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Getting started with my first plot
Topic Started: Mar 20 2012, 09:49 AM (7,805 Views)
Ikantski
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No deer down yet but we didn't hunt it at all during first gun week and only for the second weekend. Got a few daytime pics of that nine pointer in a clearing with no bait 11/7 and had a few smaller bucks around during the gun season. I put a camera on a nearby ridge, hopefully when I get a reliable food source here, these guys will spend more time down my way.

Found out where that wide guy went.
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Spike parade
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This guy could be nice in a year!
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My nine pointer, what're you doing up here?
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Another up and comer
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This guy is back.
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And this is what the food plot looks like
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I got a moultrie timer thing and put it on a small barrel. Tried to put it in a white pine and smashed a branch down almost into my head. Lashed it to the stump temporarily. I'm so excited to break the ground up next spring and hopefully get better germination on the edges.
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Nice looking property Ikantski looks like you have plenty of cover for your deer herd, kind of looks like my property. Good luck
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Ikantski
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Plenty of cover is an understatement, it's freaking thick. I once got lost 30 yards from the road. This winter is going to be another adventure in clearing some more plantable areas, going to leave the stumps a few feet high and get somebody in with a bulldozer or excavator to get them out. Whoever said it's easier to make clearings than cover has never been through my woods.

The plus side of that cover is that the local hunters enjoy fairly limited success and there have always been at least two good mature bucks every year.
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Ikantski
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Ok, let's wrap up the season a bit. We didn't shoot any deer off our property this year. My wife saw does and fawns every time she went out though so she had a blast. I only saw two deer but I spent most of my time hunting some more experimental spots on crown land. Then went down to Cornwall with the muzzleloader and tagged out, meat in the freezer.

It looks like the two big bucks were shot during the gun season unfortunately although the taller one (the one from 11/06 pic) made several daytime appearances on my property first. We'll see what happens. The good news is that two other nice ones have discovered my place along with a few spikes and one that's already shed.

This guy
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And this guy
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So I should have something to chase after next year.

The plan is to make two more 1/3 acre clearings this winter although I haven't decided where yet.

The brown is the existing plot, green are the small clearings where most of the buck pictures are taken and yellow are flat spots that wouldn't be a nightmare to clear (mostly young poplar or large spread out cedar). The white line is a deer trail I carved out, they seem to like it. Nobody hunts the West, North or East sides and one guy hunts the South but he's an older guy who mostly just hunts partridge during deer season. I can access the property from the North or South sides and have permission to hunt East.

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I really like the SE spot. It's at the dry end of a cat tail bog, mostly low tamaracks and young cedars. It would get lots of sunlight and the soil is mucky but dries out quickly. They bed just SE of that along the S side of the bog so it would be easy to come in from the N on a N wind.

I like the idea of having plots at the SW and NE corner as well to make a travel pattern. A lot of them bed W and SW off the property so the idea is the bucks would check the SW plot, the existing one and then keep going to the NE one. I could hunt that on a S or E wind and it's pretty easy to just slip in from the road so you leave a tiny amount of scent.

Another advantage to having one along the E side is being able to easily hunt the common W wind.

I've got an atv this year, with a winch for small stumps. I can rent an excavator for bigger ones and take it down the white road. I'm going to get a groundhog max for the atv to till.

Anyhow, that's the plan for the Spring. Next fall, I think I'm going to just take the week off before the gun season to bow hunt if it's cool. We had an ridiculous amount of buck movement this year and there will be no shortage of spots with 1000s of acres of crown to myself so I won't overhunt my own property.
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moosewhisperer
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nice bucks! is that on your property?
A bad day hunting beats a good day at work any day!!
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Friggs
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Now that you have an ATV you can start buying implements such as a sprayer, discs, spreader and maybe a mower. Just stick with a disc with your sandy soil and not a plow/rake. A disc will ride over some of your stumps and roots and a plow/rake would snag on roots and remember don't buy to big of a disc, its hard on your ATV. Sprayer is a must, especially on new plots and I spray gly (round-up) before planting to kill ferns, suckers from your stumps and unwanted weeds and certain trails.
I'm looking at buying a tractor 40-50hp with a front-end loader for clearing snow and skidding logs and of course plotting.
I was looking at your aerial photo and your plan sounds good and you know your deer movements and activity which is a good start. I'm no expert when it comes to deer habitat improvements and I'm still learning.
How many acres is your property ? Do you live nearby or miles away ?

First thing is I would work on is ATV trails to and from your plot areas. If possible, I would bring that trail up along your east property line and up to the road on the north side. That would be a good access to your stands in the SE if you have W or NW winds while hunting. Also make or improve bedding areas and not to close to your plots so you can hunt in between.
Good Luck and keep us posted.
Friggs
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Ikantski
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Friggs
Jan 17 2014, 08:50 AM
Now that you have an ATV you can start buying implements such as a sprayer, discs, spreader and maybe a mower. Just stick with a disc with your sandy soil and not a plow/rake. A disc will ride over some of your stumps and roots and a plow/rake would snag on roots and remember don't buy to big of a disc, its hard on your ATV. Sprayer is a must, especially on new plots and I spray gly (round-up) before planting to kill ferns, suckers from your stumps and unwanted weeds and certain trails.
I'm looking at buying a tractor 40-50hp with a front-end loader for clearing snow and skidding logs and of course plotting.
I was looking at your aerial photo and your plan sounds good and you know your deer movements and activity which is a good start. I'm no expert when it comes to deer habitat improvements and I'm still learning.
How many acres is your property ? Do you live nearby or miles away ?

First thing is I would work on is ATV trails to and from your plot areas. If possible, I would bring that trail up along your east property line and up to the road on the north side. That would be a good access to your stands in the SE if you have W or NW winds while hunting. Also make or improve bedding areas and not to close to your plots so you can hunt in between.
Good Luck and keep us posted.
Friggs
Yep those bucks are on my property.

For the disc, I'm looking at the groundhog max. It's just a small thing you can stick in your hitch, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYaFZ9iHmL0 but it looks like it works pretty well and is easier on the equipment than the ones you tow. The bonus is that it'll be a lot easier to get to the harder to access spots than the full size ones. The local corner store rents atv discs so I can try one

The property is only 40 acres and I live an hour away otherwise I would definitely be looking at a tractor.

I have a trail along the east side, you're right, it's absolutely mandatory. I don't have one along the W side however, I'm going to make one this year. I've been hesitant because there is a winter bedding area between the road and the SW corner but I don't think they bed there as much in the fall.

One of my main problems is that the whole property is bedding. I've tried doing some improved areas with hinge cuts, etc but it seems to just bug them. The area in the south middle that that the road loops with no clearings is a hill, it rises about 20m from the road level. They love bedding up there so I've designated that as a mini-sanctuary.

That's the reason I like my plots close to the road. There are people walking dogs along the N road all summer, riding atvs in the fall and the deer are used to it and will even tolerate it while they're in the plot but they don't generally bed right next to it. That lets me hunt the plot or even better a trail between two plots on the N edge.
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Ikantski
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Snowshoed 5k on Saturday to confirm some of those clearings and start spray painting the edges. The cameras showed no bucks left with antlers so I knew there were probably 4 nice ones lying around somewhere.

I was getting pretty discouraged after 3 hours and 4k of snowshoeing through knee deep snow so I decided to go check out the SE swampy area to see how hard it's going to be to clear out. All of a sudden one a nice antler appeared about 15 feet away. My useless shed dog hadn't even noticed it.
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Pretty nice mass, and I recognized it right away as being from the larger racked deer. It's about 4pm, light is fading a bit, there are 3 different deer trails diverging from here and I'd really like to find the matched set. I followed the heavier looking trail for about 300 yards with no luck so I a random older trail that looked like it would loop back down there so I wasn't wasting time following my own tracks back.
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At this point, I'm thigh deep walking through the nastiest part cursing this deer and my dog who I'm sure has already sniffed and ignored the other antler. It's about 4:45 and it's definitely getting a bit darker.
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We get about 20 yards from where we found the shed and the dog starts digging behind a log 30 feet beside me. This doesn't mean anything too special because he's done this about 100 times already today and come up with a mouthful of chocolate covered deer raisins. This time is different though.
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Anyways, dog redeemed himself for missing the first one and the score is me - 1, dog -1 to start off 2014. He got lots of praise and I may have kissed him. Shed hunting is fun. I scored them he'd gross about 150 with an 18" spread.
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So this puts me in a bit of a conundrum. The edge of the swamp is definitely a big buck travel corridor. There are a bunch of rubs so I'm sure they use it in the fall. I made the deer a trail through to put them in front of a stand and cut some shooting lanes (one shed was actually in a lane) but it only really set up for a North wind and I never got it.

So I can leave it like it is and hope to get lucky. What I'm thinking I'll do is leave a 30 yard buffer of swamp junk along the edge and then make the clearing in the middle. The older bucks won't want to go into the clearing so they'll get pinched between the food plot and my stand.
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Friggs
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That was a funny story and beautiful photos. I like your Lab, they are such good dogs, we lost our Cassie last April at age 15. I'm buying another black lab female from Oakridge Retrievers sometime this spring and I should know by this Friday if the breeding was successful by a xray of the mother.
I was thinking of training this new pup on shed hunting along with retrieving, I retired on Dec. 31st and will have lots of time.

Here's a photo of our Cassie 4 years ago in the brassica.
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Friggs
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Ikantski
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Thanks! That's a good looking lab (and brassicas!) Hopefully the breeding was good, labs are the greatest dogs and Spring is the best time to get a puppy imo. I'd love to have Milo for 15 years, he's such a good dog.

Training them for sheds is really fun. We started pretty young. The breeder actually had him chewing on an antler at 5 weeks, this is 8 I believe.

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Friggs
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Ikantski
Jan 20 2014, 07:26 PM
Thanks! That's a good looking lab (and brassicas!) Hopefully the breeding was good, labs are the greatest dogs and Spring is the best time to get a puppy imo. I'd love to have Milo for 15 years, he's such a good dog.

Training them for sheds is really fun. We started pretty young. The breeder actually had him chewing on an antler at 5 weeks, this is 8 I believe.

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Yes, your right I planned this new pup for the spring, the rest of the family wanted one this fall but I stood my ground and looks like i won this one. Now my family is trying to choose a name and I'll let them decide but I'll have the final word, I hope (;
This will be my third lab female since I got married and moved from home, god that was 32 years ago. My first lab retrieved and flushed real well and I spent many hours training and hunting over her and hope to do the same with this new pup.
I guess Milo will be chewing that shed that you guys found ? I just cut one up the other day for a friend of my wife's dog, thank god for the saz-all.

Later...Frank
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Renegade
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Wow, what an awesome set there! Wish my dogs could score for me like that. Need some posts of these awesome dogs in the dog section! I really enjoy this post, it has taken on a life of it's own. :cheers:
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Posted Image Mattones
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I really enjoyed your updates! Hope you do the same this year!!
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Willis
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Wow, you did a great job, lots of hard work involved for sure. I`m sure that it will start drawing in the bucks once they get familiar with the plot and see that it is a year round food source. the white pine looks like an ideal spot to hang a stand!
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Ikantski
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Friggs
Jan 21 2014, 10:56 AM
My first lab retrieved and flushed real well and I spent many hours training and hunting over her and hope to do the same with this new pup.
I guess Milo will be chewing that shed that you guys found ? I just cut one up the other day for a friend of my wife's dog, thank god for the saz-all.

Later...Frank
Yeah, he's really keen on ducks and partridge and he loves training time. He hasn't really chewed anything since he stopped teething, he loves the smoked beef knuckles from the butcher though.

Glad you guys like the log. It's turned into more of a "Getting started with my first property" rather than food plot but so it goes.

Willis, that white pine is the bane of my existence. It's no good for hunting out of and the only flat area I could extend the plot is directly behind it and it would block the majority of the sun. I really don't want to cut it down as it'll be more wood to move than probably the entire rest of the plot was combined.

I'm thinking this is a pic of the deer I found the sheds from two years ago. Similar gnarly browtines and taller with big mass. I only got the 3 pics of him as he passed through the property, never saw him again until this winter.

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i have a ground hog max and it works great, usually do 1/2 an acre at a time
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Ikantski
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That's good to hear, where did you get it? I'm having a hard time finding a canadian dealer.
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Ikantski
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Found a dead young buck in my bedding area this spring, few deer compared to most years. One buck hanging around now.

Groundhog Max is a total pain in the butt on the 2012+ Honda Foreman, their hitch kit doesn't fit properly. So far this year, I've removed about two dozen of the smaller stumps, got a bit tilled, cut down the rye and broadcast buckwheat. It's coming up but I should have dragged it for better germination.

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Partikle
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Looking good, some great bucks on your property. Good Luck getting one of those big ones this fall!!
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Ikantski
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Partikle
Jul 8 2014, 08:14 AM
Looking good, some great bucks on your property. Good Luck getting one of those big ones this fall!!
Thanks! This year's crop is looking good. It's funny, the last two years, I had does and fawns all summer. This year I have no does or fawns but 3 different bucks.

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Ikantski
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Put the groundhog to work finally. There were a few stumps left but they'll have to wait until next year now. Tilled, dragged, planted 4# PTT, 2# forage radish and 2# dwarf essex rape. Overseeding by a bit but I wasn't sure how well my fence drag would work and I didn't really have anything other than atv wheels to cultipack.

Before
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During
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Done
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Nice! The groundhog seems to have worked pretty good...I was thinking about trying to get one of those as right now I am just using an old Honda rear-tine tiller for all of my food plotting.

Keep the updates coming! :cheers:
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Partikle
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Looks great. Looking forward to more photos :thumbsup:
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Ikantski
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Bocephus_86
Jul 22 2014, 07:52 AM
Nice! The groundhog seems to have worked pretty good...I was thinking about trying to get one of those as right now I am just using an old Honda rear-tine tiller for all of my food plotting.

Keep the updates coming! :cheers:
Yeah it worked really well now that I sorted the hitch problems out. The adjustable depth was really handy, I was able to start shallow and find the small stumps and gradually get more aggressive. I was impressed how well it bounced over the remaining stumps too, there were a few 4-5 inchers that I hit accidentally a bunch of times, woulda been tough on a tiller I think! I could have ran it a few inches deeper but the kolpin hitch looks a little flimsy.

One more pic that shows the whole thing, hopefully it's a turnip jungle in 2 months.
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Ikantski
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Looking promising. I'm annoyed with the bare spots, need a roller instead of the drag
Oh and a couple of pics from the cam on the trail to the plot. Glad to see ol crab claw back around, I think this is his 3rd year.

We would have been happy to get crabby two years ago, he's definitely getting to be an older bugger now with a unique rack.
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I hardly get any pictures of yotes at all, neat to get a nice daylight pic as long as he's gone by Oct 1st.
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Edited by Ikantski, Aug 8 2014, 09:35 PM.
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KMG Canada
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Really enjoyed reading your thread, so much so that I am inspired ... think I will head out and check on my food plots :D
Rod Embree - KMG Canada Safaris
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Ikantski
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Thanks, we're making progress...

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I think this is a forage radish? Hopefully they get a bit bigger.
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KMG Canada
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Looks like it is coming in nicely! My clover plot is doing well, but my 2 acre Alfalfa field is on its last legs and I will have to put something in new next spring ... let me know how those radishes work out for you!
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Ikantski
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2 acres of alfalfa, nice! Must be great soil, where are you located?
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KMG Canada
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Ikantski, the land is close to Avonmore, near Cornwall, I believe you are familiar with that area from what I have read:)
Rod Embree - KMG Canada Safaris
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Donnie7
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Looking really good, I think we have the exact same thing planted, so it will be interesting to see how they take to yours and not mine :crycry: We don't see to have the buck activity that you do. I finished planting ours last Tuesday before we had the week of rain so it will be interesting to see if it grows. I did roll and pack the seeds after broadcasting but am willing to bet that we still have seeding holes as well.

Donnie
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Ikantski
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Donnie7
Aug 19 2014, 07:19 AM
Looking really good, I think we have the exact same thing planted, so it will be interesting to see how they take to yours and not mine :crycry: We don't see to have the buck activity that you do. I finished planting ours last Tuesday before we had the week of rain so it will be interesting to see if it grows. I did roll and pack the seeds after broadcasting but am willing to bet that we still have seeding holes as well.

Donnie
KMG, we're just down the road from you, nice fat deer in that area.

Donnie, I'm definitely a little worried they won't take to mine, they wouldn't even eat pumpkins last year. I think I'll throw the corn spinner up in that pine tree late Sept so they get some in their mouth by accident and figure out it's tasty.

I got up today just ahead of the rain (good timing!) and spread 70# (200#/acre) of 46-0-0 on the brassicas and threw some fall rye into the bare spots. I spread two boxes of borax when I did my tilling/planting and I read that afterwards that it can be toxic to seed. My bare spots correspond pretty well to where most of it landed so ... lesson learned.

I planted half a bushel of rye in two other small clearings. One is just 30 feet from the brassica plot, the first little clearing I ever made and the second is at the other side of the property. I put about 25# of rye and 15# of urea down in each spot.

Brassicas looking lush
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A nice little buck checking them out. Had two big guys browse a bit at last light but the pictures were too dark to see much.
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Rye clearing #1, can't hunt on this one but I can see it from the box blind.
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Rye clearing #2. Looks like some clover I threw last summer took. It's not much of a draw by itself but combine it with the salt stump and a pile of apples, it's usually a good spot.
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Donnie7
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Looking good hoping to check on ours tomorrow.
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Ikantski
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Did a quick stop today. Didn't see any bulbs but didn't look that carefully, some huge leaves though.

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:allright: That guy in the rear is a STUD! Looks like all your hard work is beginning to pay off!!
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Ikantski
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Donnie7
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Wow that is some serious growth their, way better than mine. Our soil needs some help and I will get it next year. That being said it is getting hammered right now so we will see.

Donnie
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Ikantski
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Donnie7
Sep 17 2014, 08:50 PM
Wow that is some serious growth their, way better than mine. Our soil needs some help and I will get it next year. That being said it is getting hammered right now so we will see.

Donnie
What mix did you plant? Mine's 4# PTT, 2# DER and 2# GFR. Way overseeded but I was pretty gunshy after last year. I planted about 3x more than I had to I think and the radishes are nowhere to be seen, probably shaded out? The deer aren't using it much, they graze through once a week or so. It'll be interesting to see what changes after tonight, supposed to hit -2.
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Donnie7
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about 2lb of PTT about 3 lb GFR and 3# of radish.

Think I should have planted before i did, may go back and throw some fertilizer on but may be too late now?
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Ikantski
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No bucks on my property but the plot looks good
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Lab lab
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A few turnip bulbs despite massively overseeding
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Mini rye plot
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Mini perennial rye grass/clover/rye plot
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