G&H Farms

[Cool Hand Luke]

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For you folks who dont get to enjoy fireants - or far ants as they are called in the south. These have been flooded out of their home. When that happens, they form a mass and float until they reach land

That's wild! Swampcat, this thread is a treasure. Looking through here reminds me of watching "Wild America" and I imagine you narrating as a southern Marty Stouffer! All my family is from Arkansas and Missouri but we were never far enough south to see everything the way you do.

 

[SwampCat]

Water came up overnight. I put my waders on and picked up several cameras. Four i couldnt get to. Pretty sure water is already over two of them. Will see in a week maybe. Price you pay when you own land in the bottoms

 

[SwampCat]

Had a decent three hour thermal hunt. Pigs have been a no show here for past three months but we ran into a herd. Kind of unique color. Also got three possums and three armadillos. Did not see a coon. Neighbors hay meadow which usually has 20 or 30 deer in it - until this year when it normally has none - had somewhere between fifty and sixty deer in it. Dont know where they have been all fall.

 

[SwampCat]

nice sunset

we have four professional hunters from zimbabwe staying with us while they are stateside for the DSC and SCI shows

Good night for a crawfish boil

one of the best things AR G&F ever did was offer the Predator Control Permit. A lot of extra hunting opportunity - especially when you have a feeder 90 yards off the back deck

 

[SwampCat]

Was headed out to fill some feeders and put out some corn in an effort to bait up some pigs or coons for some thermal hunting and when I came up over the hill and could see my pond there were two canada geese on it. I built that pond in 2014 and have seen geese on it one other time. Turned around, went back home and got the shotgun, came back and slipped up behind the dam and collected these two geese. One was banded in 2022, about 15 miles away. I know these canadas are common across most of AR - but not here. If that isnt an incriminating picture, I dont know what is. At least the bags dont say “goose corn”.

The food plots are pretty well eaten to the ground. Wheat and clover. All the food plots look like this

easy to see where the creek crossings are now

Deer were already on the corn before dark. I think the deer eat it before the few pigs we have can find it. The thermal is hard on coons. Cant hardly find one

 

[BenA]

I keep threatening to kill a goose or two on our pond, but haven't done it yet. Wow, that looks like a pecan orchard in a regularly mowed yard. With that much browse pressure, what are your plans?

 

[SwampCat]

I keep threatening to kill a goose or two on our pond, but haven't done it yet. Wow, that looks like a pecan orchard in a regularly mowed yard. With that much browse pressure, what are your plans?

Every winter it gets like that. The 1200 acre cattle ranching neighbor in this area only allows a couple deer a year to be killed off his place. And in the other direction, there are almost 60,000 acres of woods and water without a single food plot or ag field - mostly mature bottomland hardwood forest. There is also a river a mile away that has been out of its banks a couple times this winter that pushes a lot of deer to my place - and the neighbor’s pastures. It will be early march before green up will help to disperse them. It is an annual event that is really unmanageable. I dont ever see any “poorly” looking deer. I think there is sufficient browse to support them for a couple months, they just head to the easy eating first.

 

[SwampCat]

Another evening of thermal hunting. I almost always use the scanner and my son on the rifle - a .224 Valkyrie. The scanner is a true game changer. The rifle stays locked into the tripod. It is a pain in the butt to scan through the rifle scope while walking around. The scanner is even fairly useful while riding in a sxs. The invision thermal rifle scope is more definitive than the scanner

Below is a screen shot of scanner video. The video is somewhat sharper than the screen shot. The coons in those pictures are about 100 yards away.



There is a coon on the ground and one semi obscured by branches up in the tree. They cannot hide. I carry a .22 mag pistol with a reflex sight for critters in the trees. Dont really feel great about shooting a centerfire, high velocity caliber up in the air.



The difference between a .22 mag shot coon and a .224 valkyrie shot coon




On this 2.5 hr hunt we killed six coons, one possum, one skunk, and two armadillos. A year ago, we would have probably killed 20 or more egg eaters of various species and maybe up to five hogs.

Of course, while we had four zimbabwe professional hunters staying with us for five days, I couldnt get a hog baited up on four bait sites on two different properties. The ph’s are gone, and the hogs show back up last night



I still trap some, primarily in the spring nesting and fawning season. I think thermal hunting and trapping complement each other very well.

Six years ago, I had no turkeys on my place except an occasional hen would try to nest on my place, probably because I have the best cover in forever. But they were not successful in bringing off a nest. Since then, i started spring trapping and some night hunting. We started seeing a few poults, and four years ago we had a couple gobblers and decided to kill one. The turkey population has continued to increase. Right now, I am getting more turkey pictures than I have ever gotten at my place. I hope the trend continues

 

[TreeDaddy]

Is the predation mostly from coons?

What other species have you focused on?

bill

 

[omicron1792]

nice sunset

we have four professional hunters from zimbabwe staying with us while they are stateside for the DSC and SCI shows

Good night for a crawfish boil

one of the best things AR G&F ever did was offer the Predator Control Permit. A lot of extra hunting opportunity - especially when you have a feeder 90 yards off the back deck

Is that thermal hunting during deer season? They offered that for first time here this year but I didn’t do it. Was like 150bucks and you had to contact sheriff every time you did it. Sounded like a hassle.

 

[omicron1792]

Love my scanner too Swamp. Pic out my window the other night.

 

[SwampCat]

Is the predation mostly from coons?

What other species have you focused on?

bill

I focus on coons, possums, and pigs - mainly because those are easiest for me to catch or kill. I used to have fifteen or more coons at every bait site - now 0 - 3. I killed 153 hogs in one six month period. In that same timeframe now - from zero to 30. I also do a little cat and coyote trapping in spring. I am not very good at yote trapping - manage to catch a couple yotes and a couple cats every spring

 

[SwampCat]

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Love my scanner too Swamp. Pic out my window the other night.

Nothing can hide from it!

 

[TreeDaddy]

I focus on coons, possums, and pigs - mainly because those are easiest for me to catch or kill. I used to have fifteen or more coons at every bait site - now 0 - 3. I killed 153 hogs in one six month period. In that same timeframe now - from zero to 30. I also do a little cat and coyote trapping in spring. I am not very good at yote trapping - manage to catch a couple yotes and a couple cats every spring

turkeys and quail are extinct in east texas

bill

 

[SwampCat]

turkeys and quail are extinct in east texas

bill

Still a few turkeys around. Quail still present a little north of me in the commercial pine timberlands. A couple years ago I was in a bear lease at south edge of Ouachita Mtns - Weyerhauser land - and saw nine different coveys while running bear baits.

Back in the 80’s, I used to kill between 100 and 200 quail a year. A coon, skunk, coyote, cat,or possum track was few and far between - I know because fur trapping provided 1/4 of my annual income in those days. The fur market crashed in 1988 and by 1992, a quail was a rare animal.

 

[SwampCat]

Is that thermal hunting during deer season? They offered that for first time here this year but I didn’t do it. Was like 150bucks and you had to contact sheriff every time you did it. Sounded like a hassle.

Our predator control permit is good year round, 24 hours a day - on private land you control. Free permit. Guns or traps

 

[SwampCat]

of course, day after duck season and water gets out of the river. I did not kill a duck on my own place this year. Amazing how the ducks just know when water floods

 

[omicron1792]

Our predator control permit is good year round, 24 hours a day - on private land you control. Free permit. Guns or traps

Way it should be swamp.

I have a lifetime license. But still have to pay 25 dollars a year for nighttime thermal hunting license. And it’s only good 8 months a year.

During deer season they have a separate license for 150 that has all these stipulations.

This blatant money grab stuff makes me sick.

 

[SwampCat]

Really nice night this evening. As much as I like this weather, I know we need some more cold - and looks like we are going to get some over the next couple weeks

The food plots are actually starting to look green again instead of yellow.

This time of year, I always try to prune a fruit tree or two as I go through. The top one is a really nice looking Eliza’s Choice crab apple that has been in my ground for four years. One of my grand daughters is named Eliza and that is why I planted this tree. It should have made apples last year, but seems like the cold weather last year set all my crab apples back. The bottom tree is a Dolgo crab which did fruit year before last but missed last year. The fruit trees are looking good right now, but always worry about warm winter weather making them bud early and then getting froze and little or no fruit Production

i planted another 20 blackberry plants this winter. My older plants did so well I thought I would add some. These will probably all die before production.

these are some Kiowa blackberries from this year - developed by UofA

far side of pond you can see rings in the water from turtles falling off the logs. Do you know how to tell if a gator got in the pond - one day you drive by and no more turtles in pond

I own a fair bit of land in this picture - but surely not to the horizon. If I could change anything about my land, it would be how wet it is. Ten years ago, it wasnt like that. I planted soybeans down in the bottoms six or seven years ago with a tractor. Now, it is usually so wet you cant drive a sxs down there in Apr or May. I was talking the other day to the son of the man who sold me most of my land - he said he couldnt believe his dad sold that land to me - said he was never going to sell any. He is a really nice guy - besides my family, my land is the best thing that ever happened to me. Like an aphrodisiac, things can be going bad and a ride or two around the land seems to make everything better. I would lay down and make snow angels on my place if we had snow - but they would be mud angels here.

It is wet and muddy, the spilled corn when filling the feeders tends to stay with you

i see this every few months and have yet to figure it out. Find a dead armadillo that looks like it was just walking along and died. No obvious marks on it. Right in the trail

this food plot and feeder is 400 yards from my house. Deer are almost like pets - all does - 12 altogether. Every now and then a buck shows up but doesnt stay. Five years ago, there were seven regulars and that number has increased to 12 even after my 8 yr old grand daughter took her first deer out of this bunch with a crossbow this year. My 7 yr old grand daughter was going to take one of these deer this year, but just could not pull the trigger when the time came. That is fine by me, I cant pull the trigger on this herd of deer either











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[SwampCat]

Ordered 20 blackberry plants last summer. They showed up mid Jan with three inches of snow and ice on the ground and temps in the low teens. Contacted nursery and they said dont plant until night time temps are above 27 degrees. I kept them in the original shipping package and watered once a week. They said i could do that for a couple weeks After three weeks I decided I better plant them. Of course, it is still winter. We are having lows in low 20’s with forecast lows in teens next week. Blackberries already leafing out. Trying my best to keep them from getting bad frost bit.