Gleaton Chip Ranch Updates

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by Droptine3030

Y’all have really hammered the culls this year. Have y’all killed more culls this yr than previous yrs ,or does it just seem so ?

Yes, we have hammered the culls this year. We have one more left. We found 42 different bucks, not including buck fawns, on trail cameras so the biologist recommended we remove a couple of the worst ones from each age class. We have one more buck to shoot that looks really sick (you can see his ribs and his hip bones) and 2 more doe to shoot.


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[bgleaton]

This is a seed mix that we will be planting in the freshly dozed areas. Looking forward to see it a couple years from now. We should have some good pictures of the dozed areas by next weekend and will post some pictures.


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[bgleaton]

Here are a couple of pictures from our evening hunt yesterday. A nice 2yr old 11pt and a 4yr old 8pt with busted G3’s.


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[bgleaton]

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[bgleaton]

We still haven’t received any rain since planting but it’s still green. Hoping it will flourish after or whenever we get some rain.


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[KactusKiller]

Are yall still at the 360 acre count or did yall ever add to it?

[JohnKrautz08]

beautiful place!

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by KactusKiller

Are yall still at the 360 acre count or did yall ever add to it?

We are just under 400 acres. Hoping to add to it eventually.


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[bgleaton]

I took some cool drone videos and pictures of the property. The view above shows the southern half of our property with the San Saba river in the background.


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[bgleaton]

A drone picture showing around a 2 acre area that has been dozed. He’ll stack them up for us to burn and grade the dirt.


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[bgleaton]

This picture shows the big pond that we will be drilling the well for. As you can see, this pond is around 1.25 acres and will be around 3 acres once full.


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[PondPopper]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

This picture shows the big pond that we will be drilling the well for. As you can see, this pond is around 1.25 acres and will be around 3 acres once full.


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Nice!! That pond will be cover in ducks!!

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by PondPopper

Nice!! That pond will be cover in ducks!!

We would love if this attracted more ducks. I’ve never been a big duck hunter but would happily start if we can get some ducks to consistently fly our way after the pond is at a constant level. Is there anything we can do to make it more enticing for ducks?

[Chance Love]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

We would love if this attracted more ducks. I’ve never been a big duck hunter but would happily start if we can get some ducks to consistently fly our way after the pond is at a constant level. Is there anything we can do to make it more enticing for ducks?

Get with DUKFVR and Unclefish on here. They can tell you all you would want to know about ducks.

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by Chance Love

Get with DUKFVR and Unclefish on here. They can tell you all you would want to know about ducks.

Thanks for the heads up!

[bgleaton]

They are finishing up all of the dozing by tomorrow. Here are some pictures. My twin brother will be broadcasting 3 acres worth of native seed in the sections near the house and I’ll be ordering 5 acres more to seed in February. Hoping these areas provide quality native forage and help our turkey/quail populations.


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[bgleaton]

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[bgleaton]

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[bgleaton]

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[jason86]

Do y’all ever hunt the river side?

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by jason86

Do y’all ever hunt the river side?

We don’t. We thought about adding a feeder over there which would give us another area to hunt.

[Puncher51]

Great seeing all the piles of cedar! Great job on the habitat improvement and the seedbed looks perfect!

[MAP]

Awesome, thanks for the updates, they always give me ideas for my place.

And that would be cool to put a feeder on the river side. Those are always good spots to send somebody who is already "tagged out" on the main ranch or for a new hunter when you dont have an extra guide for them to sit with on the main place.

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by MAP

Awesome, thanks for the updates, they always give me ideas for my place.

And that would be cool to put a feeder on the river side. Those are always good spots to send somebody who is already "tagged out" on the main ranch or for a new hunter when you dont have an extra guide for them to sit with on the main place.

Good idea!

[bgleaton]

Here are some more pictures showing all of the clearings. I believe we cleared around 10 acres worth of cedars. Looking forward to what it looks like in a year or two.


















We spread some annual rye grass on one area that had a hill to try to stabilize the soil and reduce the chance of runoff. I ordered more native seed and hope to be able to broadcast all of the native seed in these clearings in February.

[bgleaton]

The NRCS came out yesterday and walked the property with my dad. They have confirmed that they will help pay to spray the cactus in the highlighted areas. We don’t have much cactus on our property except for these 4 highlighted areas. Now all we have to do is wait until they get the funding approved and figure out when they will come out this year and get it all sprayed. We have been extremely pleased with the TX NRCS and everything they do to help improve our property.


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[TKRanch]

Looking really good. If Texas can manage to have a "normal" year with some rain and decent weather I think it will look GREAT in a year or 2!!

[cehorn]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

This is a seed mix that we will be planting in the freshly dozed areas. Looking forward to see it a couple years from now. We should have some good pictures of the dozed areas by next weekend and will post some pictures.

Originally Posted by TKRanch

Looking really good. If Texas can manage to have a "normal" year with some rain and decent weather I think it will look GREAT in a year or 2!!

I guess I'll ask this here although I could ask it on the thread I started as well. You have mentioned perennials take a few years to get going which I don't doubt. My question is what is your thought on reason? Is that just how long it takes nature to do its thing (pollinate, seed, spread, multiply, etc.) or is that due to rainfall, etc? Without going back and confirming in this thread, from memory your planting has been in fairly dry years with a very tough drought last year. So if we were to get lucky and plant and then have a record rainfall year would that speed up the process you have seen or would it stay the same?

[TKRanch]

Originally Posted by cehorn

I guess I'll ask this here although I could ask it on the thread I started as well. You have mentioned perennials take a few years to get going which I don't doubt. My question is what is your thought on reason? Is that just how long it takes nature to do its thing (pollinate, seed, spread, multiply, etc.) or is that due to rainfall, etc? Without going back and confirming in this thread, from memory your planting has been in fairly dry years with a very tough drought last year. So if we were to get lucky and plant and then have a record rainfall year would that speed up the process you have seen or would it stay the same?

I am no expert but I will say that my wife loves to plant perennials in her flower beds in Round Top and I just know that even with a sprinkler system and her continued personal care they seem to REALLY thrive in the second and third years noticeably more than the first year. We also spent a bunch of money planting wild flower seeds on about an acre of pasture by the house and it took 4 years to get decent and really never "took off"... That is my limited experience!!

[cehorn]

Originally Posted by TKRanch

I am no expert but I will say that my wife loves to plant perennials in her flower beds in Round Top and I just know that even with a sprinkler system and her continued personal care they seem to REALLY thrive in the second and third years noticeably more than the first year. We also spent a bunch of money planting wild flower seeds on about an acre of pasture by the house and it took 4 years to get decent and really never "took off"... That is my limited experience!!

Thanks, that is what I was looking for. Sounds like the old tree saying "Sleep first year, Creep second year and Leap 3rd year" may apply here as well. Just the way nature works...

[bgleaton]

Here are some pictures that one of our buddy's took this past weekend that shows some of the new clearings and roads.














My brother broadcasted a native seed mix in the 5 acre clearing that is shown in the last two pictures. I'm hoping to broadcast the remaining 8 acres of seed once they finish burning the piles and trenching the water line for the big pond. I'm hoping it rains so this seed will actually grow.

[TKRanch]

Since you are trenching water to the pond is there any possibility of popping some lines for irrigation along the way as you go? Maybe that would not be where you need it, don't know, but I do know it is easier to do it at the beginning! Love the updates....

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by TKRanch

Since you are trenching water to the pond is there any possibility of popping some lines for irrigation along the way as you go? Maybe that would not be where you need it, don't know, but I do know it is easier to do it at the beginning! Love the updates....

Yes, we are going to add a line so we can irrigate our south field, which is around 3 acres. Trying to figure out which sprinkler and setup to use. Our plan would be to irrigate right after planting and look at watering once every 2 weeks or so depending on the soil moisture.

[PondPopper]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

We don’t. We thought about adding a feeder over there which would give us another area to hunt.

Y'all should do it..

The progress looks awesome.. We need rain!!!

[bgleaton]

We recently purchased a couple of Moultrie Mobile Edge Cellular Trail Cameras from Tractor Supply and I have to admit that these are the easiest cameras to set up and the images are much higher quality when comparing it to the Spartan, Covert, and Spypoint cameras we own and they are half the price or more. Here are some recent pictures:












The app also has a ton of data like the most popular time of day the camera is taking pictures, types of animals on camera (i.e. buck vs doe vs turkey), number of pictures during weather patterns/moon phase, etc. We liked these so much that we purchased the 12V dual solar battery box to ensure that these cameras never run out of battery.

[Puncher51]

Photo quality seems excellent.

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by Puncher51

Photo quality seems excellent.

Way better than the Covert, Spartan, and SpyCams we have!

[Puncher51]

Now that I’ve started feeding a little protein, I’ve been considering buying some better cell cams than the SPYPOINT. I’ll be curious how these turn out!
Place is looking great as always. I enjoy the drone shots showing how you had the work completed.

[bgleaton]

They started drilling the well yesterday and hope to have it finished by this week or early next week. After the well has been drilled, we will start trenching and laying the pipe to the ponds and one field.

We purchased all new fish habitat that we will install in two weeks - MossBack habitat and Honey Hole Trees. We will also find a bunch of boulders and make big rock piles as well. I'll be sure to include pictures after we install all of the fish habitat. We are working with a fisheries biologist to help make sure all of the habitat is placed in the correct spots and to help understand how many fish we have and what we need to do to start growing some big bass over the next several years.

We are going to try to remove as many bass as possible over the next few weeks and then re-introduce more forage fish - bluegills, golden shiners, and possibly threadfin shad.

[Big pig]

Drilled my 330’ well in less than two days.
Cased and Gravel packed.
Amazing.
A new lake is an exciting project.
Helped sister with small one. Bass grew very quickly
Became difficult to catch bluegills because bass would grab them and break the light lines.
Added grass carp last year.
Too cold for tilapia up here I think

[bgleaton]

Water Well Update - They were able to hit really good water at 480ft and are getting over 60gpm. We are hoping to start trenching within the next two weeks.

We ended up getting 0.4in of rain yesterday which is just enough to keep the dust down. We really need a 2in + rain event to get everything greening up nicely. I hope to have an update on everything once I'm out there next weekend.

[Puncher51]

Excellent water!! That should be enough to make a difference on that pond!

[Big pig]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

Water Well Update - They were able to hit really good water at 480ft and are getting over 60gpm. We are hoping to start trenching within the next two weeks.

We ended up getting 0.4in of rain yesterday which is just enough to keep the dust down. We really need a 2in + rain event to get everything greening up nicely. I hope to have an update on everything once I'm out there next weekend.

Heckuva well. Good for y’all
That will fill up a tank !
I’m literally less than 5 gallon minute @ 300’. Only good for cattle

We have gotten some nice showers this year. .9” in eastern Brown county during the latest wind storm. Everything is greening up, but not much runoff from the 20 minute downpour.

[bgleaton]

We just purchased 500lbs of Purina Dewormer pellets. We are going to put around 125lbs in 4 of our protein feeders. Our plan is just adding it on top of our current pellets and once the deer eat the remaining pellets, which should be in 2 weeks, then they will get to the dewormer feed. Hoping this stuff will help our deer herd because $30 a bag is expensive!

[bgleaton]

This is what they recommended. It says it’s for antelope and gazelles but the feed store said deer can also eat it. Anyone have any history feeding this? Just want to make sure it’s okay to use.


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[bgleaton]

I spoke with Ag Mart and they said they have a lot of people feed this dewormer to deer and that it’s totally fine for deer. We put 150lbs in all 5 protein feeders. All of these feeders were full so we just topped them off with dewormer so they should start eating it in 2-3 weeks or so.

We installed some new pond habitat today. We focused on the **** side. The “root wads” will be in 3-5ft of water, the safe haven and trophy trees will be in 6-8ft of water, and the XL lay downs will be in 8-10ft of water. Here’s a picture showing it installed.



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[bgleaton]

Here’s another picture showing another part of the pond. This structure will be around 8ft deep. Those plastic trees are around 6ft wide. Once the pond is full the water will be up around 4-5ft up that dead tree in the background.


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[Puncher51]

Looking good! Will be a great addition to the ranch when the pond is full!

[Big pig]

Looking great

I spent a few hours gathering the rocks around our mostly dry tanks and stacking them in small piles for some structure. I tried to vary the depth of the piles on average water level.
Bass definitely congregate on the real wood logs in our other tank.

[BCoop27]

Love getting these updates. Wish I lived out in Texas on our place to work on it!