My Florida Destiny

bigbendmarine

5 year old buck +
Starting a thread to share pictures & updates from my place in North Florida. If I'm blessed to live a bit longer and find time to regularly post I'll definitely be sure to make it best fit in the Native Habitat forum but barring anyone getting too bent out of shape about it I'll also use it to share pictures I capture of God's natural handiwork.

Hopeful that members outside the southeastern coastal area will enjoy the change of pace, not that our deer set world records but the weather is mild, land is beautiful, creatures diverse, and the deer herd healthy with bucks that have actually turned out to surprise me.

Bit of back story to the property. Our place is 112 acres on the edge of a plantation tract first planted in cotton almost 200 years ago.

I moved to North Florida in 2002 and until 2013 my wife and I lived 3 miles away from . I got hooked on saltwater fishing the second I arrived in FL, but didn't give deer hunting much thought until we moved to the new place. Having lived on 5 acres our first 11 years and saved up a bit of cash, my wife and I were eager to find a new house that would better hold many family members and friends who like visiting us in FL, and also were interested in investing in more acreage.

When we found our "new" place, it actually was having enough age issues it took us almost a full year to fix it up. The exterior was bad enough that you could put your hand through holes in the wall before it was repaired. BUT being a rural property a ways out from Tallahassee, we were able to buy about 2 times the square footage and 10 to 20 times the land.

I told my wife when we moved that I only wanted to make ONE other single immediate purchase... a mega-zoom camera so I could capture shots of wildlife on the place. The house has views out to 600 yards and I haven't regretted the purchase a single second.

So with all that shared here are some pictures. Hopeful some kindred spirits on the forum enjoy.

Canopy driveway. Gates came with the property but both had been hit and were down when we moved. On the canopy note, trees are bradford pears... God knows I love their looks, hate their tendency to drop limbs, overcrowd, die young.

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Bradford pears along driveway in bloom during our early spring.

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We're blessed to have ancient live oaks along both sides of the front yard. I know there's been debate about how palatable deer find them, but be it the easy pickings or the lack of better options, I have deer visiting them at dark every evening when dropping.

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Occasionally the deer even brave eating the live oak acorns during daylight hours.

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One thing that definitely adds to the wildlife diversity is a small 30 acre lake that lies on the land.

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Nothing much more fun than pitching frogs into the lily pads and having big bass blow up on them.

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Though lose a lot in the lily pads too...


Thankfully our mild temps do at least drop enough to enjoy a late fall change of colors, with at least a few moderate frosty mornings in the winter.

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No shortage of these when temps are warm...

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Or these...

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Found this one at my feet when pulling a camera card from a mineral station near the pond... about 1" shy of besting the largest credible length I could find recorded online.

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Pond also draws in red-winged blackbirds. Caught this one in mid-call.

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On the bird front, two of my favorites are our seasonal swallow tail and Mississippi kites. Incredibly acrobatic raptors that love hunting grasshoppers in flight when I cut our fields. Those who've witnessed them group in formation and take turns swooping down to feed will know I speak the truth when I say they rival military jet formations in their feats of coordinated flight.

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Not nearly as acrobatic but still entertaining are our local cattle egret. Think I've counted 30 lined up in a row beside me while cutting our fields, chasing grasshoppers by jerky runs versus acrobatic flight.

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With diversity of wildlife, comes predators and we have no shortage. Lots of coyotes including a fair percentage of black ones.

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Have some fair sized bear around too. Friend walking by a feeder on our place almost had a close encounter and identical distance from camera helped put bear's size in perspective.

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Finally, a few pictures of deer on the place. My original sightings were in spring and summer before I could see any horns but I was thrilled to see a healthy herd.

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As our first summer at the new place progressed horns starting popping up, and memories of the thrill of buck hunting from my youth in the Carolina region kicked in. It was when I caught this sight I started questioning the perception I mistakenly had that Florida didn't produce bucks with decent racks.

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Turned out the bachelor group that visited our place that year held a number of nice bucks.


The two larger bucks in the video visited a food plot I planted during daylight hours until the day before gun season (I only hunt with rifle). From that night on I only captured midnight to 2:00am camera hits spaced about a month apart. Didn't capture the tall 8 on camera at all after the New Year, and believe neighbor harvested him the following year.

Did have this "trespasser" 8 point chase a doe into my plot during the first fall I hunted. In hindsight know a year or two of additional growth would have likely helped add mass to his rack, but still... actually had a nicer rack than any bucks I harvested in my home state of South Carolina when I was a younger man.

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In an effort to end on a note about the topic land management, have about 25 acres of fallow ground to work with and have had pretty good luck with clover & wheat / clover & triticale plots I've planted and have also planted almost 100 trees in the few years we've been on the place.

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Every day I feel like pinching myself at the luck of finding our spot and if I live long enough just to see the plantings I've put in to date mature I don't know if there's any way I'll be able to feel more blessed. :-)
 
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Thanks for sharing your beautiful place! Nice bucks BTW! My wife's family lives on the gulf side near Tampa and one up in Amelia Island. I have to say I am not a FL guy due to my low tolerance for temps above 72 degrees, but I do like to visit there in January when I can wear shorts and a t-shirt while the locals wear Carhartt's. LOL!
 
Great set of pics and like Whip said, beautiful looking place.
 
I'll third that! Awesome place and pics.

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AWESOME place and great pics!
 
Awesome everything! (Wildlife,property, and pictures).
 
You have a great place Bigbendmarine! That moccasin was a monster. Glad he did not get up.
 
Cool place, but with snakes as big as a picnic table, I won't be making your land tour if you have one! EEK!
 
Cool place, but with snakes as big as a picnic table, I won't be making your land tour if you have one! EEK!
Like I said, I like visiting FL in January, most of the creepy-crawlers are at least sleeping by then!
 
MANY thanks to all for the kind words. Love taking photos of the nature down our way, so again if it doesn't bend anybody out of shape too much I'll keep the wildlife / scenery pics coming along with the occasional habitat work update.

As for hot temps, while we most certainly exceed wiscwhip's preferred 72 limit, our proximity to the coast brings regular afternoon summer coastal storms that tend to cool us down a bit. Few years back I had friends in the Carolinas sharing post after post about brutal summer temps when I just hadn't noticed our summer seeming much different than usual. Pulled some daily data from Columbia SC, Charlotte NC, and Washington DC and it turned out that Tallahassee quite often had the mildest temperatures. Despite being farthest north Washington DC actually had the hottest temps a few days, but I wasn't really that surprised since there's so much hot air regularly released around those parts. ;-)

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Love the pics and posts, keep 'em coming! That's what these "land tour" threads are for! And yes, it sure looks like your proximity to the coast keeps the temps more moderated vs the wild swings it looks like everyone else on your chart experiences. If I moved to Tallahassee before my youngest BIL, he would shoot me, he is and has been for many years, a die hard FSU fan, despite being raised in WI.
 
Ok, leaving my own personal property for a second wiscwhip but here's a video I put together a while back to a song I really like about Tallahassee that shares some sights from the area. Bet your brother will enjoy.


Few more video shares... put this one together too of beautiful coastal scenes from our area (St. Marks and Econfina River areas just about 16 miles south of my place). Much older song choice, but think it fits perfectly.


Actual run out of the Econfina River to the coast, again to a song I think fit fairly well.

 
Great looking place, especially through the eyes of that awesome camera.
 
When originally shared on the site that shall remain unnamed, someone quickly asked if we have many hogs. At the time my answer was that I saw them sporadically but the plantation that borders me kept them pretty much in check. Bit different story this year. First saw a random one or two on game camera, then a few from the house during daylight hours, and now seeing a sounder of up to 8 or so together.

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One of the hampshire striped hogs became the first to pay the price for rooting damage in my fields.

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That's some good looking bbq...


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Well that is a beautiful place! So fantastic it makes me think about selling some stuff and retiring early down there with you. What lens are you using for the camera?


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Bigbend,

You are quite the photographer! Great pics. It looks like a paradise to me. :)
 
What a beautiful place, thank you for sharing!
 
hang on BIGBEND, it is going to be little rough for the next 24 hours!
 
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