Announcement

**bgleaton** · 06-15-2023, 12:58 PM

I went to the ranch this past week and was surprised with how green it is. The pond is up a lot and we only have about 3ft more to go. My son, nephew, and I dropped two Texas Angler fish houses in the pond. These fish habitats are unique because they suspend in the water so I put a cinder block on them so that these fish houses are about 5ft under water. I checked out the gravel spawning bed my brother and nephew made and there were bluegill all over them.

We received a brief rain shower while we were out there (0.10in) which puts us around 10.5in for the year. We are grateful for all of these recent rains and hope to be able to show some big bass coming out of this pond over the next couple of years.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pick up the bluegill fingerlings and the golden shiners because the Brady Lake store didn't have any until Thursday which was the day I was heading back. I'm hopeful that we can stock some more forage fish over the next 2 to 3 weeks out there and really get a good amount of forage fish going for these bass.

**bgleaton** · 06-20-2023, 03:40 PM

We are starting to see some poults for the first time in a long time. We've seen at least two different hens with poults.

A big storm hit our ranch yesterday afternoon. Our weather station is reporting around 1.6in and FarmLogs is showing 2.1in. We're hoping it filled the big pond the last couple of feet.

**DUKFVR** · 06-20-2023, 04:53 PM

Good report! Glad to hear someone is getting rain!

**bgleaton** · 06-21-2023, 08:04 AM

Here's a drone shot of the big pond after we moved the fish feeder on top of the dam. Hoping the water is above some of those green bushes (buttonbush) along the shoreline after the recent rainstorm.

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**bgleaton** · 06-28-2023, 03:49 PM

My parents went out there today and noticed the pond was almost a foot up from where it was due to the rain we got a couple of weeks ago. We haven't been using the well pump at all since that storm killed the power so it automatically turned the well pump off. All of the hand-made structure is now underwater and most of the buttonbushes are also under water so we should have plenty of habitat for the forage fish to start producing. I'm hoping that I'll be going down on July 20th to get an additional 300 2-3in bluegill and 15lbs of golden shiners from the Brady store by the lake. Here are a couple pictures that shows the current pond level. Since the pond is full, we will probably only run the well while we are out there. It's not going to raise the pond level with this heat, we are hoping it helps keep it at the current level.

We purchased our last round of fish habitat and will hopefully be sinking them the same weekend as we stock all of the forage fish. Probably need to drop a couple of cedar trees in the deeper depths as well. We are thinking of adding a dock to this big pond but we don't have any experience with them. Does anyone have any feedback on what type of dock is best or any suggestions?

I included a picture of a couple of bucks. This is one of the bigger 10-pointers from last year. We've seen Big Brows around and about and he still has the tall bladed brow tines but has a big split on one of his brow tines this year. Should be exciting to see how all of these bucks finish out. We've been seeing a lot of fawns at the water troughs and a couple at the feeders. Should be a good fawn crop due to all of the rain we've received over the past 45 days.

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**Rwc** · 06-29-2023, 06:27 AM

Enjoy following along on your families progress. Place looks green and should provide a ton of benefit to all your wildlife. That pond looks really good, wonders what a little rain will do.

Rwc

**Puncher51** · 06-29-2023, 07:25 AM

How’s the moultrie cell cams working for you? Any complaints?

**bgleaton** · 06-29-2023, 07:46 AM

Originally posted by Puncher51 View Post

How’s the moultrie cell cams working for you? Any complaints?

The Moultrie cell cams are the easiest cameras to work and the HD picture quality is top notch. I've been very impressed with these cameras especially since they are a fraction of what the Covert and Spartan cameras cost.

**Puncher51** · 06-29-2023, 08:04 PM

Originally posted by bgleaton View Post

The Moultrie cell cams are the easiest cameras to work and the HD picture quality is top notch. I've been very impressed with these cameras especially since they are a fraction of what the Covert and Spartan cameras cost.

great to hear! I’ll probably end up ordering one or two. Picture quality does look good. I’m assuming you just have the “edge”? I see there is an “edge pro” as well I believe.

**bgleaton** · 06-30-2023, 07:02 AM

Originally posted by Puncher51 View Post

great to hear! I’ll probably end up ordering one or two. Picture quality does look good. I’m assuming you just have the “edge”? I see there is an “edge pro” as well I believe.

We have two of the Moultrie Edge's and purchased the 12v solar panel box so that we never have to change batteries. The first two pictures I've attached are the normal resolution picture that it sends to the app and the third picture is a hi-resolution image that I paid for. Just wanted to share so you can see the normal quality versus the HD quality.

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**Puncher51** · 07-01-2023, 06:04 AM

Great quality, even on the non-HD. Better than SPYPOINT it seems for sure.

**bgleaton** · 07-21-2023, 02:50 PM

Here are some pictures of a couple of our bucks. We have one 3 or 4yr old that is a typical 12-pointer and another 3 or 4yr old that is a typical 10 pointer with several kickers. It has been insanely hot out there so I'm glad that we allowed our grasses to get waist high to help keep the soil shaded as much as possible. I'm hoping to provide an update on the pond along with some other projects we have going out there next week. Have a great day!

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