I am happy to hear your place did not sustain to much damage, and you sure have some healthy bass in your lake. As far as the snakes go, do you kill the ones you find on your place or leave them be? I personally love to see them away from my home and have been known to move some out of the roads to not get hit, but I am glad that I do not see them at home around my family and pets.
My Florida Destiny
- Thread starter bigbendmarine
- Start date
bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
Few pictures of plot work done mid-October. While I'm still super thankful for the rain we got the night I seeded the plots, been bone dry since. Sure could use a few good rains in the next week or so. Dragging around 700 feet of garden hose is getting old quick and already spooked deer out of the plot at least once in the process.
While I know the deer will take advantage of it at night the first area I worked was actually a small grove of pecans in our front yard / very close to the house. Planted crimson and winter ryegrass to help fix nitrogen for the pecans. Actually have a dozen pecans on both sides of our driveway so have a mirror image plot just to the east of this one I treated the same. Will be killing the strips of grass as is typical in pecan plantings.
Primary plot is this horseshoe one that lies on the west side of our property against woods leading to our pond. Planted in mix of oats, triticale, crimson, and with some strips of brassicas, chicory, and sunflower thrown in for kicks and giggles. If look closely can see chinaberry tree allowed to grow in the plot for rubbing... was rubbed heavily last year. Look even more closely can see edge of scrape tree I "planted" over towards the far left edge of the plot -- branches lit up in the sunlight.
Closer view of the scrape tree.
Added some durano to the crimson in the back section of the horseshoe that lies closest to the woodline / is a bit more shaded and moist when not bone dry.
Also have a couple of small plots on the east side of our property. Put a scrape tree in one of them too.
Halloween usually marks the time I see a big upswing in scraping activity. Gun season opens in our zone on Nov 5. Looking forward to some stand time.
While I know the deer will take advantage of it at night the first area I worked was actually a small grove of pecans in our front yard / very close to the house. Planted crimson and winter ryegrass to help fix nitrogen for the pecans. Actually have a dozen pecans on both sides of our driveway so have a mirror image plot just to the east of this one I treated the same. Will be killing the strips of grass as is typical in pecan plantings.
Primary plot is this horseshoe one that lies on the west side of our property against woods leading to our pond. Planted in mix of oats, triticale, crimson, and with some strips of brassicas, chicory, and sunflower thrown in for kicks and giggles. If look closely can see chinaberry tree allowed to grow in the plot for rubbing... was rubbed heavily last year. Look even more closely can see edge of scrape tree I "planted" over towards the far left edge of the plot -- branches lit up in the sunlight.
Closer view of the scrape tree.
Added some durano to the crimson in the back section of the horseshoe that lies closest to the woodline / is a bit more shaded and moist when not bone dry.
Also have a couple of small plots on the east side of our property. Put a scrape tree in one of them too.
Halloween usually marks the time I see a big upswing in scraping activity. Gun season opens in our zone on Nov 5. Looking forward to some stand time.
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bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
Experienced some mixed emotions this past week, marking the first time I've killed a buck that I followed the previous year (fairly confident the same buck)... that, and sadly the first I wasn't able to recover quickly enough to salvage the meat. Still, glad to have recovered it, confirmed my aim was true / it didn't suffer too long, and to not have the buck's fate gnawing on me for years.
Though decent for a Florida buck, it's not the biggest buck to visit my place. Not even in the top 5 I've had on camera the past three years I've owned the land. But what it lacked in mass or crazy points it made up for in character with notable curved G3 and G4 points on its right side during 2015 that led me to call it "Flame."
It walked out on me the opening day of gun season in 2015 and I quickly made the call it could use at least one more year of growth. Sure enough it was like it read my mind and made it a point to tease me the entire fall while bucks on the hit list stayed nocturnal (or were harvested by neighboring properties).
It actually spent much of the bachelor season on my place this summer and as its rack developed / it gained muscle I tentatively put him on the hit list. Week leading up to gun season he was the biggest buck showing on camera and was beginning to chase does.
First sit of gun season this year, a group of 8 does and fawns entered my favorite plot with about 45 minutes of daylight remaining. Fifteen minutes later with the group still feeding Flame poked his head out of the far corner of the field, freezing there about a minute before entering. Camera I have in a small adjoining clover plot captured him as he approached the larger field.
Sure enough he spooked the bulk of the group out of the field with one doe peeling off and walking directly in my direction. The doe actually paused, but Flame slowly continued walking my direction first directly facing me before slowly turning to give me a quartering shot. He honestly moved slowly enough I began overthinking 1) did I want to go ahead and take him, and 2) should I wait for any more turning and a better broadside shot. Though moving slowly he was almost to the field wood edge when I gave a soft vocal grunt to stop him and took my shot with him still quartering. Instantly I could tell I had a solid hit, with him making an arching jump, running just 10 yards or so before crashing in the woods, with an audible jump up before another crash, then one more jump up with a few seconds of audible running through an adjoining field. I let darkness fall and waited about 30 minutes before getting down to start tracking blood. Fresh red blood just feet from the spot I hit him, follow a consistent trail into the adjoining field and see he paused with heavy bleeding before making a 180 degree turn... and then... NO MORE BLOOD. Not a drop. Crawl looking for more, no luck. With my old tracking lab having died the previous year, I resign myself to lassoing my loony dane/mastiff mix Zeus and he follows the trail to the heavy pause spot before stopping to lap up the blood. When I try to get him to take the trail up again he sprints to the neighboring property's wood-line but without his nose to the ground and without seeming focus on a certain path. With my adjoining field head high in Bidens Alba / Spanish Needles, I'm guessing the buck has simply run into the field. Do my best to walk through it but as I become a human pin-cushion I begin to feel it's a lost cause and with it now late enough I don't want to bother friends to help track, I decide to resume the search at first light.
Get up the next morning, follow the solid blood trail and it's like a UFO picked it up at the place it paused and turned. Mow the field of Spanish Needles... nothing. Walk about 10 yards into the neighboring property (quail plantation) and see no signs of blood or Flame's body. Walk the entire west half of my 100 acres looking for Flame... nothing. Now about 20 hours post shot, and in warm FL at that I resign myself to waiting for the buzzards to help me find him. And that's exactly what happened. While I had noticed them flying high (common) over my place earlier in the week, yesterday I saw them flying low just west of my plot about 50 yards into the plantation property. Turned out that Flame had run the same direction as my dane indicated but at the end of the field hooked north before falling for good. Having taken broadside heart shots in the past, I'm almost certain my shot was true to where I aimed but that I should have moved the shot a few inches forward to maximize damage to the lungs. Had it been broadside I feel comfortable it would have been a double lung shot but replaying the shot in my mind and with the blood darker red than frothy lung blood, I believe if I hit the lung it only clipped one before striking the liver more solidly as the bullet path progressed.
Wish I could rewind time and do a few things differently but will do my best to live and learn from the experience. Not a story I'm racing to share with many folks, but again felt right sharing here to at least honor Flame's memory a bit.
Though decent for a Florida buck, it's not the biggest buck to visit my place. Not even in the top 5 I've had on camera the past three years I've owned the land. But what it lacked in mass or crazy points it made up for in character with notable curved G3 and G4 points on its right side during 2015 that led me to call it "Flame."
It walked out on me the opening day of gun season in 2015 and I quickly made the call it could use at least one more year of growth. Sure enough it was like it read my mind and made it a point to tease me the entire fall while bucks on the hit list stayed nocturnal (or were harvested by neighboring properties).
It actually spent much of the bachelor season on my place this summer and as its rack developed / it gained muscle I tentatively put him on the hit list. Week leading up to gun season he was the biggest buck showing on camera and was beginning to chase does.
First sit of gun season this year, a group of 8 does and fawns entered my favorite plot with about 45 minutes of daylight remaining. Fifteen minutes later with the group still feeding Flame poked his head out of the far corner of the field, freezing there about a minute before entering. Camera I have in a small adjoining clover plot captured him as he approached the larger field.
Sure enough he spooked the bulk of the group out of the field with one doe peeling off and walking directly in my direction. The doe actually paused, but Flame slowly continued walking my direction first directly facing me before slowly turning to give me a quartering shot. He honestly moved slowly enough I began overthinking 1) did I want to go ahead and take him, and 2) should I wait for any more turning and a better broadside shot. Though moving slowly he was almost to the field wood edge when I gave a soft vocal grunt to stop him and took my shot with him still quartering. Instantly I could tell I had a solid hit, with him making an arching jump, running just 10 yards or so before crashing in the woods, with an audible jump up before another crash, then one more jump up with a few seconds of audible running through an adjoining field. I let darkness fall and waited about 30 minutes before getting down to start tracking blood. Fresh red blood just feet from the spot I hit him, follow a consistent trail into the adjoining field and see he paused with heavy bleeding before making a 180 degree turn... and then... NO MORE BLOOD. Not a drop. Crawl looking for more, no luck. With my old tracking lab having died the previous year, I resign myself to lassoing my loony dane/mastiff mix Zeus and he follows the trail to the heavy pause spot before stopping to lap up the blood. When I try to get him to take the trail up again he sprints to the neighboring property's wood-line but without his nose to the ground and without seeming focus on a certain path. With my adjoining field head high in Bidens Alba / Spanish Needles, I'm guessing the buck has simply run into the field. Do my best to walk through it but as I become a human pin-cushion I begin to feel it's a lost cause and with it now late enough I don't want to bother friends to help track, I decide to resume the search at first light.
Get up the next morning, follow the solid blood trail and it's like a UFO picked it up at the place it paused and turned. Mow the field of Spanish Needles... nothing. Walk about 10 yards into the neighboring property (quail plantation) and see no signs of blood or Flame's body. Walk the entire west half of my 100 acres looking for Flame... nothing. Now about 20 hours post shot, and in warm FL at that I resign myself to waiting for the buzzards to help me find him. And that's exactly what happened. While I had noticed them flying high (common) over my place earlier in the week, yesterday I saw them flying low just west of my plot about 50 yards into the plantation property. Turned out that Flame had run the same direction as my dane indicated but at the end of the field hooked north before falling for good. Having taken broadside heart shots in the past, I'm almost certain my shot was true to where I aimed but that I should have moved the shot a few inches forward to maximize damage to the lungs. Had it been broadside I feel comfortable it would have been a double lung shot but replaying the shot in my mind and with the blood darker red than frothy lung blood, I believe if I hit the lung it only clipped one before striking the liver more solidly as the bullet path progressed.
Wish I could rewind time and do a few things differently but will do my best to live and learn from the experience. Not a story I'm racing to share with many folks, but again felt right sharing here to at least honor Flame's memory a bit.
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bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
Posted the tale of my latest harvest in the "successful hunts" sections but so that this thread might highlight results over time, will quickly share a few pictures of a buck I shot December 10, 2016. He showed up a week or so before I was able to hunt for him and I nicknamed him "Bo" because of his relatively nice 10 point rack (Bo Derek reference for those old enough to get it).
Also wanting to post so that forum members can help me age him.
Local F.W.C. scorer pegged him at 137 gross / 130 net which is pretty solid for our neck of the woods -- score put him in the top 12 bucks scored this year statewide (though appreciate many local friends haven't had their antlers scored in past). None of the pics I have of him or video camera hits show him having much belly / belly drop and I've harvested a number of 3.5 year olds the past few years who outweighed him though they were 8 points that fell just shy of the 100 score mark / had far less antler mass as well as gnarly growth up their brow tines. So with that shared, MUCH appreciate hearing what forum members would guess his age based on both body pics AND jaw pics that I hope are good enough to help give an estimate.
For reference sake here's a video I captured of him from the house before hunting him.
Here's a picture of him taken minutes after I harvested him.
Had no problems dragging him 100 yards or so where my wife picked me up and I got him in my pickup without too much trouble (hasn't been the case with few other heavier bucks).
Quick trophy pic with daughter.
Wish I had gotten live weight on it to see exactly how light it was but hurriedly field dressed it to quickly get it in a friend's cooler. Though I think it was pretty light, here's a few better pics of the rack that speak to its mass and while know it doesn't compare to northern bucks, for our area the mass is pretty nice, especially for a deer that doesn't seem very old.
Finally, here are a few lower jaw pictures I took today. Hope they're useful. Again, really appreciate any feedback on age estimate. If 3.5, his horn growth was pretty special for our area. If 4.5 still nice, but somewhat small bodied and sure didn't have much signs of tooth wear.
Also wanting to post so that forum members can help me age him.
Local F.W.C. scorer pegged him at 137 gross / 130 net which is pretty solid for our neck of the woods -- score put him in the top 12 bucks scored this year statewide (though appreciate many local friends haven't had their antlers scored in past). None of the pics I have of him or video camera hits show him having much belly / belly drop and I've harvested a number of 3.5 year olds the past few years who outweighed him though they were 8 points that fell just shy of the 100 score mark / had far less antler mass as well as gnarly growth up their brow tines. So with that shared, MUCH appreciate hearing what forum members would guess his age based on both body pics AND jaw pics that I hope are good enough to help give an estimate.
For reference sake here's a video I captured of him from the house before hunting him.
Here's a picture of him taken minutes after I harvested him.
Had no problems dragging him 100 yards or so where my wife picked me up and I got him in my pickup without too much trouble (hasn't been the case with few other heavier bucks).
Quick trophy pic with daughter.
Wish I had gotten live weight on it to see exactly how light it was but hurriedly field dressed it to quickly get it in a friend's cooler. Though I think it was pretty light, here's a few better pics of the rack that speak to its mass and while know it doesn't compare to northern bucks, for our area the mass is pretty nice, especially for a deer that doesn't seem very old.
Finally, here are a few lower jaw pictures I took today. Hope they're useful. Again, really appreciate any feedback on age estimate. If 3.5, his horn growth was pretty special for our area. If 4.5 still nice, but somewhat small bodied and sure didn't have much signs of tooth wear.
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bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
Should add I did my best to keep the jaw together and had a small wire cage over it as I let fire ants help clean it... my goofy Great Dane left it alone for two weeks while we had warm weather (warm even as FL goes for December)... didn't bother it until the day I planned on pulling it for good. Cold snap hit, and darn dog was smart enough to appreciate that the ants would be down deeper in their nest and he took advantage of the opportunity. Thankful he didn't do more damage to it. No luck finding the front teeth... and can't say I really want to find them at this point. ;)
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bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
On a habitat note, blessed to have finally gotten enough rain this past month to help my plots take off and really fill in. With two bucks harvested off my relatively small parcel, I put myself on a self-imposed hunting restriction for the rest of the season, so I'm hopeful that the local herd will benefit from the stress-free sanctuary feeding.
Primary plot is a horseshoe shaped one with the larger front section a mix of winter oats, triticale, and crimson clover... mixed in a small strip or two of sunflowers and rape for kicks and giggles.
Back section of the horseshoe (running behind narrow strip of pines) is a clover mix of crimson and durana. Deer love staging in this back "sliver" area before entering larger field.
Primary plot is a horseshoe shaped one with the larger front section a mix of winter oats, triticale, and crimson clover... mixed in a small strip or two of sunflowers and rape for kicks and giggles.
Back section of the horseshoe (running behind narrow strip of pines) is a clover mix of crimson and durana. Deer love staging in this back "sliver" area before entering larger field.
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Big Snow Man
5 year old buck +
Man your place looks like a well manicured golf course!
bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
If you're talking about the plots, Big Snow Man, deer deserve all the credit as they're the ones keeping it mowed! :)
bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
And know I'm guilty of throwing a lot of stuff in some of the individual posts, but sure would love any aging guesses based on the jaw pics if anyone has a strong opinion... local resources I talked to varied between 3.5 and 4.5. If just too tough of a call to make due to variances between body, antlers, and teeth wear, I sure don't mind hearing that either.
bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
Eggman, guessing your farm locations were in the same boat in BADLY needing *some* rain. Older I get, though, the more I appreciate those rare years when rainfall is spread out just about right (versus being stuck in cycles of drought conditions followed by flooding).
While we got a bit more rain that I would have liked in 24 hours (somewhere between 3 to 4 inches), still feeling blessed we didn't have any severe tornadic conditions. Lightning WAS pretty darn impressive. Tried seeing if I could capture a strike on camera and while I didn't have much luck with the timing I did get this picture around midnight just after a strike lit my place up EVERY bit as bright as full day. Trees behind my dock and pond in back of picture are over half a mile away. Amazing to me how well the colors showed up in the pic.
On a positive note, with the rains we'll be back green as Ireland for at least a few weeks now.
Kind of a crazy year as we had a VERY mild winter, with full spring blooming activity in early February, but then got a single late freeze mid-March that made most of our small trees drop leaves before budding out again. Looks like almost everything survived the frost / leaf drop with one possible exception (I pray just one)... but that one made me just about want to cry this weekend. Tale will give the bulk of the guys up north something to be thankful for.... be EXTREMELY thankful if you've never heard of the ambrosia beetle, a tiny Asian boring beetle brought into the port of Charleston, SC 15 years ago.
Have a fig tree I planted just two or three years ago that had grown from a sapling to about 10' tall and with a really pretty tree form. Cold got the leaves on it in March, but like everything else I could see green buds on it and they just had started opening back up this past week. Went to give it some water this weekend... AND... *!#@& sawdust "toothpicks" were sticking out of small holes all up and down the tree. AMBROSIA beetle(s) bored in it after the frost and subsequent drought conditions stressed it a bit. The beetles are surely creations of the devil as they target many species including crepe myrtles of which I've got a dozen or so in my yard. They've been found to prey on stressed dogwood, redbud, maple, ornamental cherry, Japanese maple, crepe myrtle, pecan, peach, plum, persimmon, oaks, hickory, Chinese elm, magnolia, fig, and azaleas (think list might be shorter of trees it doesn't tend to target). What actually tends to kill trees they bore into is a fungus they introduce into the tree for the purpose of feeding larvae versus the actual bored holes.
Not my tree, but here's a picture of what the sawdust "toothpicks" look like.
Might cry real tears cutting the fig back down to the ground, but probably will do so later this week.
While we got a bit more rain that I would have liked in 24 hours (somewhere between 3 to 4 inches), still feeling blessed we didn't have any severe tornadic conditions. Lightning WAS pretty darn impressive. Tried seeing if I could capture a strike on camera and while I didn't have much luck with the timing I did get this picture around midnight just after a strike lit my place up EVERY bit as bright as full day. Trees behind my dock and pond in back of picture are over half a mile away. Amazing to me how well the colors showed up in the pic.
On a positive note, with the rains we'll be back green as Ireland for at least a few weeks now.
Kind of a crazy year as we had a VERY mild winter, with full spring blooming activity in early February, but then got a single late freeze mid-March that made most of our small trees drop leaves before budding out again. Looks like almost everything survived the frost / leaf drop with one possible exception (I pray just one)... but that one made me just about want to cry this weekend. Tale will give the bulk of the guys up north something to be thankful for.... be EXTREMELY thankful if you've never heard of the ambrosia beetle, a tiny Asian boring beetle brought into the port of Charleston, SC 15 years ago.
Have a fig tree I planted just two or three years ago that had grown from a sapling to about 10' tall and with a really pretty tree form. Cold got the leaves on it in March, but like everything else I could see green buds on it and they just had started opening back up this past week. Went to give it some water this weekend... AND... *!#@& sawdust "toothpicks" were sticking out of small holes all up and down the tree. AMBROSIA beetle(s) bored in it after the frost and subsequent drought conditions stressed it a bit. The beetles are surely creations of the devil as they target many species including crepe myrtles of which I've got a dozen or so in my yard. They've been found to prey on stressed dogwood, redbud, maple, ornamental cherry, Japanese maple, crepe myrtle, pecan, peach, plum, persimmon, oaks, hickory, Chinese elm, magnolia, fig, and azaleas (think list might be shorter of trees it doesn't tend to target). What actually tends to kill trees they bore into is a fungus they introduce into the tree for the purpose of feeding larvae versus the actual bored holes.
Not my tree, but here's a picture of what the sawdust "toothpicks" look like.
Might cry real tears cutting the fig back down to the ground, but probably will do so later this week.
Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
Wow what a beautiful place. You have a paradise there.
Merle Hawggard
5 year old buck +
Never saw any ambrosia beetle sign and hope I never do! Sorry about that tree, but thanks for showing what to look for.
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk
bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
Wish I could make promises it will stay down this way, but for anyone on the forum living in southeastern states be forewarned you'll likely deal with it within your lifetime. Wasn't detected in my county until 2014. Already hotspots popping up in NC, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and even Texas, and that's after the spread taking place almost entirely in SC, Georgia, and FL from 2002 until 2012. One theory is that firewood driven across state lines is facilitating the spread.
Here's a map of where it spread the first 10 years.
And here's a more recently published map.
And finally a map with forecasted future distribution.
Here's a map of where it spread the first 10 years.
And here's a more recently published map.
And finally a map with forecasted future distribution.
Attachments
bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
Couple of fairly informative links for anyone who may be interested in reading up on the ambrosia beetle.
http://file.scirp.org/Html/9-2600686_29498.htm
Have to go down about half way on the site below to get to the ambrosia beetle information, but has a number of good graphics, pictures (beetle is the size of a grain of rice), and even discussion on the effect (threat of extinction) that it could have on Palamdes swallowtail butterflies that feed on flowers of threatened redbay trees.
http://majikphil.blogspot.com/2016/07/searing-florida-heat-and-laurel-wilt.html
http://file.scirp.org/Html/9-2600686_29498.htm
Have to go down about half way on the site below to get to the ambrosia beetle information, but has a number of good graphics, pictures (beetle is the size of a grain of rice), and even discussion on the effect (threat of extinction) that it could have on Palamdes swallowtail butterflies that feed on flowers of threatened redbay trees.
http://majikphil.blogspot.com/2016/07/searing-florida-heat-and-laurel-wilt.html
bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
Happy to share a good news report on the fig tree attacked by the ambrosia beetle... when I found the toothpicks pushed out by the boring beetles, the tree was already showing signs of major stress with leaves turning brown and curling. Appreciating that anything short of cutting it to the ground meant near certain death, with a heavy heart I cut it as close to the ground as I could saw.
80 days later and I've got 6' of growth and a fair number of figs already growing on the bush.
80 days later and I've got 6' of growth and a fair number of figs already growing on the bush.
