My Land Tour...The Big Woods
- Thread starter H20fwler
- Start date
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
Did some bunny hunting this weekend, neither one of the boys could go so I took the dog for a good run. The dog started five and I kicked one up, if I would have had one more person with me a few more bunnies would have been in trouble. Still had a really good time and gave me a chance to look things over good.
Some of the pines I caged a few weeks ago that were planted three years ago, now with a little fertilizer they should be able to really take off.
One planted this past spring that got browsed hard making it look like a groomed poodle.
This years Christmas tree, the way they are supposed to look.
A bent up tree along south side of woods
Darcy did some shed hunting along with bunny chasing.
Some of the pines I caged a few weeks ago that were planted three years ago, now with a little fertilizer they should be able to really take off.
One planted this past spring that got browsed hard making it look like a groomed poodle.
This years Christmas tree, the way they are supposed to look.
A bent up tree along south side of woods
Darcy did some shed hunting along with bunny chasing.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
It was single digit temps this morning so I went out early to start cutting some wood. As I always seem to do as I'm working I get thinking of a lot of different things, I passed our previous dogs grave on the way to the tree I was cutting and it got me reminiscing about some of the good hunting dogs I've been lucky enough to share my life with so far. When I was a kid Dad always seemed to have a beagle or two and we had a few different house/farm dogs over the years, I didn't get my own hunting dog until I was twelve or thirteen years old, I've been a dog guy all my life.
So I thought I would share a few of my past friends here in this thread to honor them.
My first bird dog was Silver, she was a English setter and kind of a rescue dog. A neighbor of ours had gotten her somewhere and she was not a good fit for them and ran away all the time so they kept her chained up in the back yard. I used to stop by and visit with her because she was such a pretty dog, they ended up just giving her to me.
She was the first dog I ever trained and was a very smart dog but a little timid, she would find and point great but would never retrieve birds. I don't know how old she was when I got her but she was a very loyal and affectionate pup for many years.
The next "good" hunting dog I had was years later, a big male Chessy named Buddy. He came to live with us as a pup and took to training pretty quick. He is the only dog I ever Field Trialed and he did very well. He was a pure hunting dog, very aloof and downright surly to everyone but me. He was 110 pounds of pure rock hard muscle that was like a machine when he hunted. He was not a house dog, he was a hunting tool like my shotgun or decoys... he was not affectionate at all and would only let me pat him on the head when he was in the mood, he did not tolerate strangers or fools and was all business. He listened great and was a monster at fetching waterfowl in terrible conditions, he was also very good on upland birds...if I tipped a pheasant and it glided into a hundred acres of standing corn he was on it and it was as good as in the bag. He could mark multiple birds and had a great nose and instinct but was terrible around other male dogs or anything that wanted to fight him. His mother was the same way so he came by it naturally...live and learn.
Next was Sadie and she was probably the best duck dog I'll ever have in my life and I didn't even know it at the time. We raised her from a puppy and she came along at the right time in my life for waterfowling. I took her all over North America chasing ducks and geese, most years she would hunt multiple states and provinces I can't even begin to imagine how many birds she retrieved over her life. She was fun to spend time in a blind with or a pheasant hunt or chase after Hungarian partridge. She was a lady in every sense of the word, had manners had style and flat out loved to duck hunt. She lived to be fifteen but was a broken down girl the last couple years, her last retrieve was a canvasback at thirteen.
Two and a half years ago we lost Dixie to cancer, she was the most high energy dog I've ever shared a blind with. She is also the only dog I ever had to put a shock collar on....sometimes she was just flat out nuts! In the uplands hunting bunnies or pheasant she was like any other normal lab but once the duck decoys were on the water some switch in her head would flip and I could see the whites around her eyes like she was on crack, she was a coiled spring. When we nocked a bird down she would hit the water on plane and growl and bark all the way to it and back...did that every time no matter how many birds we shot, then as soon as we got back to the dock she would instantly relax and calm down like a normal dog. I thought she would grow out of it but she stayed that way all her life, she was almost embarrassing to duck hunt with around friends if it wouldn't have been so funny. She also had a great nose for cripples, she was impressive finding swimmers in the buck brush or bunnies we didn't even know we had hit.
Dixie got to spend the last few years of her life out at the farm hunting and roaming around while we worked on projects, we buried her in the orchard so she will always be with us.
Dixie with the first geese ever shot off our new pond.
I know Dixie would like that bunnies are still around her a lot.
So I thought I would share a few of my past friends here in this thread to honor them.
My first bird dog was Silver, she was a English setter and kind of a rescue dog. A neighbor of ours had gotten her somewhere and she was not a good fit for them and ran away all the time so they kept her chained up in the back yard. I used to stop by and visit with her because she was such a pretty dog, they ended up just giving her to me.
She was the first dog I ever trained and was a very smart dog but a little timid, she would find and point great but would never retrieve birds. I don't know how old she was when I got her but she was a very loyal and affectionate pup for many years.
The next "good" hunting dog I had was years later, a big male Chessy named Buddy. He came to live with us as a pup and took to training pretty quick. He is the only dog I ever Field Trialed and he did very well. He was a pure hunting dog, very aloof and downright surly to everyone but me. He was 110 pounds of pure rock hard muscle that was like a machine when he hunted. He was not a house dog, he was a hunting tool like my shotgun or decoys... he was not affectionate at all and would only let me pat him on the head when he was in the mood, he did not tolerate strangers or fools and was all business. He listened great and was a monster at fetching waterfowl in terrible conditions, he was also very good on upland birds...if I tipped a pheasant and it glided into a hundred acres of standing corn he was on it and it was as good as in the bag. He could mark multiple birds and had a great nose and instinct but was terrible around other male dogs or anything that wanted to fight him. His mother was the same way so he came by it naturally...live and learn.
Next was Sadie and she was probably the best duck dog I'll ever have in my life and I didn't even know it at the time. We raised her from a puppy and she came along at the right time in my life for waterfowling. I took her all over North America chasing ducks and geese, most years she would hunt multiple states and provinces I can't even begin to imagine how many birds she retrieved over her life. She was fun to spend time in a blind with or a pheasant hunt or chase after Hungarian partridge. She was a lady in every sense of the word, had manners had style and flat out loved to duck hunt. She lived to be fifteen but was a broken down girl the last couple years, her last retrieve was a canvasback at thirteen.
Two and a half years ago we lost Dixie to cancer, she was the most high energy dog I've ever shared a blind with. She is also the only dog I ever had to put a shock collar on....sometimes she was just flat out nuts! In the uplands hunting bunnies or pheasant she was like any other normal lab but once the duck decoys were on the water some switch in her head would flip and I could see the whites around her eyes like she was on crack, she was a coiled spring. When we nocked a bird down she would hit the water on plane and growl and bark all the way to it and back...did that every time no matter how many birds we shot, then as soon as we got back to the dock she would instantly relax and calm down like a normal dog. I thought she would grow out of it but she stayed that way all her life, she was almost embarrassing to duck hunt with around friends if it wouldn't have been so funny. She also had a great nose for cripples, she was impressive finding swimmers in the buck brush or bunnies we didn't even know we had hit.
Dixie got to spend the last few years of her life out at the farm hunting and roaming around while we worked on projects, we buried her in the orchard so she will always be with us.
Dixie with the first geese ever shot off our new pond.
I know Dixie would like that bunnies are still around her a lot.
swat1018
5 year old buck +
Great dog stories. My first dog was a Chessie, the all have that protective streak, it seems. That dog went everywhere with me. I never locked my truck, and left it running with the windows down, hoping someone would try to get in there with him and steal it. Had a friend that got thrown out of the house drunk after I got out of college, he came in the front door in the middle of the night without knocking, bad idea. Dog had his back against the wall, pinned in the corner till I came to his rescue. Loved that dog.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
Chessie’s are a different breed that is for sure, very rugged dogs. They can be surly but I've seen plenty that have had really good dispositions. At the first duck camp we used to stay at up in Ontario twenty five years ago we used to leave our ducks out on the picnic table outside our cabin. Other hunters staying at the camp would go around in the evenings checking out everyone’s daily bag if I wasn't outside with Buddy he would woof once low and back whoever was being nosey right up..I always knew that deep low woof meant business and I would get out there quick before there was any trouble.
I used to take him skeet shooting with me and he would sit still right next to me while I shot. Now and then someone would come up to me and ask "does he bite?" and I would say yes most respected the answer but did have a couple of guys that still reached out to touch him and got nipped...he was a no BS dog. I could go inside a building tell him to sit and stay and he would still be sitting there a half hour later when I came out. He wasn't much of a barking dog but he would do that woof and stand and stare at whomever was trying to get to close to our house or the kids.
His personality was the photo opposite of my current partner Darcy...she's a lover.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
Released a mix of pheasants a couple weeks ago mostly hens to see if they can survive and possibly nest this summer, it will be tough not taking the dog out with me while working on things...I may just take her anyway. I did see a couple hens in the last two days and heard a rooster crow on the south side of the woods yesterday.
Spent some time this last week getting some things done out at the farm.
Cleaned out wood duck boxes and we added a couple new wood duck capsules to the vernal pool in the woods. We see a lot of woodies swimming around in there and landing in trees in spring while we are turkey hunting so thought we would try a couple more.
Added a new feeder in the woods, now the feed can stay dry and it should help slow the racoons down some. After a week I checked it, there are plenty of tracks and it had gone down three inches so the deer must be using it.
Did a very hard prune on the low branches of the apple and pear trees.
Got the bee hives unwrapped and ready for spring, they were both doing great so each got another frame. Lost our best hive over at the little woods, that sucked.
I had flagged the twenty five hazelnuts along the woods late last summer so I could clean up the invasive growth around them from mostly volunteer stuff from the woods. All of them are throwing multiple suckers good now and the catkins are flowering. I still need to cut some of the bigger stuff behind them back to give them more sun and I might start transplanting some of the suckers to other spots.
Had lots of mallards and geese working the ponds every time I was out there.
Spent some time this last week getting some things done out at the farm.
Cleaned out wood duck boxes and we added a couple new wood duck capsules to the vernal pool in the woods. We see a lot of woodies swimming around in there and landing in trees in spring while we are turkey hunting so thought we would try a couple more.
Added a new feeder in the woods, now the feed can stay dry and it should help slow the racoons down some. After a week I checked it, there are plenty of tracks and it had gone down three inches so the deer must be using it.
Did a very hard prune on the low branches of the apple and pear trees.
Got the bee hives unwrapped and ready for spring, they were both doing great so each got another frame. Lost our best hive over at the little woods, that sucked.
I had flagged the twenty five hazelnuts along the woods late last summer so I could clean up the invasive growth around them from mostly volunteer stuff from the woods. All of them are throwing multiple suckers good now and the catkins are flowering. I still need to cut some of the bigger stuff behind them back to give them more sun and I might start transplanting some of the suckers to other spots.
Had lots of mallards and geese working the ponds every time I was out there.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
H20 - Was your lost bee hive colony collapse disorder/syndrome, or was it raided by some critter? All the other things look great.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
I've only been doing the bee hives for a couple years so there is a lot I don't know.
Wasn't raided I'm not sure what happened they were just dead, even had some honey left. I lost two hives like that last winter. This years was my best hive, got over 100 pounds of honey off it last fall. We will have to split a hive in a month or so and see if we can restart it.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
I was out at the farm yesterday afternoon adding some wind supports to my taller fruit trees and a small flock of pheasants came strolling by quietly cooing and purring back and forth. A little later I was over along the woods checking on our Dunstan’s and another little flock was hunkered down in the brush, the roosters really stick out but those hens sure do blend in good. One group had two roosters four hens other group had one rooster three hens...that I could see.
It sure was neat to see them, they seem to be getting along OK. I bet it has been at least forty years plus since a hen pheasant has been on that farm.
It sure was neat to see them, they seem to be getting along OK. I bet it has been at least forty years plus since a hen pheasant has been on that farm.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
I released them a few weeks ago...in the hopes that some may nest.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
Thanks!
They are pretty calm acting, it’s like they can sense I’m not going to bother them. The hens act a lot spookier than the roosters not sure if that may be a seasonal thing right now or not.
It’s fun to see and hear them for now anyway, the biggest drawback has been not bringing Darcy along with me while I’m out at the farm. Don’t know how much longer I’m going to keep that up, they will interest her way to much and she would scare the crap out of them. Going to give it a couple more weeks for them to go more feral.
They are pretty calm acting, it’s like they can sense I’m not going to bother them. The hens act a lot spookier than the roosters not sure if that may be a seasonal thing right now or not.
It’s fun to see and hear them for now anyway, the biggest drawback has been not bringing Darcy along with me while I’m out at the farm. Don’t know how much longer I’m going to keep that up, they will interest her way to much and she would scare the crap out of them. Going to give it a couple more weeks for them to go more feral.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
Spent the last couple of days adding some things to the shrub strips, I like to plant early to catch as much of the spring rains as I can. This was the first time with reverse shrinkage on trees and shrubs that I’ve ordered, in the past it always seems like when I order a certain size they include the roots in the measurements. Everything came from ColdStream Farm out of MI this year and the 2’-3’ was a generous three feet! I planted plums/ninebark/nannyberry/indian currant.
The American plums were nice and tall with great root structure lots of the fine hair roots, they were just starting to bud out.
The ninebark all had clusters of stems great roots and were breaking bud, this is one plant.
Checked the woody boxes on the ponds and all either showed signs of nesting or had hens in them.
I saw two different roosters yesterday. One was especially worked up with his face waddles flared and would challenge cackle and flap every time any geese would fly over honking, he did that maybe twenty different times. Made me laugh every time he did it.
Tried to get a good pic but it didn't turn out that great, they are getting more spooked of me.
Have to mention this; I did a whole lot of fruit tree pruning this spring, around fifty trees in two days. After doing some internet review searching I purchased and field tested a new set of pruners this year just to see how they would work. I ended up buying the Japanese Senkichi ratchet pruners and have been very impressed with them so far. I easily cut through limbs bigger than my thumb cleanly and had no hand fatigue at all from constant pruning, so far I’ll give these two thumbs up.
Also knew I was going to be cutting some really good sized low limbs off the fruit trees this year so I searched for what the internet considered one of the "best" pruning saws. I have used pruning saws before for bowhunting and most left a lot to be desired usually flimsy to dangerouse to use. Ended up buying the EverSaw and really liked it, cuts good/lock works great/crazy sharp.
Also got the fruit trees all fertilized they are just budding out good, so I ended up a with a couple busy productive days off. Planning on taking a bunch of ROD cuttings Friday to plant in the wet spot along road and clean out and move a couple of the bluebird boxes.
The American plums were nice and tall with great root structure lots of the fine hair roots, they were just starting to bud out.
The ninebark all had clusters of stems great roots and were breaking bud, this is one plant.
Checked the woody boxes on the ponds and all either showed signs of nesting or had hens in them.
I saw two different roosters yesterday. One was especially worked up with his face waddles flared and would challenge cackle and flap every time any geese would fly over honking, he did that maybe twenty different times. Made me laugh every time he did it.
Tried to get a good pic but it didn't turn out that great, they are getting more spooked of me.
Have to mention this; I did a whole lot of fruit tree pruning this spring, around fifty trees in two days. After doing some internet review searching I purchased and field tested a new set of pruners this year just to see how they would work. I ended up buying the Japanese Senkichi ratchet pruners and have been very impressed with them so far. I easily cut through limbs bigger than my thumb cleanly and had no hand fatigue at all from constant pruning, so far I’ll give these two thumbs up.
Also knew I was going to be cutting some really good sized low limbs off the fruit trees this year so I searched for what the internet considered one of the "best" pruning saws. I have used pruning saws before for bowhunting and most left a lot to be desired usually flimsy to dangerouse to use. Ended up buying the EverSaw and really liked it, cuts good/lock works great/crazy sharp.
Also got the fruit trees all fertilized they are just budding out good, so I ended up a with a couple busy productive days off. Planning on taking a bunch of ROD cuttings Friday to plant in the wet spot along road and clean out and move a couple of the bluebird boxes.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
I am really looking forward to seeing how they do, planted them on a slope in full sun. We put some in last year that weren’t nearly as tall as these and they only put on a couple inches of growth. It will be nice in a few years to start getting some fruit on these and one day have enough to try and make some jelly. Everything I have read and heard about them seems positive, especially for wildlife.
Thinking of adding some Canadian plum in with these next spring.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
I have been slowly researching the property records trying to find out more about the farms history and was able to find this 1872 Road Record of the farm. It should be able to help me find more on the old deeds and the original owner. This area of Ohio was originally settled around the early 1820's. It gives me some info to look up at the court house to see what I can find on this parcel. Should be interesting to find out information on the family that first farmed the original section and called it home almost 200 years ago.
