A year in the life of a farm

[LHPanther]

Incredible buck Rusty. Love your south Texas deer! Beautiful!

[Bowhuntinonly]

Congrats on another great buck!

[JeffK]

Rusty, do you happen to have pics of the bucks taken off your farm this year?

Did the heavy palmated buck get a pass or was he harvested?

[JAGR]

Rusty, are you going to put another video together after the season?

[FCTrapper]

Awesome Buck Rusty. Congrats.

[Rwc]

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!

Congratulations, you have the upper hand on a fantastic management / harvest program.

Threads like this one keep many members active!

Thanks a million for taking time to keep us informed.

Rwc

[Mr Sid]

Thank you, Mr. Baker, for another great year on your farm. Some threads on TBH entertain, there are two threads ongoing that entertain and Educate. "A year in the life-" by elgato, and "Pressured deer-" by GarGuy, should both be preserved / made a sticky as both are great reference material for any whitetail Hunter.
Mr Sid

[elgato]

I just did this season end write up for the folks that are involved in our program. Thought I'd share here. Our season has ended and so begins the work to grow next seasons buck. I'll try and post the significant events.


Thought I’d give a unofficial nonprofessional review of the season just ended. Seems a long time since we first started hunting Oct. 1.

Perhaps more than anything else this season and this year has been characterized by flooding. We are on our 5th flood now . Summer flooding covered over a thousand acres , ruined numerous food plots and compressed lots of deer together on the high ground. There the crowded deer quickly ate all the plots to nothing and even though we kept the feeders full quality was significantly compromised. My takeaway from that is while our pellet program does help and add inches far more important are the things we grow. I say this because all the best bucks were where they had unlimited food plots AND pellets. The other takeaway is that flooding is defining the amount of land we have to manage deer and thus population. We need to respond accordingly as much of the flooded country becomes essentially a desert for some time even after the floods recede . The expansion of the 2 plots Frank did this year will help. We may need to remove even more deer next year to ensure we keep our quality as top priority.

We did fairly well on harvest this year. On the total property Frank took 30 does and we took 34.He took 5 bucks and we took 17. 86 total. It remains to be seen if we actually reduced the population as I hoped though I doubt it. Nonetheless I am happy with the deer removed. Of the 17 bucks we took, 3 were found dead including the 180” 8 pt., and a great young 3 yr old. Also included in that number were 3 button fawns, two 2 yr olds, two 3 yr olds, two 4 yr olds, and the rest 6 or older. I’m unsure of the makeup of Franks bucks . Overall I think we did a good job with deer removal. While on the surface we would have preferred not to remove any button fawns or bucks under 4 such things happen and I’m more interested in getting mouths out of the herd. As I’ve always said, it is far more important what deer are left, than what deer are removed. I believe we only need about 40-50 does on our side to meet reproduction requirements. Any extras are surplus compromising our ability to grow top end bucks. AS bucks get to be 4 or older unless they are super stars they also serve no purpose and as we have seen can kill bucks with promising futures. Population control continues to be my number ONE concern.


To that end I believe our herd is in fantastic shape for the coming year. Known bucks still out there include BF 10 at easily 190+, high line nontypical at mid 180’s as 5 yr old, Thor mid 70’s and a giant of a deer, the 22 pt at 4 and a super star, several other young 10’s that scare 170, plus waves of 1,2,and 3 yr olds. Now we just need to feed them.

Our fall food plots were a mixed bag. The star of the show was chicken litter. I am delighted with the results in the plots with litter. We will expand that significantly as the farm dries out. Some of the plots still look anemic and we will work on that this summer. I like our mixes and think they performed as hoped even though we got them in extremely late. I think the brassicas more than anything suffered from the late planting. Acreage on our side seems more than adequate to meet population as none of the plots show any sign of pressure. Hopefully the expansion of Franks plots help meet late winter demand for him especially since flooding ruined several of his fields. I can’t wait to get the summer plots going. Right now I think our primary mix will be a combination of sunn hemp, cowpeas, soybeans, sunflowers, milo and buckwheat.

Hunting conditions were the toughest I can remember. Unseasonably hot weather with heavy rains early , followed by a gigantic acorn crop made it hard to find anything. I scarcely saw any rut. The good news is that the rut was fast and furious ending quickly and the deer didn’t get very run down. With the acorns and plots they recovered quickly and that bodes well for next year.

Even with al the challenges it was a great season. I’m already looking forward to seeing what we can grow this year.

RB

[santana]

good write up rusty!!

[JeffK]

Awesome like always! Mind sharing a pic of the big 8?

[elgato]

Showed him before but worth another look. two bucks locked up and slipped into pond. They probably would have freed themselves but once in the water it was over. 4 yr old. Long beams and giant mass

[hallp82]

That's an absolute shame. That was an amazing animal!

If one was to look for a place to lease in Mexico, where would one start?

[BolilloLoco]

That's an absolute shame. That was an amazing animal!

If one was to look for a place to lease in Mexico, where would one start?

If youre interested in hunting Old Mexico, go spend some time on one of the Mexico threads. You will find plenty of help there. Just ask.

[Sigwoman]

Following

[JeffK]

Showed him before but worth another look. two bucks locked up and slipped into pond. They probably would have freed themselves but once in the water it was over. 4 yr old. Long beams and giant mass

Forgot about that one. I was thinking maybe it was the 8 pt from your post #478 the other year that had the main beams that almost touched.