Shearwood Forest

Shearwood Forest

5 year old buck +
I just posted to the "who are you" thread and figured it was time to start my own thread with the property we purchased this past summer. My hope is that maybe I can keep my 4000 questions and overly wordy write ups in here and not clog the form with question after question in the sub forms.

Last June my father and I took the plunge on hunting/recreation land in zone 5A near the boarder of NY/PA, it has a 3 bedroom cabin on 33 acres and then negotiated the neighboring 122 acres and pole barn from the same seller.

The cabin had good bones, and the prior owners spent much of the pandemic living there and started working making the place a bit more of a home. ultimately he decided he wasn't done with work and bought back the family business 2hrs away and need the capital. For Years I thought all I wanted was the best habitat and the most acreage I could afford no shelter needed, I've been sleeping in my truck on public for years and spent the last two years using a shed on a permission piece but with a young family and the help of others that went down the road of owning land without a residence I decided that the family recreation side would provide the most long term reward and that I could occupy myself building the hunting property of my dreams. My wife fell in love with the cabin and small pond. We went right to work spending about every other weekend from June through November there. we re-did the bathroom, finished the 2 loft bedrooms, replace the old cracking windows, spray foam insulation under the dwelling, a propane furnace to go with the propane stove to distribute the heat a bit better, added a hearth and faux stone backing for the fireplace, making a mantel out wood I got from the barn, I fixed weak points in the deck, replaced all the leaking old water fixtures and some water damaged cabinets. I splurged on some local Amish log deck furniture for my wife, mother and grandmother who all frequent the cabin.

My kids spent all those days fishing in the pond or wadding in one of the spring fed run offs, I grew up running around the woods as far as my legs would take me and what my kids to know that same adventure.

About the land
Much of the property consists of a long steep ravine corridor that parallels the quiet country road for a mile on our land. The roadside face of the property has 2 old pastures and 2 old hay fields, an out of use dairy barn and refinished pole barn, the farm was last used in summer of 2014. The pole barn is perfect for all our equipment, and we've gone to work filling it. Our timber is dominated by hemlock and white pines along the ravine and around a small marshy area. Our other forest areas are beech, cherry, hawthorn, and maple. There are a few apple trees left producing and no hard mast trees other than 3 young red oaks. There are very few mature oaks in the general vicinity. The back of the property features maybe a 30 acre area that is grown up 30+ year old pasture from the remnants of a sheep farm, its rocky in places and has several wet ditches and gutters that offer some good topo and whole area is shaped a bit like a bowl. there's a lot of habitat features and edge both on and off our property around this area that really tie it together as a major hub for wildlife.


We spent the bulk of the first year working on the cabin for the family so the first hunting year was a bit of an observational year. We placed several small fall food plots throughout mainly where there had been plots about 3 years prior so prepping wasn’t too bad. I feel like a learned a lot, figured out some of the low holes to be addressed and the strong points of the property.

Some low holes -
food, 1/2 acre and smaller plots were chewed down fairly fast by just a few regular deer and didn't have much draw power against standing crops or larger food plots in the area.
woody browse, I don't have much thick cover what I do have is mostly on edges or thicker stands of pine. Areas of mature hemlock have zero woody browse. This effects both food and bedding
serious security cover, I always like to see a few place that you don't even want to crawl through thick and this place currently doesn't have anything Ida call Nasty thick
Wind based bedding, not much I can do about topo but I'd dont have the high ridges, not the low low ground either but my ravine more seperates two hill tops
Open areas, about 10 acres of fields are semi visible from the road and dominated by weedy hay and fescue, by November those fields don't offer much cover or value but they lay of the land has deer in them or traveling through them regularly.

Strengths
lay of the land, the ravine which is bluffed out in places along with several drainage's running into it create travel patterns. It was not uncommon to get pictures of a single buck in the rut cruise the entire length of the ravine and a few hours later have him come back down the other side. There are good pinches next to it as well as good crossing locations making stand locations a bit easier to pick out.
Strength of season, early archery deer were off on better food but we picked up deer as the rut progressed as we offer key travel between larger blocks.

neighbors -
one of our the reasons for jumping at this particular piece of ground was the neighborhood it sat in, the owner of the primary adjoining acreage is a close close friend of my fathers, while he doesn't visit the land often his son and 3 of his friends (all my age) lease it from him and are all stand up guys and hunters. The land next to his that also adjoins ours is his cousins who has put in a bunch of work in build a gorgeous cabin, ponds, and food plot system. The realtor we bought through who we've known for years and has his personal hunting land is only a few hundred yards from ours and beyond that is the 3 generation farm that he grew up on. His retired father operates as our cabin watch and regularly checks on the place when we aren't there. Across the country road that serves as one of our other lines is a local farther that originally owned and operated the 122 acre farm piece we purchased and we are off to good relationship by allow him to coyote after deer season closes. So far everyone that adjoins or is in close proximity has been a positive experience.


For this year we are shifting a bit more to the habitat now that the cabin is finished. We have a local forester with a dozer coming to re-grade our old road system and fix some water turn outs as the roads are bit rough crossing the ravine, ok for foot and atv access but tractor can currently only access from 1 spot. While here he will help prep some new plot areas and expand a few that we started last year. This likely will begin in April, when he's finished I will be faced with figuring out spring plantings in these spots.

I’ve food plotted several properties prior but never had land ownership so timber work and long-term habitat planning is new to me so I will have loads of questions. I think the hardest part is coming up with the overall design, layout and long term plan only to work backwards breaking it into feasible chunks from a time and money perspective. I know I need to learn and implement some timber work, I have some non food habitat work like screening, trees, shrubs, switch ect. Fruit and mast trees are another thing I don't have much experience with other than planting 50 trees from my uncle a few years ago at his request which were a mix of apple and oak.
 
Picture dump
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Some in season pictures

Really family recreation is going to be priority 1, hunting is a large part of that recreation, but abundant flourishing wildlife surpasses trophies at this stage of life
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Man that place is gorgeous! Congrats. That cabin will make all the difference in the world for you and your family…speaking from experience.
 
Agree with dawgs. Awesome place and setup. Gonna be great for you and your family.
 
Very nice, the old barns are cool....sweet cabin.
Wish I had a creek or stream running through my place, neat feature.
 
Cool property. It has a lot going on for it and it looks like you put an arrow through something. What did you guys shoot up there last year?

Some apple trees would probably be a pretty good addition. They work well on the edges of plots or even right in the middle of them. They are a great bonus food source and eventually when heavy fruit loads pull down the apple tree branches they are a great spots for bucks to make scrapes under. You can plant some early season varieties near early bow stands and late dropping varieties around late gun stands.
 
How deep is that fish pond? Do you do any stocking?
 
Cool property. It has a lot going on for it and it looks like you put an arrow through something. What did you guys shoot up there last year?

Some apple trees would probably be a pretty good addition. They work well on the edges of plots or even right in the middle of them. They are a great bonus food source and eventually when heavy fruit loads pull down the apple tree branches they are a great spots for bucks to make scrapes under. You can plant some early season varieties near early bow stands and late dropping varieties around late gun stands.
We took 5 does throughout the season as a family and I shot a broken up 10pt with the rifle that without prior history I would guess at 3.5yr old. He had all his points the majority of the season but he must have busted up pretty good sometime between when I last got a picture and when I took him chasing a doe about a week later.

I plan to plant some trees next year but want to be careful with my investment in mast trees. I've talked to several neighbors who said bears have been murder on about any fruit or nut tree they tried to plant as soon as they begin to drop. A thought I had is to purchase extremely late producing trees that might peak after bears have denned or moved off for the year.



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Looks like a beautiful property, thanks for sharing!
 
We took 5 does throughout the season as a family and I shot a broken up 10pt with the rifle that without prior history I would guess at 3.5yr old. He had all his points the majority of the season but he must have busted up pretty good sometime between when I last got a picture and when I took him chasing a doe about a week later.

I plan to plant some trees next year but want to be careful with my investment in mast trees. I've talked to several neighbors who said bears have been murder on about any fruit or nut tree they tried to plant as soon as they begin to drop. A thought I had is to purchase extremely late producing trees that might peak after bears have denned or moved off for the year.



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That's a great year and a lot of venison off the new place!

My WI place is in the heart of bear country and we can drive around the neighborhood at night and spot bears almost every night. The bears will tear up your fruit trees, but eventually you can still get a decent apple crop. I'd recommend going with full sized trees as opposed to dwarf or semi-dwarf varieties. Adding a 6' tall welded wire fence around the trees for about a decade will also give your trees a chance to grow large enough to bounce back from bear damage.
 
How deep is that fish pond? Do you do any stocking?
My guess and what I was told by prior owners is 6ft which isn't real deep for this far north but it has an underground tube that feeds water from an old well house that's no longer the water source for the cabin. That kept running water pretty much all winter. I can say it's deep enough that if your son were to hypothetically let go of his rod at the end of the dock that it might or might not take about 40min of MacGyver'ing to get it back out.


The prior owners stocked it with 14 largemouth originally, at some point one of their boys threw a bunch of Sunnie's in to feed them and as it usually goes they didn't all get eaten and have been slowly taking over the pond but we do catch a bass or two. At this point my kids are 6 and 8 and love catching 20 little panfish. The biggest bass was about 15-16in.

My wife would like to add some kind of turtle, but I'd want to make sure they weren't something that was going to clean out the pond and I know nothing about them.

Honestly the pond is something I never had on my "need" list but has been one of the biggest blessings. While small the kids spend countless hours down there in the summer.


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My guess and what I was told by prior owners is 6ft which isn't real deep for this far north but it has an underground tube that feeds water from an old well house that's no longer the water source for the cabin. That kept running water pretty much all winter. I can say it's deep enough that if your son were to hypothetically let go of his rod at the end of the dock that it might or might not take about 40min of MacGyver'ing to get it back out.


The prior owners stocked it with 14 largemouth originally, at some point one of their boys threw a bunch of Sunnie's in to feed them and as it usually goes they didn't all get eaten and have been slowly taking over the pond but we do catch a bass or two. At this point my kids are 6 and 8 and love catching 20 little panfish. The biggest bass was about 15-16in.

My wife would like to add some kind of turtle, but I'd want to make sure they weren't something that was going to clean out the pond and I know nothing about them.

Honestly the pond is something I never had on my "need" list but has been one of the biggest blessings. While small the kids spend countless hours down there in the summer.


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Very cool man. Are you overloaded with too many small sunfish then? I'd think the bass would vacuum those up quickly to the point you'd have jumbo sunfish.

I've got my own pond in my dreams, but the neighbor hasn't been willing to talk selling me the spot where I wanna dig it. If it ever does happen, it's gonna be a perch, walleye, catfish pond.
 
Today's project..

There was a lean to of sorts that I believe they intended to use to shelter animals, had a chicken coop attached to the back. The fenced area comes in handy for the dog. Wasnt sure what to do with the structure so I enclosed it off, figured I'd use it as a mud room for getting dressed for hunting, storing most of the hunting gear, hang my bow up ect. The cabin just doesn't have the space for gear when it's full of people.

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Extra materials so we walled off an addition around the shed and will use a sliding door and tracks I will "borrow" off the dairy barn. This will give me more room to keep an ATV or golf cart up at the cabin and not down the road at the barn.

I swear I'm going to get to the habitat work soon.

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Good catch! What a great place!

Around here, you don't have to add turtles... if you build a pond, they will come. We've got sliders, musk turtles, and common snappers in ours... all arrived on their own, and I catch them crossing the yard, all the time, on their way to the creek at the bottom of the hill, or the neighbor's pond a quarter-mile away.

If all you have are sunfish and largemouth, I'd bet it's not 'out of balance'... fisheries folks usually recommend stocking bluegills a year ahead of largemouth fingerlings to get a 'food source' set up for the bass, once you put them in. Pond here at the house was stocked by the previous owner after he built it, by bringing in fish he caught out of the Cumberland River... it IS out of balance... he put in bluegill, crappie, largemouth bass - and I've even caught a stunted striped bass out of it once. I never see a nice largemouth like you've got coming out of your pond - looks like they're getting plenty to eat! All the largemouths I've caught are little bitties. There were some nice channel cats in my pond when we bought the place back in 1994... but a local KSP officer has caught them all out... or, at least, I thought he had, 'til the neighbor across the street hooked this one, a year or so back
 

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Good catch! What a great place!

Around here, you don't have to add turtles... if you build a pond, they will come. We've got sliders, musk turtles, and common snappers in ours... all arrived on their own, and I catch them crossing the yard, all the time, on their way to the creek at the bottom of the hill, or the neighbor's pond a quarter-mile away.

If all you have are sunfish and largemouth, I'd bet it's not 'out of balance'... fisheries folks usually recommend stocking bluegills a year ahead of largemouth fingerlings to get a 'food source' set up for the bass, once you put them in. Pond here at the house was stocked by the previous owner after he built it, by bringing in fish he caught out of the Cumberland River... it IS out of balance... he put in bluegill, crappie, largemouth bass - and I've even caught a stunted striped bass out of it once. I never see a nice largemouth like you've got coming out of your pond - looks like they're getting plenty to eat! There were some nice channel cats in my pond when we bought the place back in 1994... but a local KSP officer has caught them all out... or, at least, I thought he had, 'til the neighbor across the street hooked this one, a year or so back
If you put that hoss in my tiny pond the water level would rise.

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Took advantage of this weekends unseasonably perfect weather to get into the beginnings of the habitat work. Through a recommendation of a neighbor we found a local Forester that could come over with a dozer and we knocked off a whole list of projects.

We started with the existing trail system and really cleaned them up, some were rough or impassible for a tractor before but he did a great job tuning them up with well shaped water turn outs. We added a few connector trials to improve access or give 2 access points to plot locations. And we linked our road with the neighbors who we will be closely working with so we can get equipment back and forth without driving out and around on the roads. Once that was done we expanded on some small plots to either better navigate with equipment or get more sunlight. After that we tackled a few new locations which I'm very excited about their positioning and access ability. Also installed a few ditches and made some crossings over existing ones.

Basically I wanted to start with access and maximizing the layout we started with, now I can worry about planting. There's work to be done in the timber too, I have a good bit less experience in running a saw but my habitat hook cam in this week for hinge cutting.

And of course I got some time fishing with my son.
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Been a while since I updated my thread.

The newly dozed areas that I planted clover, peas, and oats into back in April are doing well. Since we didn't spray these areas there are some weeds filling in but only one location responded with more weeds than the desired planting. I'm not sure what the fall plan is for these locations, should i throw and mow or roll fall seeds. Traditional spray, disc in the oats and clover in the plant again. Or do I disc in green and not spray at all knowing that most the weeds present will die back at first frost.. choices. Theses areas will mainly be in a grain heavy fall mix since they are sub half acre and semi shaded.

Other areas I let go through spring until weeds started, sprayed worked soil and planted buckwheat. The buckwheat is doing fantastic once we got rain.

I have some plots from last fall that have filled in with more grasses than I'd like. One that was supposed to be clover has almost no clover at all, and those all got a bunch of lime to keep working on PH and will be redone this fall with annuals until I know I have the grass in the seed back controlled better.

Last weekend I planted a bag of WI power plant, and a bag of tecomate lablab plus in my now largest plot area. Interested to see how they do, how the deer respond, and how long the forage in them lasts.

I also finally got into the timber and started some hinge cutting, no real experience with the timber work so I'm taking it slow since I can't stand trees back up afterwards.

Finally and most importantly when I'm there I always take a day to not work in the field and spend time with the family.
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