allowed to run free except during firearms season. I've decided they're not wild dogs and I'll call it irresponsible pet ownership. I'll work on trying to find out where they come from. They don't belong to any of my immediate neighbors.