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"the pasture"....long read and pic heavy

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    "the pasture"....long read and pic heavy

    here is my go at it....this is a place that has been in my family for about 50 years, we have +/-110 acres total, but due to houses and part of it being open pasture i only hunt about 45-50 of it. i hunted it a little through middle school and high school in the early to late 90's, always seeing sign everywhere but never seeing a deer. i gave up on it as i got into college and careers and moved away. i did find this skull around 1994, along with his skeleton, next to the road and some road rash on the main beam makes me think he was hit by a car:



    fast forward to november of 2011, after several years of east texas hunting i decided to give the pasture another go at it. my family still lives close to the pasture and after spending two weekends out there and seeing some young bucks and does, nothing to get me real excited although it was more than i had seen in rusk county in almost 5 years, my hunting career was re-ignited after a talk with my uncle.

    after an uneventful sunday morning hunt i see my uncle and he asks if i saw the game cam pics he had from the summer out at the pasture. he doesnt hunt out there, just had an extra camera and feeder and put it out there to see what was there. well, these are the pics he shows me and after years of never seeing a mature buck or anything over 120" in person, this buck became my obsession, and made me a bowhunter (in training lol):

    (these are cell phone pics of his polariod game cam pics)




    so i hunted for this buck the rest of the season without another sighting or cam pic. around mid-december my mom told me she saw a man cutting horns off of a buck in the ditch and i was sure it was him. i was still getting tons of pics of young bucks and does so i was happy to just be seeing deer.

    after the season ended i started feeing protein, watching my little bucks with hopes that they would hang around through the summer and put on some inches, then it happened. i would load up the family every sunday and run out there to check the camera and fill the feeder then make my wife drive home while i went through the pics. exactly one year ago yesterday, he returned.

    going through the pics i see the deer at the feeder scatter and see some antlers coming through the trees that i didnt recognize, it was him, and i lost control like a teenage girl at a beiber concert, enough to scare my two boys and make them cry...








    i could not stop thinking about this buck and watched him all summer, fed him all summer, he even picked a few more points, from a slick 10 to a 12. i also had a few more good ones show up, i was really anticipating bow season:







    i literally had pics of these guys 2-3 times a day up through august, but, as bow season neared he began getting more and more nocturnal and sporadic, and i hadnt had a daylight pic of him in several weeks leading up to the bow opener. the first few days went by without a sighting or pic, and as luck would have it, due to some bad wind i sat in my secondary stand, a pop up about 50 yards away from my main set, and he was there from 7a to 730a, and that is the last i have seen of him. as a matter of fact, my top 3 bucks completely disappeared in early october and still havent shown back up. i saw deer pretty much every sit, bucks and does but nothing over 3.5 years old.

    up to now, these are my two best bucks, and they just started running together this past week:

    nice wide 9, with some pics of him from last year:






    and nice 10, busted up a bit now, with a front leg injury, and him last year:




    age has been hard to tell on them, but i am going with a beast of a 3.5 on the 9 and 4.5 on the 10, meaning the 10 will probably be my target buck next season, unless one of the big ones from above show back up (HOPE!!)

    i estimate that up to 20 different deer feed on my place on any given day, they are going through 25-30lbs of pellets already, so i have decided to put in a spring plot, hoping to save some money on protein and give them something to eat year round to try to keep them from leaving my place.

    i put out 1000lbs of lime 2 weeks ago and am going to try to get another 10000lbs out in the next couple of weeks. big thanks to unclefish answering all of the PM's i have sent him. i have found almost 1.5 acres right in the middle of the property that i am going to plot, and depending on how much use it gets i can increase it next year if needed. i want to get about 1/3 of it going in perennial clover, with cowpeas/soybeans in the spring and oats/peas/wheat in the winter.

    the plot is kind of in a horseshoe shape allowing me to have 3-4 stand sites and sits right next to a seasonal creek that i have made into the boundary for my sanctuary. the creek splits the property from north to south, almost perfectly in half, leaving about 20 acres of sanctuary that after some hinge cutting and tree falling, will be left totally alone. there are an additional 60-75 acres around my sanctuary that arent hunted, which will hopefully be the difference i need to hold the big boys.

    here are some pics from today..

    this is the entrance to the main hunting area, where things get serious, and a pond that i wish was about 300 yards further to the east:



    the road dissects the place right down the middle from east to west, the treeline in the back is the creek and the begining of my sanctuary, on either side will be my new plot:


    this is where i plan on having my #1 tree stand, on the SW corner of the plot:


    these are pics of the new plot site, from that tree in the sw corner, around the horseshoe to the nw corner where i will have a stand as well:





    on the other side of the creek it gets pretty thick in some areas, but there are also several open meadows that i overseeded with alamo switchgrass 3-4 weeks ago, with hopes of creating some bedding areas. i also plan on some hinge cutting around these openings, which i started doing a bit last week, mainly just figuring out how to do it lol:








    there are two ponds on adjoining properties that arent hunted that butt up to my sanctuary as well. i am really hoping that i can get them to stay on my place, since there are hunters in every direction around me.

    i still have hope that my big boy will show back up, my family pretty much knows everyone around us and nobody knows anything of a big 12 getting taken this season. i have a meeting scheduled next month with the hunty county wildlife biologist to get some management/habitat improvement opinions from him.

    this is all new to me and i am addicted to it, i talked myself out of buying persimmon and chestnut trees this spring so i could focus on my plots.

    if anyone that sees any of this has any recommendations on anything, which trees to hinge cut, i would love to hear them, and if u stuck through to the end, thanks, i wanted to set the scene before i started updating with (hopefully) some food plot pics over the next few months.

    #2
    i forgot to add that this place is mostly oaks and there are acorns EVERYWHERE, so much that my feeders were hardly visited from october through most of december, making me adjust and improve my tactics.

    Comment


      #3


      Looking forward to following along!

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        #4
        Man, I didn't read though all of it but looks like you've got a pretty nice place with some really nice deer. Plenty of corn bandits too.

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          #5
          this buck quickly became my target when he showed up, but he was only around for a few days and only on hand corn at the very back of the property which is now the sanctuary, hasnt been seen since. i had pics from him last year as well and this buck never eats from a feeder, is always in the back ground, which is why i prefer multiple feed sites and hand corning during the season...fwiw. maybe these plots will draw him into range.





          him last year:


          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by BBReezen View Post
            Man, I didn't read though all of it but looks like you've got a pretty nice place with some really nice deer. Plenty of corn bandits too.
            lol, once i started i couldnt stop, good thing my wife went out to eat with her mom tonight..i dont expect many to read it. i have pics with 12 of the bandits in it at once, i hate them.

            Comment


              #7
              You got a great little piece of heaven man! I hope those big boys show up again for you!

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                #8
                Looking good!

                Man you've got some studs on your place....big bodied, muscled up bucks. I look forward to following along your thread!

                Is this in Hunt county?

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                  #9
                  Great looking deer and a really nice looking pasture.

                  Where about are you? Looks like "post oak region".

                  Congrats on a great find and enjoy.

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                    #10
                    nice place

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                      #11
                      sorry, it is hunt county.

                      thanks guys, cant wait to get back out there and do work.

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                        #12
                        Need some help managing it? I'd be glad to help

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                          #13
                          Keep the pressure to a minimum and don't worry about culling. Acorns are going to hurt you some when you have a good crop. Looks like a great "Sanctuary" so keep it that way. Bucks ( and does) are animals of habit. If they are there during season they may be looking to escape pressure from a surrounding place. Good luck.

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                            #14
                            cool place

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                              #15
                              Looks AWESOME. All of your hard work will pay off. Good Luck.

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