The Duck Farm Project

[deep woods goat hunter]

Last week my old man closed on 55 acres of mostly tillable ground adjacent to his Duck Farm. I checked it out with him and i saw a good opportunity for a deer nest project. On the east side of the farm is a long skinny ditch that winds around across the river bottom, draining several thousand acres of rowcrop. On the section of ditch there is a really nice south facing slope with some hardwoods leading down to the flat bottom adjacent to the “creek”. In the bottom there are a bunch of willows and other softwoods that have canopied out any undergrowth.
Dad asked if i thought I could kill a deer there. I said “Ya, but you have to cut me loose with a chainsaw in there to make better cover in hopes of getting them to stage up in one of only a few 5-6 acre areas of cover in the entire bottom.
Sunday i burned 5-6 tanks out of the O21 and let some serious sunlight hit the ground on about 1/3 of the ditch. Hopefully this will encourage more deer to stage in there.
Now if i can only talk Pops into leaving a couple acres of soybeans we will be in business

Yes, I know I should be wearing my chaps

 

[bwese]

Yes, I know I should be wearing my chaps

and a helmet. I think you'll have a fine deer place in a while. The new growth should be great. Thanks for sharing.

I've been doing the same thing since Monday. Two times I had broken limbs that were caught up in a tree I was felling or broke off as falling that fell and hit my head. The helmet protected me completely. One of which was a honey locust branch with 2" thorns. That would have been bad if those had got to hit me.

Finished it up yesterday except I'm pushing all the trees into piles in obscure spots on the lay of the land. I'm taking the trunks for firewood. I will have about 125 osage posts to cut this winter. I left those trees standing as fencers like them as close to green as possible.

I'm planning on killing off the weeds growing now and prep for switchgrass with cedars and shrubs planted throughout it. It is about a 2 acre area

 

[Hardwood11]

Good luck on that project! Always fun.