Stressless's 2021 Season Journal

[Stressless]

With the days about to get shorter now that the Summer Solstice is upon us I'm looking forward to the fall '21 hunting seasons. I think my efforts and time afield will be like usual 90% will be WTD but I'm hopeful the woodie's I've been building for 3-4 years now will give me some waterfowl fun.

I've been outlining my farms overall plan, changes and methodologies in my TOO wildlife habitat blog - https://theohiooutdoors.com/threads/stressless-farm-blog-wildlife-habitat-improvements.26114/ basically the lines of efforts consist of 2 primary things - first is changing the farm's food plotting from 100% legume food plots which serve browse ~late Apr to late Oct to portion the plots into 25% Legumes and 75% Aug-Apr food sources of brassicas and peas/beans/oats -then cereal grains. We don't have Ag anywhere near so I think (hope?) that's about the right mix. 2nd is adding daylight woody browse/thermal cover/edge to the hardwoods mono-culture via TSI. The 2nd effort is complete except for planting 2-3 groups of 4 or 5 conifers in the openings I've created. Adding the conifers got slid to 2022.

In the Jan muzzleloading season my son and I bumped the #1 hitlister Niles out and he got his picture taken taken by the Outfitter to the North. He didn't have a picture from Aug until Jan and it's only about 400-500 yards/ He's been baiting hard since that pic in Jan - he posts his baiting pics and has drawn several velvet bucks to his 1200# gravity feeder... So we'll see. Niles if he lived, if he grows as expected, If he returns to the Fall/winter range he was in the last two season's I believe he'll be a 4.5 this year. I suspect he was 140-150" 8pt and this year might be a classic 150+ 8pt. I'll be watching but not necessarily holding my breath as there ought to be a number of quality bucks on the roster for this fall. It is fun to watch them grow and be able to share with the neighbors that collaborate in the habitat and management goals.

Niles 2.5 y/o 2019 season

Niles 3.5 y/o 2020 season

Current status of the plot/plan... Updated 21 Aug 21

Looking forward to posting on the buildup to the season and of course watching the others journals work thru challenges and eventual successes. Thx to the admins for creating this virtual space for us to share!

 

[Stressless]

Beamed into the farm while on a work telcon and Ma, Pa and kids came into the SkiJump food plot - I'm thinking this is Niles but only slightly biased guess this early... the the crooked left beam brow tine. It'll be interesting to see if this is him and how he develops.

Dutton has been PID'd last week.

 

[Stressless]

Dutton is alive and well - growing nicely. Fun to watch a nice buck and see the Eastern Phoebe come up and look for ticks on his back. Caught him in a moment of privacy - His look, "Hey I'm peeing here!"

I didn't add any sound track to it so sit back with your playlist and watch a nice buck browse for awhile - season is just a couple months away.

 

[Wildlife]

Heck of system you have there! I like it! I may need some of your advice on setting one up for my place when I get around to it. Pretty darn cool!

 

[Stressless]

Medium probably right now but thinking Stewart from '20 made it thru...

One of the things I enjoy is helping promote bucks to the next age class, never thought I'd be doing QDM but here we are.

 

[giles]

He needs to drop that extra point...almost my perfect dream deer.

 

[Stressless]

With all the heavy equipment, running back and forth etc, Dutton is still hanging close. Lots of Jun Jul and Aug 'monthly' tasks all got rolled into this touch point getting ready for the '21 season.

Reset a couple licking branches and trimming shooting lanes. Stands today and Thurs, more pond work and food plot MTX. Fun Fun!!

 

[Stressless]

Been a busy busy time on the farm, even without the major pond project.

Plots are all dialed in. Last thing is a application first week of September of cereal rye, 200#/A on the greens side of the plot and 100#/A overseeded into the legumes and 40#/A urea into the brassicas.

Bunch of new projects created since last season supporting lines of movement in areas that hadn't been notable.

-Bedding / late season browse, 13 areas
-two new food plots that are coming in very nicely.

Bottom legume plot.

And Potato plot that has annuals just germinating

Set some cams to catch possible movement corridors... stands not up as I don't know where the silly critters with establish their movement patterns... with a gun I'd be done, but I hunt 97.5% with a bow I'm limited to 60yds swatch more like a 30-35yd accommodating wind and access.... we'll see. Having fun and trying to dial in the stands already in place.

Hung two new licking branchs that'll be dynamite come hard horned in a month or so.

 

[Stressless]

This season, in 2021 I added the bedding areas/woody browse in what should be good locations - split a number of plots to include brassica and rye instead of just rye, and peas, and oats to the rye areas first week of Aug.

Question:
I am planning on adding annual crimson clover at 20#/acre to the Rye (peas and oats) plots and also, at a lessor seeding rate, 10#/acre, to the perennial legume plots as a sweetener in the rye and supposed to last longer in the fall than the perennial legumes.

With TSI I've opened a bunch of bedding/woody browse in my sanctuary pretty much ringed 200 yrds away with food plots. interested to see how this shakes out this season - first year for the solid plots and bedding combo.

Each of those little brown areas with a green outline looks like this with multipul paths thru them....

 

[Stressless]

Actually really happy with my spreadsheet - did some reading in various forums and seeding a little longer lasting annual clover into a established legume plot doesn't seem effective. so just took them out - chatted with he neighbor and he said he needed about 23# of annual crimson clover - could I make due with 27#?

SO we get a deal buying a 50# bag, brought up my food plot seed calculator - deleted seeding that in my legumes plots and then just went down to the #/acre entry. Crimson clover annual is supposed to be 15-20#/acre so I had 20 initially. Entered 17#/acre, total cme to like 29#, entered 16.5#/acre total 27.2# total clover seed needed and it figures out how much per acre.

I've got small plots and each one of my "Yellow" Rye plots already has 20# of oats and 120#peas / acre and in about two weeks is getting 200# rye and now 16.5# of crimson clover / acre.. I measure to try and not over/under apply in areas as small as 1/10 acre. You may think it'ld be a PITA to measure out this but I put this little guy on the counter add a SS bowl, beside that gallon ziplocs / Plot names from two years ago in sharpie on the bags.

It subtracts the weight of the bowl when it calibrates - pour seed in with a coffee can - it can go up to 22#'s Get your weight, like 2.8# for GreenBrier plot, dump into the GreenBrier bag and measure the next one. Drop all the bags in order the plots are in and the Greenwise spreader and feather those little seeds out accordingly...

Frontpad this AM half of FrontPad plot with peas and oats, closer and brassicas in the further half. This FrontPad Rye half got in last, sown 15 Aug, as it was used by Mose the contractor as laydown area for equipment and such doing the pond rebuild work. All the other plots were in 2 Aug.

Only oops we had was neighbor had some left over Glyphophate and if I could use any on my plots - well this was before seeding in Aug 3 so I said Frontpad... Well I failed to mention the yearling switchgrass that was actually doing kinda good.... that's the dead grass in the front of the picture ...

 

[Fletch]

Looking good... Good Luck this season...

 

[Stressless]

Dutton rolling from bedding to the spoil plot mid-day, like clockwork... haven't filled that feeder since I put it there.

 

[Reagan]

Did you create the seed calculator or did you find it on line?

 

[Stressless]

@Reagan - I created it, pm an email and I'll send it to you if you'd like. There's another tab to do fertilizer rates as well.

Wrote about it here...

Stressless 2020 compendium

Since I've only been on TOO about 6 months I wanted to bring this together with a focus on the overall management of the farm, the things I thought about, the hypothesis of experiments and of course the results of the experimentation. I had thought l'ld manage the "year" as ODNR does, Sep-Aug...

theohiooutdoors.com

Some guys laff at measuring and getting the applications tightened up. Sprays, seeds, fertilizer etc... I follow what the big brains at Ag Universities test and publish. All good either way.

 

[Stressless]

Had an issue with a unlawful trespasser/dumping on my land so I made the best of it in an unexpected 36hr visit to the farm. Packed about 30hrs of chores into the "Go Time" of 39 hours from touchdown to takeaoff. Folks know I'm on a hair trigger with trespassers and here's the reason.

My view where so dirtbag dumped into the Pond I just had all that work done.

So in that limited time I had - getting this mess cleaned up and off my land was the prioirty. From making the call to the Sheriff's office to getting back from the dump (12 Contractor bags full) it ate 10 solid working hours.

The only way I could manage was sliding down that steep face - taking the trash strewn everywhere - and getting the boat to portage it across the pond and up and out the new road.

Good news is Crescent Pond is at least one foot to 18" higher.

I want to shout out to Dep Tucker, we dug the names and addresses from the dirtbags trash. He in 'battle rattle' went down/up the cliff face twice, I did secure a rope as there was no way to make it up that face without one. Dirtbags trash from Rx for ... take a wild guess... oxycodone. Dep Tucker became interested.

It happened because Mose didn't close off the access like to told him to - but I left the job site before he did that part. I called him to come back and get the end closed off as we'd agreed so he said Sat at first light we'd fix it.

So where this happened, it's all good now, we closed that off for good yesterday morning. One thing I have is trees and an ability to drop them. Mose with his excavator was great - we stacked a bunch of 20"+ trees where they accessed it.

---

Now on with the fun parts. In the time I had left.

Put two completly new stand in - PinchPoint and TipTop. Both are cursing areas that between bedding and food - new licking braches installed on both trail convergenace areas and a dark ops. Shooting lanes and hinge cut some trees to help funnel.

I've been able to dial in my perennial legume plots over the last two years. Bottom, Greenbrier, Spoil and Ski Jump. I had Greenbrier updated this spring, buckwheat din't have a chance in that 'soil' the oats are doing really well. This was Catalpa Stand last (finally figured out what kind of tree that stand was in - Catalpa Tree) year - looking at the upper side of Greenbrier food plot.

This is what we'll be seeing this year. Left part legumes and the new part is thick oats and just sowed 34# of rye and 2.3# of crimson clover.

There's a stand about 10yards behind where this pic is taken.

Spoil plot has responded very nicley to a couple mowings. Moved/updated the licking branch on the South side.

Got some feeders up and filled spread some golden acorns a couple others to see what's going on. My brassicas polts, Potato, Front and Back pad, parts of Pipleline are all getting smashed - just like the buckwheat. I didn't toss in the towel and sow rye but I was tempted. First time trying brassicas and I want to see how it turns out. If I find them totaly wiped out in Oct I'll hit them 250-300# rye /ace. "Never take dirt into the season- plant something."

This particular plot I split and it has nice oats and winter peas... so this was 'intentional' LoL... The utilization cage above is in front the crab apples across from these oats and peas - which just got 46# of rye and 3.1 of annual clover.. 3.1 you say -

 

[Stressless]

Ha - Picture limit.

So 3.1# of clover -

Another interesting in my area the Beech's are absolutely loaded and sagging under the mast crop. I had t otrim some and every branch was like this.

Trimmed up and rebuilt 6 other stands. All are hunt ready.

Cut a new trail to Spoil stand about 200" from the back end of the new road along Crescent Pond - found this deadhead down there - cut the trail right to him and passed it at least twice while I was fine tuning it. Gonna check my pics from the last couple years but not one from last year.

Cut

 

[Wildlife]

Your place looks absolutely beautiful!

My biggest pet-peeve next to poachers, is trespassers and those that tosh trash wherever they see fit. Those three things just burn my ass to no end. I deal with all three of them constantly since I moved where I am at today. Our local authority folks and our WO knows me on a first name basis, for a reason, and perhaps my cell number as well. I have what I consider a real good relationships with them, and I totally appreciate what they have done for me since we have lived here. Totally good guys!

Anyhow, sorry to see that mess, as I can imagine how disgusted and angry you felt when you discovering it. Hopefully the deputy catches up with that douchebag in the we earlier morning hours and scares the livin crap out of him, then haul his sorry ass to jail, and pay restitution too!

Good luck with that!

 

[Stressless]

Well - Mooch brought a video over last night from his last day hunting in 2020, we were ROTFL as he was target fixed on the lil' buck in the beginning, and never saw Niles walk across the opening... I edited the video to capture Niles ... that's the second time Niles was spotted in daylight and in the exact same place/direction - last year - but that good'nuf. New stand location!

Goes to show when a decent buck gets all tightened up - LOOK where he's LOOKING.

 

[Stressless]

Since I've got small plots I know they can get over browsed very quickly - tried splitting them to ease the pressure on a crop and focus the browse on the other half, half brassica and the other half winter peas, and oats last month and rye and crimson clover earlier this month.

Been awhile since I gotten a pic of deer in the brassicas side. ... and yes I'm aware the distance to the far side - just hasn't been any over there in the background for over a week. IF that's actually the case, and we get a good soaking in the nest 36 hours as forecast, the plots will be as dialed in as I can make them for the season. I am greatful I am able to try my hand at being a land and game steward, this is five years since I planted my first seed in my first food plot.

I find forums like this and couple others to be an invaluable asset in learning and growing knowledge outside of your individual outdoors wheelhouse.

 

[giles]

Brassica, I think, is a plant that they really like after a freeze/frost. Turns sweet