Snowshoe Acres
A good 3 year old buck
Congratulations. You will be busy for a while, but so satisfying watching dreams come true.
Today we closed on Maple Hill Farm! Habitat Projects
- Thread starter Turkey Creek
- Start date
Someday isle
5 year old buck +
Congratulations - and 50:is still young!
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
Well somedays the aches and pains are a lot more noticeable, but feel like I still got a lot of good years left in me!
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
Had the cameras out for about a week. One respectable buck, would be a great one for the one of the kids' 1st deer. Looks like a turkey or two is around as well. We have seen a few turkeys cross the road about a half mile from the house. 
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
Yes we will. Will be the end of the month before we list inventory.
bigboreblr
5 year old buck +
Nice place, you plan on using it for a tree nursery there too?
IF you got alot of does, game on during the rut. You build a good place for does to live, the neighboring bucks come out of the woodwork for the rut.....
IF you got alot of does, game on during the rut. You build a good place for does to live, the neighboring bucks come out of the woodwork for the rut.....
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
No we have plenty of space for the nursery at my mother in laws which is where it is currently.
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
I feel like I have a good idea of what I would like to do for a Habit Plan moving forward, but would love to have input good or bad from you guys. Yellow is food plots, green is current bedding areas, potential stand locations marked. Purple lines screening. White lines are current deer trails, walked the entire property this morning, we have enough snow to see trails and beds. Red areas are soft mast. Dark brown outlines are places I would like to put in taller native grass. Currently there is zero ag or food plots on the property. We have lost most of the deer we had been seeing early in the year as they are probably elsewhere where there is food. We had a good acorn crop and I was seeing decent deer activity up until about 2 weeks ago and now with the prolonged cold snap they have become more scarce. Visual observation of deer the last couple of months and sign from today (rubs and beds) looks like the bucks are probably favoring the northeast timber patch for bedding and the does the longer rectangular patch running to the south. Cant speak as to deer bedding to the west in the big block of timber, but I really didnt get the feel that there was much if any hunting pressure to the west. The black area I will probably keep haying at this point. As I dont want deer to travel it regulary if I place stands where I am thinking now. Stands were chosen for wind direction, most will be archery. The east stand in the middle will be a great gun stand as well as we can shoot 200 yards into the north or south fields. I tried to keep plot placement in that 200 yard radius for now. Vertical lines in the middle of the south field will be shrub rows and small grain strips as I would like to see if I can get some quail using the place. Also it will hopefully steer deer that come from the west to go by one of the stand location better. Small plots will be greens of some sort and the bigger plots will probably be beans and or some combination of beans and something else. Would like to be able to provide food through December at least. Not sure how much ground I will have to put into beans to keep it all from being eaten too quickly. I will e-fence beans if I need to at least get them established. As time goes on if I get the equipment I will try and put in some corn as well.
Task list for 2023
Build elevated box blind on the east middle edge.
Close off current trail coming into the northeast corner of the field, create a new fence opening where the white dot is.
Put up ladder stands in other spots.
Burn and till spots for food plots
Frost seed some clover
Plant soft mast trees
Plant other greens and beans as growing season progresses
Task list for 2023
Build elevated box blind on the east middle edge.
Close off current trail coming into the northeast corner of the field, create a new fence opening where the white dot is.
Put up ladder stands in other spots.
Burn and till spots for food plots
Frost seed some clover
Plant soft mast trees
Plant other greens and beans as growing season progresses
Attachments
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
Our property is 87 acres. Zero in food plots currently. What isnt trees has either been pastured or hayed. The north field is all good hay grass, south field and strip that runs along the south tree block is weedy growth. A small ag field 1/2 mile to the north and another small ag field that I know was beans this year 1/2 mile to the southeast. Otherwise at least a mile or better to any other ag. The 3 larger plots would equal roughly 2 acres all together. Which I know is not a lot in the grand scheme of things.
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
Started down my list of projects today! Todays work was all centered around the main fence line that runs north and south basically in the middle of the property. Wanted to open up, redefine and close up some fence crossing points. The fence line is super thick with cedars and wild blackberry.
This is the northeast corner of the north field. Deer bed on a pretty steep hill behind me that is timbered and has good ground growth as well. The deer have been crossing the fence here, but I dont want them to. If they routinely cross here they make hunting a south wind almost impossible. They dont follow the treed fenceline on the right side of this picture. They cut across the field in a diagonal. All the food plots will be in the field but to the left out of view of this picture. There will be a ground blind in the center of this field. We will keep haying the north side of this field to encourage the deer to stay closer to the blind and stand locations to the south and away from the property line.
Cut a few cedars and dropped a couple of trees to pretty well shut off the current trail. The deer can make a left and stay in cover along the fence line until they hit the first break in the fence I made which will have them entering the east edge of the field in about the center.
The deer had been hopping the fence here, but I removed the fence. Perfect pinch point between the tall trees dead ahead and the fence as they cross from the north field to the south field. Tall trees are all growing in a deep cut that they deer dont cross on this end of the field.
Box blind will be where the taller trees to the left are. Chainsaw is setting in the fence gap. That leaves a 15-20 yard shot from the blind to the fence gap or directly ahead to the pinch point between the 2 fields.
This is the northeast corner of the north field. Deer bed on a pretty steep hill behind me that is timbered and has good ground growth as well. The deer have been crossing the fence here, but I dont want them to. If they routinely cross here they make hunting a south wind almost impossible. They dont follow the treed fenceline on the right side of this picture. They cut across the field in a diagonal. All the food plots will be in the field but to the left out of view of this picture. There will be a ground blind in the center of this field. We will keep haying the north side of this field to encourage the deer to stay closer to the blind and stand locations to the south and away from the property line.
Cut a few cedars and dropped a couple of trees to pretty well shut off the current trail. The deer can make a left and stay in cover along the fence line until they hit the first break in the fence I made which will have them entering the east edge of the field in about the center.
The deer had been hopping the fence here, but I removed the fence. Perfect pinch point between the tall trees dead ahead and the fence as they cross from the north field to the south field. Tall trees are all growing in a deep cut that they deer dont cross on this end of the field.
Box blind will be where the taller trees to the left are. Chainsaw is setting in the fence gap. That leaves a 15-20 yard shot from the blind to the fence gap or directly ahead to the pinch point between the 2 fields.
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
I have been transplanting a few cedar trees to screen the lower fields from the county road. Luckily there is just one short 75 yard stretch where that is possible. I have been cutting a few cedars and Honey Locust tree seedlings from out of the pasture area, but no pictures of that.
Attachments
b116757
5 year old buck +
Cedars I will cull any females loaded with the little blue berries just to slow their taking over areas I don’t want them. I have some areas that I leave them alone because I have or want a dense stand for a bit of winter cover but I don’t need or want a huge amount of it.
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
Just like anything they have their purpose, but yes they can take over an area without proper management.
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
Busy day for Maple Hill today. District Forester was out to do a walk through with me. I knew we didnt really have much of anything for timber/lumber value that a commercial operation would be interested in, but I wanted to get a different perspective on my property from the forestry side of things. I am not the best at hardwood i.d especially without leaves on the trees. She pointed out a number of oaks I had over looked in terms of trees I can release. Probably do some TSI in spots to open up the canopy in areas. Right now there is no new seedlings growing, at least of tree species I want. We have enough mature "seed" trees that she feels if we can open up the canopy a bit that we can get some natural reseeding started. Found out that Emerald Ash borer is alive and well on the farm. The south slope of the northwest timber tract has a lot of Ash, and not any oaks. So need to decide how to manage that going forward. Want that section as primarily a bedding area. We have enough Honeysuckle growing in there that when the canopy dies out that could really explode and take over.
Finally was the 1st in line for a chance at a older, but well kept planter off of buy/ sell/ trade. The older gentleman lives only a couple of miles from the nursery farm. Its always been shedded and its still fully functional, just had been using it to plant his sweet corn patch for a number of years. Original owners manual and a set of corn and milo plates. Need to find a set of bean plates and we will be good to go. I know there not too hard to find. I have no doubt that I can get my money back out of it when I get the chance to upgrade to a no-till planter.
Finally was the 1st in line for a chance at a older, but well kept planter off of buy/ sell/ trade. The older gentleman lives only a couple of miles from the nursery farm. Its always been shedded and its still fully functional, just had been using it to plant his sweet corn patch for a number of years. Original owners manual and a set of corn and milo plates. Need to find a set of bean plates and we will be good to go. I know there not too hard to find. I have no doubt that I can get my money back out of it when I get the chance to upgrade to a no-till planter.
