Hard to believe it is time to start thinking about, and preparing for, yet another deer season. This coming fall will be a special one for me as it marks the 10th season since dad bought the farm in late October 2005. I was fresh out of college, ate up with deer and stoked to become the southern Ohio version of Mark Drury. Boy did I get an education! :smiley_blackeye:
It is amazing how things change in a decade and for me, life is completely different at 32 as it was at 22. Gone is the disposable income of an unmarried, young professional. Same with all that spare time that comes with life without kids. And fading fast is the burning desire to chase mature whitetails with every fiber of my being. I have a few spare coins, not much time and a burning desire to hunt ducks, not deer. However much like the crazy ex-girlfriend that you keep banging even though you know it is a bad idea, deer keep worming their way back in to my life. I think it was easier to stop smoking than it has been to stop focusing on deer!
And so it goes... another year, another attempt at fulfilling a dream I thought would come fairly easy back in 2005: Kill a mature (OBB qualifying) buck off our farm. I know last season's preferred target buck made it through the season unscathed and at 4 years old, he'll be my #1 regardless of score. So this last weekend I kicked things off with a shed/scouting trip to see what was shaking since I hadn't stepped foot out there in nearly 10 weeks. Per usual, I left empty handed in the shed department, but it was not a wasted trip. From the looks of things, the numbers are on the rebound. The last doe killed off our place (and the adjoining land - 130 acres) was on opening day in 2011. I found some great evidence that a couple big bodied deer made it through, one of which I hope is Darryl Dawkins. I snapped a few pics of the better trails I found:
I watched this rub go down in November. The same evening I had my encounter with Darryl, he crossed the creek here and hit this rub.
This was an unexpected trail as I don't normally see much activity on this side of the farm. Deer must be holing up on the neighbor's and crossing over to hit my foot plots.
This has always been one of the best trails on the farm. It follows an E/W shelf on the N side of our creek. It connects bedding/oak flat with corn/beans. I rarely hunt up there due to access. Last year I did some hinge cutting up there to thicken up the cover. So far I'm not impressed...
My dad sent me a text last Friday that read: 6 deer in the big plot. Let's build a shooting house.
Sunday is our weekly family dinner and over dinner we talked about the shooting house. He wants to build it in a place I'm not sold on, but it will work with a few changes to my food plot layout. And since he's footing the bill, I'll live with it! He is securing 6" drill pipe for the legs and we will be building an 8' x 12' shooting house overlooking the intersection of the two hollers that define the entire layout of our farm. Right in front of the blind will be a nice clover plot with apple trees surrounding it. I'll plant the clover this fall and the trees next spring. With a home appraisal on my docket for later this summer and LONG list of shit to do before then, I can't spend much time improving the farm this year. However once I am done with the house, I'll free up time (and $) so that next year I can set a lot of habitat improvements in motion.
So stay tuned. Lots of good things to come from Sandridge Outfitters this year.
Sandridge Outfitters: Where we can fuck up an anvil with a rubber mallet...
It is amazing how things change in a decade and for me, life is completely different at 32 as it was at 22. Gone is the disposable income of an unmarried, young professional. Same with all that spare time that comes with life without kids. And fading fast is the burning desire to chase mature whitetails with every fiber of my being. I have a few spare coins, not much time and a burning desire to hunt ducks, not deer. However much like the crazy ex-girlfriend that you keep banging even though you know it is a bad idea, deer keep worming their way back in to my life. I think it was easier to stop smoking than it has been to stop focusing on deer!
And so it goes... another year, another attempt at fulfilling a dream I thought would come fairly easy back in 2005: Kill a mature (OBB qualifying) buck off our farm. I know last season's preferred target buck made it through the season unscathed and at 4 years old, he'll be my #1 regardless of score. So this last weekend I kicked things off with a shed/scouting trip to see what was shaking since I hadn't stepped foot out there in nearly 10 weeks. Per usual, I left empty handed in the shed department, but it was not a wasted trip. From the looks of things, the numbers are on the rebound. The last doe killed off our place (and the adjoining land - 130 acres) was on opening day in 2011. I found some great evidence that a couple big bodied deer made it through, one of which I hope is Darryl Dawkins. I snapped a few pics of the better trails I found:
I watched this rub go down in November. The same evening I had my encounter with Darryl, he crossed the creek here and hit this rub.
This was an unexpected trail as I don't normally see much activity on this side of the farm. Deer must be holing up on the neighbor's and crossing over to hit my foot plots.
This has always been one of the best trails on the farm. It follows an E/W shelf on the N side of our creek. It connects bedding/oak flat with corn/beans. I rarely hunt up there due to access. Last year I did some hinge cutting up there to thicken up the cover. So far I'm not impressed...
My dad sent me a text last Friday that read: 6 deer in the big plot. Let's build a shooting house.
Sunday is our weekly family dinner and over dinner we talked about the shooting house. He wants to build it in a place I'm not sold on, but it will work with a few changes to my food plot layout. And since he's footing the bill, I'll live with it! He is securing 6" drill pipe for the legs and we will be building an 8' x 12' shooting house overlooking the intersection of the two hollers that define the entire layout of our farm. Right in front of the blind will be a nice clover plot with apple trees surrounding it. I'll plant the clover this fall and the trees next spring. With a home appraisal on my docket for later this summer and LONG list of shit to do before then, I can't spend much time improving the farm this year. However once I am done with the house, I'll free up time (and $) so that next year I can set a lot of habitat improvements in motion.
So stay tuned. Lots of good things to come from Sandridge Outfitters this year.
Sandridge Outfitters: Where we can fuck up an anvil with a rubber mallet...