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.
-Garage or shipping storage container onsite
-Rough cut atv mower
-Enclosed tower blind
Convince neighbor to south to sell me 40 acres…
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.
- 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).
-Garage or shipping storage container onsite
-Rough cut atv mower
-Enclosed tower blind
Convince neighbor to south to sell me 40 acres…
