A year in the life of a farm

[santana]

Congrats again my friend!

[TildenHunter]

Here's the final tale of the tape. With rack off skull and tight tape:
201 2/8"gross
191 5/8" net
That on a 17 7/8" inside spread
Pretty rare!

Incredible and congrats again. Yall are doing it right. As someone who grew up hunting West Feliciana Parish, I have an appreciation from where you started to where your herd is now!

[BrandonA]

Very cool and awesome buck!!!

[Boomboom]

Here's the final tale of the tape. With rack off skull and tight tape:
201 2/8"gross
191 5/8" net
That on a 17 7/8" inside spread
Pretty rare!

Great buck, congrats Rusty.

[louieagarcia]

Here's the final tale of the tape. With rack off skull and tight tape:
201 2/8"gross
191 5/8" net
That on a 17 7/8" inside spread
Pretty rare!

Incredibly rare! Congrats again Rusty, well deserved!

[Peyton]

Incredible!! Congrats!!!!!!

[dstrong]

Once again phenomenal deer!!!

[roadkill54]

Outstanding

[Mex. Bowhunter]

Congrats again Rusty... Living the dream Buddy

[jakeb03]

Congrats!!! He's a toad!!

[jooger17]

Well it took me almost a week, but I'm caught up and current. Wow! So much information to process.

Congrats on your deer and cat. Life is good!

[tglaser]

Mr. Gato:

I have a question for you re: your best guesses on herd size and herd composition. What do you believe to be the most accurate method for your particular piece of land?

Asking because it seems so much rests upon being able to accurately estimate these metrics, but to the best of my knowledge, even the best of these are somewhat toward the swag end of the spectrum. How heavily would you say intuition plays into it?

Really amazing / inspiring what you've done, by the way. Thank you for taking the time to pass on the knowledge.

[ferrellv]

Congrats

[elgato]

Mr. Gato:

I have a question for you re: your best guesses on herd size and herd composition. What do you believe to be the most accurate method for your particular piece of land?

Asking because it seems so much rests upon being able to accurately estimate these metrics, but to the best of my knowledge, even the best of these are somewhat toward the swag end of the spectrum. How heavily would you say intuition plays into it?

Really amazing / inspiring what you've done, by the way. Thank you for taking the time to pass on the knowledge.

Glad you have enjoyed the thread.

Candidly I don't worry too much about accurately determining exactly how many deer I have. Dr. harry Jacobson has done a lot of research using camera surveys to determine population by placing a camera every 100 acres, identifying known bucks , extrapolating a ratio to observed does and determining population. Needs to be done fall and late winter for best results and is probably the most accurate way for determining population.

Because I live on the farm I go more by observation of the deer, browse, plot and pellet pressure, and figuring how many deer I want to feed. This year we are trying to reduce the overall population because I didn't like my feed bill last year. I especially keep an eye on browse pressure which is a good indicator of population to habitat. To me it doesn't really matter how many deer you have it matters that the deer are all on a high nutritional plane.

Hope this is helpful.

[gingib]

WOW awesome to have cats like that!!!

THis is in Mexico or where?