Gleaton Chip Ranch Updates

[Big Mike M]

Looking good. I'm about to start building a blind just like that one.

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by tx10pt

How far you from the Historical Marker in Calf Creek?

Are you near the historical marker?

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by Big Mike M

Looking good. I'm about to start building a blind just like that one.

Thanks! I'll post some more progress pictures as we go along. I was hoping to have more done this last weekend but there's always other things to work on out there. By no means is it in any way anything like some of the blinds that some guys on TBH have made, but it should be roomy and last a long time with the SmartSide panels.

[J-Fish]

Man I like the look of the river in your area. We hut a small property about 11 miles out of Menard. Love to play in the river.... My boys are making some good memories fishing an playing in that good clean water!

what is Calf Creek like? Flow all year or just seasonal?

Love what your doing. I am in for the trail camera pix on the quail station. We have almost no quail on our place. Lots of wild cats running around and I figure there taking there toll on the quail population.

[bgleaton]

Calf creek is a seasonal creek, but it's had water for pretty much the past couple of years or so, at least the part that I see when going to our property.

I'll set up another trail camera on the quail feeding station and see what we get. We have to install some 4"x2" fencing to help keep out the raccoons. We'll keep the small holes at the bottom (4"x4").

[tx10pt]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

Are you near the historical marker?

a friend of mine has a place at the historical marker. My place is across 190 on CR 112

[BrokenJ]

Looking great

[KactusKiller]

When they hydromulched does it take the stumps down below the surface? I'm thinking of hydro mulching some areas on my land but may want to plow some of it later and don't want stumps in it tearing up equipment

[bgleaton]

When they hydromulched, they only mulched the cedars down to the top of the soil. We have blueberry cedars so they will die and the roots will eventually rot. We did this to just open up more native habitat. If I was going to disk for food plots, I would probably get a grubber or bulldozer to pull the roots up.

[bgleaton]

My brother was out there this weekend doing some work. They are absolutely hammering the cottonseed. Here is what's left after 1 weeks use:





We are pumping the water out of our small pond. Once it's completely dry, we are going to have a guy come out in August and dig it a lot deeper and bigger:


He was able to add the SmartSide panels to one side and the front:



He sprayed all of the mesquites and yucca's with a remedy/diesel mixture in the food plot fields. They already started turning yellow:

[KactusKiller]

Looking good!

[DT50]

no TC pics this trip? im heading to Menard Friday and cant wait to see what ive got so far

[bgleaton]

I'll have trail cam pics next trip. They've only been out for one week, so I didn't want to get them this trip.

[DUKFVR]

Place is looking Great!

[bgleaton]

FarmLogs shows we got 1.23in last night. Just west of us, around 30 miles, around San Angelo, received around 6in.

[bgleaton]

We got our soil samples back from Texas A&M AgriLife and found that all three fields have very similar soils. The pH was anywhere from 7.9 to 8.0 and they recommend the following fertilizer for planting oats, wheat and elbon rye:
115lbs Nitrogen/acre
40lbs Phosphorus/acre
0lbs Potassium/acre

I'll post our soil samples later this week. Should have trail cam pics sometime next week hopefully.

[bgleaton]

I think we are going to use Turner Seed's Fall Grazing Mix, which includes te following:
Beardless Wheat
TAM 606 Oats
Tambar Barley
Triticale
Elbon Rye

I may buy some purple top turnips to add to the mix to get a little something different and see how they perform. It's a small seed so I like the fact that we could throw them on top of the soaked seedbed and have the chance to grow.

I think it's probably best to go this route instead of the mixes with all the peas and clovers. I would love to grow peas and clovers, but our soils are just not that great. We will try to improve them overtime by planting some other crops in Spring/summer to improve organic matter, but we will stuck with these cool season grasses and see how it performs.

I have a question, if our soil samples show that we need 115lbs of Nitrogen and 40lbs of Phosphorus per acre, what blend of fertilizer should we buy? I'm still learning on how to calculate the ratio and which one we should buy. I've talked with some fertilizer companies, but they all say that we would need to order a lot more than we really need. Please let me know your thoughts.

[Puncher51]

I'd plow in your phosphorus if possible, and probably only put down 10-20 lbs/ac. Nitrogen I would put a little down preplant with the phosphorus, but the majority after emergence. I'd also only put down around 20 lbs of N per acre. You can always add more N before good rain forecasts with adequate soil temperature. Applying more than 40lbs/ac at one time of N can really burn your plants. If you'd like to message me your soil test results I can run it through my system and see what the recommendations are. I'm by no means a nutrient management specialist, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night!

[RMW]

30-11-0 at 380lbs per acre

[bgleaton]

Here are the soil sample reports we received:

[bgleaton]

My dad went to the Mereta Co-Op Cotton Gin today to get another ton of cottonseed. We took our trailer and our bulk bags, which hold 1,000lbs each. The guys at the cotton gin were super helpful and filled everything up for my dad. This beats just filling the bed of our trucks up.




We'll be out there this weekend to fill the cottonseed feeders and fill the protein feeders. I should have some trail camera pictures to upload this week/weekend.

It turns out that we got 1.3in of rain from yesterday, so hopefully that will keep everything green and keep the dust settled for the time being.

[BrandonA]

Where did you get the bags?

[bgleaton]

We got them from U-line. I think they were $30 a piece.

[BrandonA]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

We got them from U-line. I think they were $30 a piece.

Thanks. Do they have zipper tops

[bgleaton]

I'm not sure they have zipper tops or not but they do have several different designs. Our bulk bags have a 2ft long sleeve that can be wrapped and it also has drawstrings that tighten it closed. They do have a bag that has the same top as the ones we have, but they also have a chute on the bottom that can be opened and shut with a strap. I was thinking that design may actually work better for filling cottonseed feeders instead of having to shovel it out. Pull up with the tractor,open it up and let us fall.

[BrandonA]

Ok thanks. How much did y'all pay for the cottonseed?

[bgleaton]

We paid $215 a ton for the cottonseed.

[BrandonA]

Thanks

[bgleaton]

Here are some trail cam pictures that I was able to get from this weekend:

3.5yr old 12pt (6x6):
















I'll post more pictures later once I'm able to go through all of them.

[Puncher51]

Bucks are looking good. Should be a great season!

[bgleaton]

Here are some more pictures from last weekend:

Filled up all three cottonseed feeders - around 900lbs put out. Filled up one of the Krivoman timed protein feeders. With the timer set to open at 6am to 6:45am and to open at 8:30pm to 9:15pm, 1,200lbs lasted us around 40 days, which is right where we wanted. Yes, I know that feeding free choice is better, but we are trying to lower the feed bill by providing protein in our timed feeders and provide cottonseed as the free-choice supplement since it's about 40% the price of protein.



Sprayed yuccas in small food plot area (1.5 acres). Remedy and diesel worked best. We tried to use 19oz of glyphosate per gallon of diesel. We'll see how that worked next trip. If it kills the yucca's then great since it's so much cheaper than Remedy, but I have my doubts on if it will kill them.


Added four of the porcupine fish structures to our bass pond. Made an 8ft structure, a 6ft structure and a couple of 4 1/2ft structures. Hoping to add several more PVC structures throughout the pond to help improve the baitfish population to help the bass grow.



It's greening up out there really nicely:






Worked on the bow blind. Got the outside finished/painted and the inside painted. Just have to put the roof on, hang the door and install the deerview windows:


My son got to do some fishing. He wore the bass out on a little beetle spinner bait:

[bgleaton]

We got 0.4in of rain on 8/3 and another 2in of rain yesterday (8/7). This should give the fields a good amount of moisture for us to go ahead and disk them up this weekend to prepare them for this fall. It's always good when we can get rainfall in August and it's below 95-degrees.

[Bone Thug]

Very nice. I like what y'all have done to the place.

Good luck this season.

[barnag]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

We got 0.4in of rain on 8/3 and another 2in of rain yesterday (8/7). This should give the fields a good amount of moisture for us to go ahead and disk them up this weekend to prepare them for this fall. It's always good when we can get rainfall in August and it's below 95-degrees.

Do you mow and then spray them with Roundup first?
What are you planting this year?

[gingib]

That 2nd buck is a mature shooter

[Patton]

Lookin' great!

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by barnag

Do you mow and then spray them with Roundup first?
What are you planting this year?

We normally mow the fields short and then go in and start disking. The fields we are planting are fields we planted last year. The cows kept them mowed down so we really don't need to mow them this year. We will go in this weekend and disk them really well and have a drag harrow behind the disk to help break clods and even the fields out. We are hoping that the first disking will turn the soil a little bit to cut through and kill the grass. We will then come back around late September/early October, spread fertilizer out (around 30lbs of N/acre and 15lbs of P/acre) and disk/drag again to get them prepared to plant. Depending on the weather, we will broadcast oats, wheat and elbon rye most likely at the end of September/beginning of October. After we broadcast the oats, wheat and rye, we will then go back over it with the drag one more time. I'm hoping we can prepare the seedbed a little better this year by disking the fields several times.

[bgleaton]

My twin brother and dad were out there this weekend getting some work done. It's very green out there, especially for the month of August. We have received over 3in so far this month. They were able to put the roof on the blind and get the door installed. We will get it set up next time we are out there. They were able to get the fields mowed and start the first round of disking to start killing the grass and getting them ready to plant in late September/early October. We will broadcast the fertilizer on top of the fields and disk it again one more time before we broadcast and drag our seed. Here are some pictures from the weekend:
















Trail camera pictures will follow...

[bgleaton]

Here are some trail camera pictures we got from this past weekend. There are a couple nice looking 10's that we will give another year or so and a couple of nicer young (2.5/3.5yr olds). I really hope someone gets a crack at the old 8pt (6th picture).

[bgleaton]

My dad disked one of our fields (3.5 acres) and it really helped by adding that additional weight to the top of the disk. Hopefully, this will help kill the grass and make it much easier to prepare before we plant come late September.

[JeffK]

What age do y'all plan on killing your better deer?

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by JeffK

What age do y'all plan on killing your better deer?

6.5+

Right now, we just have too many deer on our place so our main goal has been to try to help reduce the population by shooting does and a couple of the smaller bucks in each age class. We have a number of bucks that are in the 6.5+ range this year that we would like to see shot this year since their antlers haven't gotten any bigger.

[Reaper87]

How old do you think the ten is in picture 8. He looks ripe for the picking

[bgleaton]

I think he is 5.5yrs. His belly looks deep in that picture, but there's a dirt patch underneath his belly that looks like his belly and is pretty deceiving.

The buck in pic #4 is 7.5/8.5yrs. We have pictures of him for the past 5 years. He's on the hit list. He isn't very big, but he is still a cool looking buck.

[gingib]

man you got some pretty solid bucks!!!!! That one 10 is going to be a stud next year

[bgleaton]

I hope he does. I have to say that I've been somewhat disappointed in the growth we've seen from bucks going from 3.5ys/4.5yrs to 4.5yrs/5.5yrs. I would have thought that we would have seen bigger antlers on three or four bucks but it seems they are the same size as the year prior.

[bgleaton]

My son, Mason, and I went out to the ranch this weekend with my parents to get the new bow blind set up and to trim around all of the bow blinds. Here are some pictures from the weekend:






Here is the 3.5 acre field. My dad has disked it twice now. We will disk it one more time before we spread the fertilizer and seed around the last weekend of September:




I noticed that our bass pond doesn't have any plants growing in it in the first three feet of water. I'm not sure what's causing this (cattle drinking and stepping into pond?). I'm sure that's not good news for our bluegill population. Going to look into possibly fertilizing the pond next spring to help the water quality and fish production.

We got another 0.5in of rain on Saturday evening. We received 6.5in of rain in August so everything is very green out there. The oak trees are loaded with acorns.

[jbowman612]

Looks like a nice place, thanks for sharing.

[Tex1986]

I always enjoy reading your posts. That's an awesome place yall have. Lots of hard work have been poured into it.

[bgleaton]

It looks like my dad will be planting two of the three food plots on Thursday (9/21) since he will be out there and the forecast shows a good chance of rain from 9/25 to 10/2 and the high temps for the next 15 days is 83. Let's hope it all holds together.