Eastern NC 35

[Charlieyca]

I manage, hunt, and co own 35 acres with my father in southeastern NC, pender county to be exact. We purchased the land in the summer of 2015. I use the term work, but we have spent more time cutting, walking, chopping, picking up, planting and researching than we have been in a stand. Never knew that I could be looking forward to december and january to make improvements to the habitat as much as i look forward to the actual hunt. Thanks to WPBDEER for showing me this website and hooking me up with some chestnuts for my students to grow.
closeup of a perennial white clover plot in the front 1/3rd of the property
Here is current middle food plot with brassicas and rye
here is middle plot brassicas with rye mixed in from the stand view. Also can see 3 kieffer pears and 3 plums on the left side
Here is first plot, also has poor coverage due to torrential rains a few weeks back flooding out the plot. this
This is part of an old loading deck near the road that is approximately 2ft of pine mulch. Is it very wet and thick with mulch that has been slow to breakdown. Have planted heavy on the rye is an effort to speed up decomp of mulch and bark and limed heavily as well.

 

[Charlieyca]

Dominant oak species for most of the property is the water oak. Most of them are in bunches of 3 or 4 as they sprouted from old stumps. Have released around about 20 and cut them down to 1 main tree.

here is the view from the front box stand over looking the white clover in the food plot and a shooting lane through the thick pines to the left out of the picture.
This is what 75% of the land looked like when we bought it.
thats my day with the metal blade on the weedeater before we made friends with a bushhog owner!
Here is an area that is probably considered wetland so we have not done anything around it. maybe 2 to 3 acres is real swampy like this area.
lots of wild blackberries and blueberries scattered over the entire property. Will make tracka deer difficult through all the briars. This is what we call the mulch pile and is an area we are trying to breakdown the wood and bark left by the loggers before we bought the property.

 

[Charlieyca]

Had to check my plots and make sure deer weren't eating my brassicas before the storm, filled in nicely since last flood

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[Charlieyca]

crimson clover and rye at 4 weeks old

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[dogdoc]

Some pretty land. Plots look good for being flooded. Good deer numbers?

Glad you joined up and look forward to more updates.

Todd

 

[Charlieyca]

Partially flooded, I don't know the dpsm but it's above average, 2nd year doing plots and we hit the timing right. Almost too much rain, 30% was underwater but most coming back and was just stunted.

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[Charlieyca]

Have a momma and a yearling eating now. Long shot for the smoke pole though.

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[W33kender]

Nice pics. keep em coming.

 

[Charlieyca]

here's the road looking towards my stand

here's front plot from the road

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[Charlieyca]

Here is my first attempt at planting brassicas. This is a 1/3rd acre plus a little. I bought 5 lbs each of turnips, radish, and rape from the feed store. Mixed them up and set aside half for this plot. I know most plotters use a specific ratio of each seed, but I wanted to try an even amount of each, mainly so I can remember next year ad experiment on my own. AFter a heavy rain, we spread 25 lbs of rye, then approx 8 lbs of brassicas. Used the homemade cultipacker to make a couple passes around, since we were relying on soil moisture instead of rain for germination.
Here is 1 week after germination. Most of what you see is rye that shot up like a cannon. But there is lots of tiny brassicas sprouts in there as well.


2 Weeks after planting you can see some of the big broadleafs of the brassicas showing up, with lots more smaller sprouts filling in the areas that were bare last week. We put a bag of fertilizer out ahead of some heavy rains in the forecast and to limit our intrusions the next few weeks as muzzleloader season approaches.


Here is 3 weeks from planting, also opening day of muzzleloader. At this point I deemed my first planting a success. Even though I think i seeded too heavily initially and some spots flooded out, there is food for the deer that my neighbors do not have. If were not in the crosshairs of a hurricane, I would reseed some of the barespots.


Here is 4 weeks from planting. The open spots are filling in nicely, making me rethink having to reseed them. No yellow leaves. Have not thoroughly examined the plot, but can not see any evidence of browsing. Daytime temps are in the 80s still, which is limiting all daytime trail cam images. After the storm will be moving trail cams from the trails to the plots.


Hopefully, someone can get something from the timeline. Those more experienced than I (everyone) please feel free to make suggestions for next year or any maintenance of the plots.

 

[Charlieyca]

Friday nights low was in the 40s for the first time all year, So I headed to the farm with my dad. Before the sun come up I had a 6,4, and 3 point buck walk through a plot or the shooting lanes, but none stopped to feed. Around 730 2 does worked their way down the road, fed for about 30 mins. Behind them way up the road I see a coyote, so I wait til they spook from the yote and then dropped the yote. I hated to shoot with the does close, but it was worth it to get rid of a yote.

Saturday night was even colder, so I went back the next mornign and hunted the same stand. As soon as there was enough light to see, I notice a flash of white in the back of brassicas plot. He was walking across the back of the plot, maybe 40 yds wide, with his nose to the ground. I figured he was not going to stop and was just checking for does. He was getting close to out of sight, so I put it on him and eased the trigger. He mule kicked and turned sideways into the thick brush and sounded like he crashed. It all happened in about 7 secs. I sat there for about 30 mins waiting and wondering. Is he down? How big is he? Is he the 6 with the gimpy leg or the 8 with huge eye guards? You can see the brassicas around him. I shot him at this spot. He ran maybe 20 yards into the woods and crashed in some briars. I brought him back out for the photo op.
My daughter helped me spread all the seed this year and asked if this deer was eating her turnips (we ate a couple raw golf ball sized turnips last week). I said of course, that's why i shot him.
Two years ago this girl would run screaming from a butterfly. Yesterday, she watched me clean the deer and then asked can I show her what all the "stuff" is inside. It's fun watching grow up from little knotheads.

 

[Charlieyca]

Yesterday afternoon went by the local lowes and they had a few trees marked down, so I picked up 5 pear trees. 2 pineapple pears and 3 flordahome pears. They were planted in a row along a roadside down the middle of the property, next to the 5 keiffers and 3 asian pears from last year. Dont know how well they do as wildlife pears but right now just focusing on some diversity within the orchard.

Planted them about 20ft apart, both varieties look to grow tall and straight like the kieffers. Dug a 10$ hole for a 5$ tree as grandma says. covered with landscape fabric 3ft x3 ft and then a bag of mulch to hold the fabric down.

 

[Charlieyca]

Here is an aerial of the property with labels
Red is sanctuary, no human contact except for spring time
Yellow is property boundary, total of 35 acres, 150 yds north to south, approx 1000 yds east to west
white is clearings, either lanes or plots
yellow is gun stands
red bow stands
blue is stand locations for next year
green is clover
teal is new areas to be cleared next year

 

[Charlieyca]

The yellow is my property, the green is a property that is currently being logged. Have seen a few deer come from this side, but most of the deer come from the west or north.

 

[Charlieyca]

here is the surrounding area. Most of the green is pine timber, field are mostly rotation of corn, wheat, then beans

 

[Charlieyca]

The blue is 2 small creeks that are lined with the only real mature trees on the property, a hardwood mix with only a few oaks.
The green is the food plots divided into 1/3rds of the farm (minus the sanctuary at the back.

 

[Charlieyca]

Speaking of sanctuary, If you had this property, would you make this 7-8 acres a sanctuary?

Property is only 35 acres and this area is furthest from the road access (800 yds) I wonder if it would be beneficial to put a stand on each of the back corners of this property to watch the far side of the thicket?. The western border has a v-ditch that the deer like to follow . The vegetation in the red block is so thick you cant see 15ft in any direction.

 

[wbpdeer]

Regarding possible stands in the northwest and southwest corners of the sanctuary, how would you get to them?

Would you walk the property line to get to them, or create a trail structure?

I do like the areas you intend to clear next year. You are definitely headed in the right direction regarding your planning and development.

I believe in the principle, what you do - do it well. It takes time and each year will improve this property.

 

[Charlieyca]

For the southwest stand we would walk the south property line and Northwest stand walk the north line. The north line is cleared from the road to the far West and the south line is a goal for this winter. Most of our winds on good hunting days are from the north so we need more setups on the southern line

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[Charlieyca]

I didn't know if I should clear a lane through the sanctuary, so even though I wasn't walking through in it, I could see into it.

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