This thread sums up where i'd like to be in ~20 years.
Will continue to follow, good luck this year.
Will continue to follow, good luck this year.
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Darton & Stan R Were Right!!!!! Pic Heavy
Been a while but all is well at the Ponderosa! We got the Titanic up to the Hilltop but every time we tried to get her up, Mother Nature had other ideas. Wound up setting her up on blocks until I can get her set up.
The boy and I put many an hour in the woods with him set on taking his first buck with a crossbow. On his last morning he shot a spike. After a 600 yard+ blood trail we were unable to recover the deer. It appears that he rushed the shot a bit and hit him low and back.
He was holding out for this little buck but the deer didn’t read the script.
With limited time in the woods we made the most of it. We hit a significant milestone by Mr. Hunt going on his first solo sit. He had the X-bow and blood in his eyes.
After 2.5 hours he headed to the house and had breakfast with Mom. Good times!
It’s special to make memories on your own piece of ground.Last edited by Booner Sooner; 02-12-2020, 10:45 PM.Comment
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It was a seccessfull season whether a kill was made or not. Good times!Comment
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Thanks for the update. I had wondered how y'alls season ended.
Sent from my SM-G892A using TapatalkComment
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With all the social distancing we decided to pack up recently and head up to the Hilltop. Being at home for weeks with three teens, a wife, and a dog are enough to make the best of’em say uncle.
Spent quite a bit of time just drinking coffee and enjoying the quiet.
Throwing skeet for the kids doesn’t get old.
The winter food plot is still producing. Amy had enough to cook turnips.
A little campfire time is good for the soul.
Things should start cranking up in the coming weeks as some improvement projects will begin!Comment
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With all of the wonderful experiences that come from owning land, these are truly best
Good Job Dad
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Looks like you and the family are having a very relaxing trip!Comment
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Great place to get away with the family. Place is looking good!Comment
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Got back up to the hilltop this past weekend for some more social distancing with Mr. Hunt. (There are advantages to the lockdown....you just have to look for them)
The previous owner of the property had a real “Love Hate” problem. He absolutely Loved going to auctions AND he l absolutely Hated to throw anything away! Over the span of 18 years people with this disorder either die from an avalanche of junk or they achieve stardom by being featured on an episode of Hoarders!
We’ve been burning junk for months now do this trip was no different other than we were burning barn junk (from one of two barns that we chose to tackle) rather than burning outside-strewn-hither-and-yon junk.
We’ve got a 1940’s Ford 8N tractor and 18’ junk trailer allocated to just this purpose.
After a full trailer of junk hauled to the burn pile I found a usable shop!
Barn #2
Something healthy about purging!Comment
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After the burning was done it was time to add a permanent mineral site to the place. We already have trophy rock wired to a cedar stump using the “Darton method” but wanted another on the South side.
This spot is North of Molly’s bow stand and has pretty good cover with cedars on three sides. It also is adjacent to a thick area where I believe does bed.
We mixed salt that you would add to your water softening system with dicalcium phosphate. I mixed up a five gallon bucket of it. This is a lot more economical method as well.
After working and loosening the dirt it mixed in well.
I put a camera on the site to document how quickly they find it, how much they use it, and what other animals will do the same.
More to come on this.
Molly and I recently began QDMA’s Deer Steward 1 course on line and I must say that it is fascinating. I’ve read book after book after book and my share of hunting magazines for years and have already figured out that a lot of the information that is out there about deer and deer hunting is a cross between opinion, myth, and anecdotal conclusions.
Science based coursework covering deer physiology, anatomy, behavior, etc. etc. has been eye opening!
If you crave real information about this animal you won’t go wrong with the QDMA courses.Comment
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Just read through this thread for the first time. Amazing!Comment
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Just caught up on your thread. Y’all have come a long ways. Great work!!Comment
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Darton & Stan R Were Right!!!!! Pic Heavy
Molly and I were up on the hilltop this weekend marking out our sanctuaries and getting ready to start hinge cutting and opening up the canopy.
Our place is 93% hardwood with a heavy mix of oaks, hickory, elm, and walnut with a moderate sprinkling of cedar. We have broad swaths that get very little light to the forest floor so selective hinge cutting should do wonders for increasing the tonnage of browse that is available.
The first sanctuary is the largest, which will be around 12 acres in size. This area has some of the toughest terrain but largest trees and greatest opportunity to increase fawning cover. This one will take multiple trips to complete and should be a heck of a workout.
The second area is roughly five acres in size and is on a North facing slope. I’m going to leave a good buffer between it and one of our trails just to the South. This one will also help shield some of our movements to and from one of our mineral sites.
Been working with Darton on my QDMA Management Plan over the last couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to a consultation and inspection of the property in the coming weeks. Walking the property with a couple of truly knowledgeable deer stewards will be a real blessing! I hope to identify the additional steps that can be taken to maximize the potential of our place.
I believe that I mentioned before that my soon to be sophomore daughter is considering wildlife biology as a career field so we’ve been working through QDMA’s deer steward-I course.
After completing the initial habitat management module I’m re-evaluating how we manage our property. We are surrounded on three sides by heavy oak forests that have the same characteristics as ours so the sanctuaries we are creating should help provide much needed cover and browse. I’ll be interested in seeing how our recruitment numbers and overall densities are impacted over time.
On a different note, over the last two years I’ve been able to make contact with and get to know (to varying degrees) most of my neighboring land owners. We are blessed to be surrounded by blocks of timber that are mostly land locked, being very difficult to access. Over the last couple of months I’ve secured hunting access to a 40-acre block bordering us on the East. A purchase may be in our future if we can come to an agreement. I hope that this is the first of several expansions of the place if it’s the Lord’s will! This is a long term adventure.
We checked the trail camera from the new mineral site and had a couple of does checking it out within six hours. From the looks of it we should see steady traffic here from now on.
Also, the first of this year’s fawns will start to drop in the coming weeks! Looking forward to this and seeing the bucks start their steady build!
More to come....Last edited by Booner Sooner; 05-02-2020, 09:01 PM.Comment
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