Gleaton Chip Ranch Updates

[bgleaton]

Mass depends on the buck on our place. Some bucks will have good mass throughout and some don’t. We typically see the tall/narrow framed bucks tend to have the best mass, at least that’s what we’ve seen over the past couple of years. I have one of his sheds from last fall. I’ll measure it this weekend and let you know.

The plan is for one of us to try and harvest him this year. He’a a smart buck! He was seen 3 different times all last fall/winter. We try to harvest the bucks around 7.5yrs of age which is right where we have him aged. Our biologist scored him at 154 but I think he’s right around 148-151. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. When I saw him in person last year as a 9pt I thought he was around 145in and he has added a G4 on his right side and his mass and beams seem to have improved so our fingers are crossed that he is around 150in.

[gingib]

His mass will hurt him some. I think he is right below 150.

Send hard horned pics.

Definitely need to shoot all those 8s

[Daddy D]

Great looking buck. I see 155" on him.

[ArcheryAddict]

154 depending on mass.....hard to try to narrow that measurement down with velvet.

[powderburner]

I have him older than 7.5 hes old. upper 140s maybe 150.. I am always off when it comes to mass.

[bgleaton]

I’ll be sure to add hard horned pictures once he sheds velvet. I think he will be high 140’s....I’m guessing 147. Hopefully we will be able to ground check him this fall.

[TildenHunter]

I didn't put a pen and paper to it but I think he breaks 150". His mass looks good. I think he will be 152 3/8". Ha, best of luck and let us know what he ends up at.

[Jmh05]

Wow! This is a great thread. I'll follow.

[bgleaton]

More Pics of 10pt

Here are two pictures of the big 10pt without velvet:

[bgleaton]

The goal this year is to shoot all the deer in our MLD tags (10 doe and 5 bucks) and 4-5 blackbuck doe. We have gone through 22,000lbs of protein by mid September. Need to remove some mouths this fall. Hoping to plant our fall plots (oats and wheat) in early October.

[bgleaton]

We are hoping to plant our fall food plots (wheat and oats) around mid October if we can find a week with some good rain chances. Will probably do the same thing we did last year, which worked great:
1. Broadcast seed and fertilizer
2. Mow fields to create a thin thatch layer
3. Use cultipacker behind UTV

We did this last year and had great results. We are hoping to continue to do this without discing up the dirt and helping improve the soil over time. We will still use our discs in different areas and do some fallow disking in the fall to promote some forb growth.

[Puncher51]

PM sent

[bgleaton]

We broadcasted a beardless winter wheat yesterday in our two food plots (4.5 acres total). We broadcasted around 100lbs/acre and then ran the cultipacker over it all.
Hopefully the rain tonight, tomorrow, and on Tuesday will provide a good start.

[RMW]

Haven’t checked up on your progress in a good while and I can tell you your deer are getting noticeably bigger every year. Great job

[bgleaton]

Thanks for the kind words!

It doesn't look like we are going to get as much rain as we thought so this years fall food plots aren't going to be great, but if we can get a little wheat to grow, that's better than nothing. I purchased some more native seed today that I will be seeding into a couple of different areas to help improve the native grasses and forbs. I purchased 3-acres worth of Turner Seed Texas Perennial Wildlife Mix, 4lbs of Illinois Bundleflower, and 4lbs of Western Ragweed. We are going to do the following test and see which does better:
1. Disk a 1-acre field, cultipack, broadcast seed, cultipack.
2. Hand spread seed into areas where we cut cedars down. Going to let the cedar trees lay on top of seeded areas to allow the needles to drop over top, keep the soil cooler and retain moisture, and the skeletons should help keep deer and cattle from grazing the new plants.

I'm curious to see which method provides the best results.