We Have a Ranch Again - New Ranch - Follow Along

[cehorn]

Here are the food plot pics.

Here are a couple of pics of the deer plots I planted in March that I posted about above. The first 2 pics are from the weekend of 4-5 and the 3rd pick is from last weekend so you can see the growth.




And then these pics are right after planting the other plots

[cehorn]

And here are the other pics from last weekend of Tracker and a snake my buddy caught and helped off the road.

[cehorn]

And 1 last post on the food plots. It was more work than anticipated as it always is but it is done. So my overall totals for this spring (and to date on perennials) are:
2 acres of native sunflowers - not super optimistic as nothing has come up yet and it was planted late
4 acres replant of Texas Wildlife Perennial mix from last year - I think we planted too deep last year so I wanted to get a little more seed out. They are actually looking pretty good right now.
5 acres new plant of Texas Wildlife Perennial mix - so over the past 2 years I have planted 11 acres of perennials to convert a little area from goat/cow pasture to something more deer friendly
6 acres of local feed store food plot - generic mix for all game but over 60% soybeans and peas - the 2 plots I planted early have come up and are looking good as you can see in the pics above
5 acres of Turner Spring Deer - come on rain, lets get this stuff growing.

[DUKFVR]

Thanks for the updates!

[RutnBuk]

Looks good.
Hope your food plots do better than mine ever have. 10 years of planting them and only 1 year (2007) was a successful spring/summer plot. All others didnt make it past June.

[cehorn]

Looks good.
Hope your food plots do better than mine ever have. 10 years of planting them and only 1 year (2007) was a successful spring/summer plot. All others didnt make it past June.

That's about what ours did last year. It was a combination of the rain stopping, temps going up and cows getting hungrier. But if I can provide a little more the next couple of months I think it is worth it.

[cehorn]

Nothing new to add as I didn't go to the ranch this weekend and won't be going next weekend. But we did get 1.5" of rain this weekend so I'm hoping for good updates on the food plots when I make it out there in 2 weeks.

[cehorn]

Time for a monthly update. No real work done except spraying some roads, filling feeders, etc. But we have had a decent amount of rain the past few weeks including finally getting the big one Saturday night. So the ground was fairly saturated and then we got almost 4 inches in a few hours. Water running everywhere and our tanks are now full. I had a couple of buddies out this weekend also and their kids did a lot of fishing at our big tank. Here are some pics.

Here are 2 food plot pics from Saturday before the big rains. These are the same 2 food plots as pics from post 256.


A little fishing. I didn't get a pic of the biggest one but it weighed in over 3 lbs.


And now the rain pics. As I mentioned water flowing everywhere. This is the first time we have actually had water flowing in our creek since we bought the place. There is a spring at this location that hasn't flowed in over a year but there was a little bit of water on the left side of the pic Saturday. Sunday morning the whole thing was under water.

This creek flows into a tank we call New Tank. Last year I posted pics of the tanks (post 220). New Tank was even lower than the pic in post 220 Saturday afternoon. Here it is Sunday morning and it was still filling from the creek above. I have no doubt an hour or so after these pictures it was full and running over. Notice the rocks from post 220 are now under water. If the water level stays high we may put some fish in this one. I'm a little skeptical on how high it will stay as I think a lot of water seeps into the ground in this area. But we will likely give it a shot.

Here are pics of the Red Tank. It still had a couple of feet left to get to full but this is the fullest it has been since we dug it out and expanded it. You can see the berm is completely under water. With it now full we will likely try to get some catfish in there to add to the fishing.


Here is a different creek crossing that we have to go thru to get to the other side of our property. We have never seen water in this crossing at all.

And here is the Big Tank. This is the tank we fished on Saturday (pics above). The overflow is about where the kids waist is in the pic above. This tank filled up and had a ton of water overflowing. In the pic in post 220, you can see the white on the tree where the water has gotten before. That tree looked the same Saturday and Sunday morning all of the white on the tree was under water. A spring feeds this tank that hasn't been running in about a year. I hope this amount of water not only filled up the tanks but filled up everything below ground to keep the springs going.



Here is the overflow water flowing out of the tank

And finally, this overflow goes back into a little water hole in the creek and then goes underground for a ways. Here is the flow going into that water hole.


Hopefully there are more rain storms like this in the future but this is by far the biggest storm and most water we have seen on the place in the almost 3 years we have had it. It is a good feeling to have full tanks, etc. Between the tanks, the food plots and protein if our deer aren't as healthy as a deer can possibly be I don't know what else to do....

[miket]

Looking good, glad to see you getting serious moisture!

[cehorn]

Not much to update but did make it back to the ranch a couple of weeks ago. I sat 1 time and shot a pig but it made it to some briars and I didn't look further. Definitely 1 less pig in the world though. I didn't get pics but while I was sitting a saw 2 separate does that had full milk bags so fawns are there which is good news. Tanks are still looking good with our big tank still overflowing (it is spring fed so spring is still flowing). With full tanks, in 2 weeks we are going to stock a couple of them with catfish. We will add some catfish and "overstock" feeder fish including bluegills, redear and minnows.

Our Red Tank (2nd tank pic in post 263) is about 3/4 of an acres so it will get the bulk of the fish:

Our Creek Tank (1st tank pic in post 263)is about 1/4 acres and we will put some fish in there as well.

The food plots were looking really good last time up. Here's to hoping there is enough green out there to keep the cows from destroying them.



Overall, I don't think I have seen the place greener. Here are a couple of pics of how green it is and the wildflowers still going crazy.





With all the water, the dogs swam and played a ton.


Additionally we topped off all 3 protein feeders, put out trophy rocks in all of our penned feeders and filled corn feeders. Between the over abundance of water, native greens, food plots and supplemental feed if a deer is hungry or thirsty there isn't much else that can be done. We are heading up for Father's Day weekend and I'll likely put a few cameras back out to see what the horns look like. A buddy of mine sat about a month ago and he said he saw one that should be pretty big as it was well outside of its ears already and heavy. Fingers crossed for a good year.

[cehorn]

It has been a while since I updated so sorry for the long read. We got a decent amount done since summer started. We also fit in a couple of vacations so there were quite a few weekends away from the ranch. As always I'll write everything up and then post pics in separate posts.

Anyway, at the ranch as pictured above the food plots did great until about mid-June when everything dried out and the cows got hungry. I'll take a couple of months of good groceries on the ground for the deer over not having it. Their protein consumption was very low until the first of July. Now they are hammering it and I increased the time on all feeders last weekend to help them finish out. I put out a few trail cameras on the protein feeders but have struggled with batteries and cows. But I got a few good pics when I pulled cards last weekend and the excitement for the season is starting to build. I think our fall and spring food plots along with year round protein and corn are starting to pay off. I put out 10 cameras last weekend so hopefully I'll have more pics in the next few weeks. The first picture post has pics of a few deer.

This past year my youngest son took a welding class in school. I have been wanting a "gutting table" for a long time and I was able to draw one up and get him to build it as a project in school with a little help from his teacher. All the materials were left over from the cabin build so it is a little bulkier and heavier than if we would have gone out and bought materials specifically for the build but the cost was $0. It turned out great. I have enough material for a second one that I will likely get him to build this year in his welding class. But, I want to use the first one for a season and see what can be tweaked and changed to improve it. Shortly after taking it to the ranch I shot a pig and got to test it out and put some sausage in the freezer. It worked well.

Over a couple of weekends my oldest son and one of his friends built a rifle stand for the last location we didn't have a stand for. The frame we found on the ranch and they tore it down to the metal and then screwed tin on for the walls and roof. The people who left it knew how to build a stand as this thing is solid and heavy. It should last forever. We installed carpet on the floor and up to the windows to help with sound and maybe keep it a little warmer. We aren't 100% done with it as he still needs to attach the stairs and install windows. He will build the windows this week at home and we will wrap up both this weekend to finish up that project before he takes off for is sophomore year at atm in a couple of weeks.

We also built and put out the last fiberglass tank that I bought a few years ago. These things are awesome bow blinds and again will last long past the time that I'm gone. It will be nice to have another permanent bow blind and not have to worry about popups at that location. We still have 2 locations where we need permanent bow blinds. I'm not sure if that will happen before the season but I did find somebody still selling the tanks and we are getting 2 more in the next couple of weeks. I'm hopeful we can build 1 or both in September and get them out but if not we have popups to cover it.

As I mentioned previously, we got a ton of rain and filled all the tanks. We have been waiting on this to stock a few with fish and AgMart had Arkansas Pond Stockers on site on June 22 so it was go time. If you have followed this thread, I have been talking about fish since the first post. Our "Red Tank" is about 3/4 of an acre and we put 150 channel cats, 150 bluegill, 150 redear and 8 lbs of minnows in it. Our "Creek Tank" is 1/4 ac and we put 50 channel cats, 50 bluegill, 50 redear and 3 lbs of minnows in it. We have another smaller tank that has gone dry in the past but we put a handful of each type of fish in it as well. We didn't mess with bass since our "Big Tank" has bass and we are already fishing it. Fingers crossed they grow and we can start having some fish fries in a year or 2.

And finally, my wife has been wanting a deck off the porch at the ranch and she finally told me that is all I had to get her for our anniversary. So it was go time on that. On June 29, my oldest son, my wife and I started from scratch in the morning. We worked until about 10:00 at night and at that time we had a deck built minus being 2 boards short. The deck is 6'x24' and turned out great. Last weekend my wife and I went back to the ranch and she put the final 2 boards on and stained/painted the deck and a table we had up there. Everything is complete including new rocking chairs and a "coffee table".

Looking back at my to do list from post 246, it has been a productive spring and summer as I have bolded everything that we accomplished.

• Put out a 3rd protein feeder
• Finish building our last rifle stand for now
• Finish out and put out our last tank bow blind
• Replant the perennial plots I did last year (about 4 acres) - I know they take a while to establish but I think we were too deep and want to get some seed on the surface
• Plant Spring plots - I'm not planning on planting dove plots this year but we will still do about 10 acres of deer plots and about 5 acres of perennials - I usually shoot for after April 1 to get this done
• Hopefully build a small deck outside our bedroom door at the cabin to give us more space for washers, chairs, cooking, etc.
• Put up 1 more tree stand if I can find a good location
• General Maintenance - keeping roads and fence lines clear, filling feeders, etc.
• Maybe sell a few weekends of pig and/or turkey hunts to help pay the feed bill or upgrade stands if I can get my dad on board
• Get set up on Harvest Option of MLDP

So from what isn't highlighted, I haven't found a good place yet for my last tree stand but that can wait. We didn't sell any other hunts besides our turkey hunt but we are kicking around the idea of selling a few rifle MLD doe hunts in October to pay some bills. Let me know if you would be interested. Hopefully we can make that happen. And we will go MLDP Harvest Option. I have filled everything out online and just need to pay and print tags. I'll do that in the next month. So the list is in good shape and the countdown is on until deer season!!

[cehorn]

Here are a few of the deer **** pics. We have some other similar bucks that I am hoping to get better pics of this week.

[cehorn]

Here is the gutting table my youngest built with the pig I shot. It is nice to have and even better that he built it!! As you can see it is the same height as the tailgate and where it is sitting in the pics is right under our wench. So everything in 1 spot. The skids slide pretty well on the rocks so it is easy to move out of the way when we aren't using it.

[cehorn]

Here is the new rifle stand my son and his buddy built. We used the tractor to move it out in the field and as I mentioned it should have windows and stairs by Sunday.

[cehorn]

And here is the tank bow blind. We now have 8 of them out and you can see some of the others in previous posts.