Turtlesprings

Turtlesprings

5 year old buck +
I'm going to try to show you guys around the farm and the area.

We are in the Missouri Ozarks. 67 acres. Lots of surrounding, high graded, no degrading hardwoods. The farm had a severe burn in early 2003 or so. Killed a high number of trees on the farm. To say it looked like a complete mess is an understatement when I bought it in 2008. Went thru an Equip program to kill out the millions of saplings. Installed food plots on the available 3 acres of space that I could create without causing major erosion issues. I have ran fires thru it and planted numerous trees and shrubs. Mostly a failure on that effort.

It's now 2020. We have taken 2 bucks over 6 years old, 2 at 5, 1 at 4, and 3 at 2 year olds. I have only taken 3 does off of the place due to camera surveys. 5 turkeys have been taken since 2015. Turkey numbers are good to excellent. I don't hold em, but they do travel thru quite frequently. I do hold about 12 deer year round. Mostly doe groups during the summer and then the bucks move in and pester the does and my food plots.

It has been a wonderful experience and I will start posting some pics of the transformation.

Goals for the future....less disturbance of the soil...turn a west facing hill side into a switchgrass laden habitat...grow a booner buck.
 

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So, here was the first area we plotted. It has wet feet most of the time. 2012 it was bone dry. That was about it. FP1 in 2009. We have disced it and broadcast into it. ph levels were good, nutrients low, and ogm low.
 

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Here is an area of the forest in 2009. I contracted a guy to run a forestry mulcher thru the woods to create access paths. That was good money spent. All trails made in one day.
 

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I had him start into an area that is now Food Plot 2, but his machine blew a hydraulic hose and ended the day. First pic is south elevation, second pic is north elevation.
 

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Here is a look from on top of the property, looking down upon what we call Towe's inferno.
 

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Food plot 1 grew well that year...looks like clover and turnips.
 

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So we created food plots in the bottoms and expanded them thru the years. We also added a plot on the East ridge and West ridge. I had a private lands conservationist recommend adding water holes at each location at a good cost share. So, in they went. Have they been deer magnets. No, but they have added some interesting sightings during some hunts. Wood ducks, mallards, turkey vultures, and lots of four footed creatures have used them. A very good investment to increase your wildlife on your property in my opinion.
 

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As of now, we have Rocky top, West ridge, condo, fp2, and fp1. I want to add my soil test results from a couple years back and add a test from last year.
 

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Here is a recent one from West ridge. Levels are coming up. Cec is a bit low, ogm still low, ph very low. I limed last year after the test, did the plot start spray, added gypsum and had a great good plot...could it have been better...absolutely.

I am going to try the throw and grow method this year. I want that CEC to climb, ph to climb, and my ogm to climb. Thoughts??
 

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Ok...found a pic from 2015. Towe's inferno. That is a south facing hillside. It was loaded with under brush. To tight for a animal to walk thru. It was burned during April in 2015. Very low humidity and the blaze was amazing. Killed some 15"dbh. Never was going to get good timber here due to the previous fire, so let's open it up for the wildlife to use instead of a dead zone. Here is the pic just a month or so after the fire. It's due for another burn. I want to throw some Cave in Rock in there to add some diversity. I hope I can still do that burn and overseeding into the ashes and get a crop of switch grass going.
 

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What county are you in? I live in St. Louis county but our property is in Crawford county. We've got a few Missouri guys on here.
 
Dent, I live in Jefferson Co...Just south of the Dent/Crawford line
 
We’re almost neighbors. Pretty country around the Salem and Rolla areas. That was kind of the outskirts of distance I wanted to be from home. I figured a 90 minute to 2 hour drive was the maximum I wanted to be from home. I ended up with a smaller piece 35/acres in Cuba about an hour from home. Keep us posted with your pictures and habitat work.
 
Ill wave when I go by...Hwy 19 down to the place.
 
The farm has a history of creating home boys. I have a pic of Niner from 2012, it's kind of blurry, found a good pic in 2014. He could have been 3 or 4 at that time.
 

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I was lucky and finally saw him during daylight last fall.
 

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Another decent year at the farm. The turkeys gave us a couple shows and my friend, who hasn't hunted in 7 years took a jake. He is so excited about getting into the outdoors again. I am happy to see that in him. Kind of rejuvenates a fella. Hope your turkeys are more vocal than ours, been a bit tough to get one to play.
 
Another decent year at the farm. The turkeys gave us a couple shows and my friend, who hasn't hunted in 7 years took a jake. He is so excited about getting into the outdoors again. I am happy to see that in him. Kind of rejuvenates a fella. Hope your turkeys are more vocal than ours, been a bit tough to get one to play.

Congrats to your friend on his jake, glad he has the itch again. Ours went quiet after the first few days of season, there are so many guys hunting on our block it is just like public hunting. I was out at the farm checking on some things yesterday and the dog pointed and flushed a hen turkey in our pasture off her nest, shew flew into a tree along the woods watching us so I gathered up the pup quick and we soon left. I hope we didn't bother her too much.
 
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