First Property WC WI - Initial Projects

mtholton

5 year old buck +
Hi All,
Appreciate all the help in answering my questions and have learned a ton from reading likely every thread on here… Figured I’d share some of my projects. Basic compared to most of these threads at this point, but gotta start somewhere!
Before getting into my tour, I thought I’d provide some color on the purchase. I live in the Twin Cities, married with a 1 and 3 year old (now 2 and 4). I had been interested in getting a property for a few years, but getting my wife onboard took a little more work. After leasing for a couple years at a place a few hours away, it was getting to be too much time away from home. Part of the value of buying was that I would be closer to home and be able to do day trips vs overnight. I made my search area about an hour or so from home and finally one came up that fit the bill (61 miles straight east of my home). I was a little more excited than my wife was... To seal the deal, I literally made a PowerPoint presentation with historical land prices, regional trends etc to prove out my case from a financial diversification perspective☺. I’m thinking if things don’t work out with my career, I’ll package up that PowerPoint presentation and sell it to other guys trying to convince their wives. Gotta be a gold mind in that☺

Property consists of 109 acres in Dunn County WI. Roughly 69 acres of rolling woods and 40 acres tillable. Much of the property along the road has elevation so you can’t see onto the property. There is a top field and woods dividing the lower field with about 100 feet elevation change between each.
I closed in May of 2017 so haven’t had it a full year yet. No major projects yet, but here are some of the small things I did in the first 10 months.
  • Put up a gate. I wanted to clean up the look from the road and ensure any prior hunters new there was new ownership (aside from a really old guy going onto the land once, I had zero issues in my first year which was great)
  • Put in a short road and a camper pad. Found a local dozer that spent half a day moving earth and making a camper/future garage pad. The area is a bowl along the road that is protected from the road and the hunting area. I couldn’t believe how much earth he moved in four hours. He cut right into a hill and didn’t slow down, it helped it’s sandy. I also had him cut in another trail up to the top of the ridge for another way to access the upper field. I also can use that trail to store stuff deeper into the property away from the road. I did planted grass on the newly moved earth, but most didn’t establish since it was late in the year. That will be a spring project to get something to grow.
  • Put in our first food plot. Since I didn’t want to sacrifice what cover I had, I added a small 1/3 acre clover plot at the base of a logging road as it enters the field. This involved clearing out some fringe trees and spraying over the summer for a fall planting, it was overgrown with grasses prior. Came in decent for my first plot.
  • Added a small watering tub. I plan to add more of them since there isn’t a water source on the property, but a close by swamp and class 2 trout stream on bordering properties exist.
  • I planted a couple of apple trees near the camper area. Over time, I’d like to get a small “people” orchard. I also plan on planting Christmas trees in this area for future cuttings for my family. Again, this is in a bowl area near road so we can recreate/sleep here without disturbing most of the property. It’s about 75 yards across the road from a farm house so we’re not adding additional activity/scent to area that isn’t already there.
  • Minor trail clearing and logging road maintance, in areas with blackberries and downed trees that hadn’t been maintained. More work to be done here with additional tools (brush mower) this year.
  • Signed a longer-term lease with the current farmer and agreed on some basic food plot help etc
  • Purchased beaut of a camper as a short-term basecamp. Worked great for our overnights during the rut. Nothing fancy, but kept us dry and warm and had an oven to make pizza, what else could a guy want.
2018 List
  • Removing a couple of acres out of tillable to establish larger food plots. My initial plan is to have the farmer extend his crop into half of the reserved area and rotate it every year. The remaining two areas will be clover.
  • Additional trail creation/clearing/access. Right now there isn’t one trail that will allow access around the whole property when crops are up. I’ll work on a few sections at a time. I’d like to make them ATV accessible to be able to drag up a rough cut mower.
  • Adding at least one more gate, maybe two. 3 total access points that will need gates.
  • Create a S shaped entrance via the spruce and hybrid poplar in one area that allows full view of the field from the road. Once established, it should block most road views and allow more deer activity up top that is current exposed.
  • Planting 1000 white spruce this spring (WI DNR sale) to provide future screens and thicken up some bedding areas
  • Adding water bars on two of the steep trails to prevent erosion
  • Adding a trees to the “people” orchard (thanks for the Fleet Farm tip on mesh this week, picked up 150 feet to make some cages)
  • Adding first trees for foot plot orchard (in the area with clover).
2018 Wish list
-Garage or shipping storage container onsite
-Rough cut atv mower
-Enclosed tower blind
Convince neighbor to south to sell me 40 acres…
 

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Some more pics
 

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Welcome to Dunn County. Your land is looking pretty sweet, a nice mix of terrain and I see your capitalizing on its potential. Land is the best time and money pit you'll ever have, never regretted buy land only wish I could have more. The area your in is starting to really blossom for larger bucks and always has had a strong doe population.... should also be strong for turkey as well, apart from the influx of fishers. It looks like you made a good buy land wise, very nice!! Two thumbs up!! Sorry I missed your message a while back.
 
Looking forward to more pics. Im heading that direction tomorrow to do some work. We will have to meet up sometime if the future after you get more projects done, and compare notes!

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Welcome to Dunn County. Your land is looking pretty sweet, a nice mix of terrain and I see your capitalizing on its potential. Land is the best time and money pit you'll ever have, never regretted buy land only wish I could have more. The area your in is starting to really blossom for larger bucks and always has had a strong doe population.... should also be strong for turkey as well, apart from the influx of fishers. It looks like you made a good buy land wise, very nice!! Two thumbs up!! Sorry I missed your message a while back.
I have a few fishers at my place, 2 miles NE of Connersville. They definetly like to snack on the grouse.

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Nice tour and great land.

Is there a place to create a water hole?

Watch for blooming trees this spring that might be wild plums or wild apples. Then mark them with surveyors tape to monitor and manage later on.


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Nice tour and great land.

Is there a place to create a water hole?

Watch for blooming trees this spring that might be wild plums or wild apples. Then mark them with surveyors tape to monitor and manage later on.


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There are a couple possible spots. It's on the list to get done for sure. The one challenge I have is sandy soil, so the easiest option is some small cattle tubs. I did one 75 gallon this year and it was used, but I'd like a larger source at some-point.
 
Nice property. Did you have any luck during the hunting season? Art's suggestion to find wild plums and apples at bloom time is a good one. There are both in Dunn County, so I bet you have a few hidden on your place.

I'm assuming you have turkeys there, but do you have any ruffed grouse or bear on the property?
 
Very nice! Excellent start on the property and some very good projects, looks great.
 
Nice property. Did you have any luck during the hunting season? Art's suggestion to find wild plums and apples at bloom time is a good one. There are both in Dunn County, so I bet you have a few hidden on your place.

I'm assuming you have turkeys there, but do you have any ruffed grouse or bear on the property?
Saw a lot of deer including a few decent ones. Didn’t make it happen this year (i archery hunt only) Tons grouse (didn’t hunt them). Lots of bears as well.
 
Nice looking place. Congratulations!
It's got some good looking rut pinch points.
 
Beautiful piece of land!

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Looks great, go pack!


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One quick note about property taxes.
I do not know how your wooded land is classified, but will bet it is as recreational woods. If you have 40 acres that is being farmed, you might want to look into getting your wooded land reclassified as ag woods. I did that on my land and saved an assessed value of $1K per acre. For instance, recreational woods is $4K per acre. If it is classified as ag woods it has an assessed value of $3K per acre. This will ad up in the long run and once classified as ag woods will stay that way as long as farming operations continue. This law was passed when Doyle was governor and was intended to provide help to farmers with their property tax bills by lowering the assessment of any woods that is attached to farming land. You mentioned you have a long term contract with the local farmer. I would also make sure that the land being farmed is assessed as farm land. There are various types of farm land but most of it is assessed in the $200 -$300 per acre range.
You will have to file an appeal of your assessment and appear before the board of review. It is a time consuming job, but worth the effort. With your ability to make a decent power point presentation, I believe you have a better than average chance of getting this property tax saving reassessment of your land accomplished if you meet all the criteria.
Nice piece of land, enjoy it!
 
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