I wanted to start this thread to show you what my family and I are doing in our area (Texas Edwards Plateau) and share with you what we have been able to accomplish. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nowhere close to what elgato and some others have been able to do on your ranches, but we are trying our best with the resources we have. We had a deer lease for around 10 years in the Richland Springs area and we saw 150-in bucks every year out there after we had strictly managed this place and supplemental fed for quite some time. We got off the lease because we wanted to buy a piece of land and manage it ourselves. We purchased a 395-acre property near Calf Creek, TX on the San Saba river (about 12 miles SW of Brady, TX) in 2011 after the big drought. When we purchased the property, it had been severely overgrazed and not managed for wildlife. There was no supplemental feeding or anything to help the wildlife. During our first year, we put out corn feeders to help attract deer and see what kind of deer where on our place with trail cameras. We gathered the cameras and found there wasn’t anything special due to the drought. We did not graze the property during the first year (2012) to help let the native vegetation come back. We also put out three protein feeders in 2012 – one 1,000lb trough and two 300lb tube feeders and we fed protein from January to the end of August. We saw a lot nicer bucks during the 2012-13 deer season, but nothing that met our goal, which was 140-inches. Since the 2012-13 deer season, we have continued to feed protein, but we purchased two Krivomann feeders (1,000lb & 1,300lb), so we now have a 1,000lb trough feeder, a 1,000lb Krivomann tube feeder, a 1,300lb Krivoman tube feeder and a 300lb tube feeder. Last deer season (2014-15) we saw several bucks that were in the mid 130’s and a lot of quality 1.5 and 2.5yr olds since they have started to grow up with the protein feed. Last year we shot 6 does and two old bucks. We feed 20% protein from December to mid September. We also started to feed cottonseed in December 2014 to help the post-rut bucks and fed cottonseed through the Spring. Our goal is to eventually grow 150-in bucks, but we want to consistently grow 140-in bucks first and we believe we will be there this year. We are also looking to acquire the neighbors 160 acres next door to give us around 520 acres total, which would be great. We have a 3-acre pond stocked with florida bass and other forage fish and a small 1-acre pond and a concrete water tank for the cattle and wildlife. This year, we are letting around 10 cows graze from June to mid September, but we will keep an eye on it and make sure that they are not overgrazing at any point.
So far, we have fed around around 11,000lbs of protein from January 2015 to the end of May 2015. We are looking to start a fall food plot this year and plant wheat, rye and some other legumes and see how it performs. Here is a picture of the area we will be planting this year, which is around 5 acres (see picture below).
We will be planting another food plot in the NW corner of our property in 2016, but we can’t touch it because it’s under contract with the NRCS because they helped us spray cactus and are helping us install another water trough. Here’s a picture of the field that we will plant in 2016:
Here are pictures of our feeder setups:
We clear strips of cedars yearly to help increase the forage for the wildlife (see pictures below).
Here are pictures of the ponds and water trough:
Here are some pictures showing the kind of habitat on our place:
Here are pictures of the ranch house and barn we finished at the beginning of this year:
I will continue to post pictures of our improvements as well as pictures of our deer herd to share with you all. I would love to hear your input and suggestions to help us get to our goal of producing some really nice bucks. I understand that this is going to be tough since this is a low fence ranch and a smaller property, but we will continue to try to improve the property and grow a quality deer herd as well manage other wildlife habitat. I will try to post pictures of some of the bucks we saw this past deer season.
So far, we have fed around around 11,000lbs of protein from January 2015 to the end of May 2015. We are looking to start a fall food plot this year and plant wheat, rye and some other legumes and see how it performs. Here is a picture of the area we will be planting this year, which is around 5 acres (see picture below).
We will be planting another food plot in the NW corner of our property in 2016, but we can’t touch it because it’s under contract with the NRCS because they helped us spray cactus and are helping us install another water trough. Here’s a picture of the field that we will plant in 2016:
Here are pictures of our feeder setups:
We clear strips of cedars yearly to help increase the forage for the wildlife (see pictures below).
Here are pictures of the ponds and water trough:
Here are some pictures showing the kind of habitat on our place:
Here are pictures of the ranch house and barn we finished at the beginning of this year:
I will continue to post pictures of our improvements as well as pictures of our deer herd to share with you all. I would love to hear your input and suggestions to help us get to our goal of producing some really nice bucks. I understand that this is going to be tough since this is a low fence ranch and a smaller property, but we will continue to try to improve the property and grow a quality deer herd as well manage other wildlife habitat. I will try to post pictures of some of the bucks we saw this past deer season.
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