I understand you may hunt private property where you cannot do any improvements but what about private, lease, public??? What kind of improvemnts do you do?
Last year we had a skid steer in to fix some major erosion issues that a neighbor has that we use. He is landlocked and we felt it was a good gesture along with improving our overall safety using it.
We also fixed the erosion area where we camp also. we lost about 10 feet of our camping area and felt it was time to fix that as well.
This weekend we are having the same guy out to fix more erosion areas on the lease so that it keeps the property up to good condition!
We had a tremendous amount of downfall on most of the logging roads and it was a pain for deer recovery. Last weekend we cleared a bunch of them for better access and to reduce risk of injury.
Just finished up cutting up a huge honey locust tree & cleaning up all the branches on my new farm tonite. The previous owners let several of these lone locust trees grow up out in the middle of the hay ground. Not sure why.
Got most of the hay ground worked up last week. Going to row crop part of it plus putting in 3 food plots in as well.
If a guy had to work as hard at his regular job, he would bitch about it!
Have to agree with Pat on your skid! I wish mine had tracks instead of wheeled. They sure are handy either way!
The skid steer is owned by Brunk Excavating. They do a lot of work here at the MillerCoors Trenton, Ohio brewery.
He is clearing every road we have on the property this weekend and hopefully putting in about a 1-2 acre food plot in the middle of a 350 acre clear cut that was cut 8 years ago!
Also we have 2 small water holes that he will be making bigger so that will make for a nice stand area.
I am thinking I will have about 18-22 miles of cleared logging roads on that 1036 acres? It will be nice for deer recovery. I am 48 years old and the idea of dragging a deer up one of those hills is no longer entertaining.
I have to admit it will also be nice to be able to hike these roads once they are all cleared away.
I will post more photos over the weekend to show improvements on the property.
If anyone in SW Ohio or Northern Ky needs any excavating work shoot me a message and I can give you Jason Brunk contact info.
I have my right hand in a cast and am limitied on what I can do :0)
Our hills are extremely rouged for Ohio standards "Foothills to Appalachia's"
There were two areas he did not get to that were planned. One being my favorite hunting spot :0)
He said he needed an actual dozer because of how steep and rocky they were.
So I think my dad and I are going to have him back up this summer with the actual bull dozer.
I was recently "diagnosed" by a fellow bowsiter as having a borderline addiction to burning pasture. Land improvement is a passion.
I remember damming up little ditches with a shovel as a kid, making ponds during a rain storm. I think that is where it all began....
Not bad for a days work!
I will be back out at property this weekend and will get after photos. I already took the before photos.
It gets a lot easier when the sons' business brings the tracked skid steer and the son in law has a mini-hoe. Things I can't do with the 50 hp front wheel assist tractor are a breeze with their equipment.
We bought an adjacent 55 acres this winter. The future plans for that are CRP in hardwoods and warm season grasses, so habitat work is never ending.
to be honest I dont know much about fruit trees.
Kelly, dwarfs trees will produce quicker but deer will be able to eat alot of the lower limbs as they only get 8-10 ft tall. May want to consider a taller tree.
What type of trees would rou recommend?
Nice place and equipment.
Josh
If you're planting apples to attract and hold deer, don't use palatability as a deciding factor. Here are the factors: (I am not an orchardist so these are my own terms)
1) Ripening "window" ... some varieties ripen and "drop" very early, as early as late June... if you want apples on the ground in October, you'll want a fall ripening variety
2) "Cling" ...to extend the usefuless of the tree, you want a variety that retains some of the fruit well into late fall or even winter. That way in late season, the deer will be checking those trees regularly for those little treats that drop from time to time.
3)Yield.... you want a tree that puts out a LOT of apples....size is less important, in fact deer will utilize smaller diameter apples more readily. You want large numbers of fruit.
4) "Keep" quality. As with "cling" you want fruit that will be there for awhile before it turns to mush. A hard, sour (acidic) apple is best.
5) Hardiness...you wont be pruning, spraying and mollycoddling these trees like an orchardist, so you want a "semi-feral" tree. one that can hold it's own with little or no care.
With these parameters in mind, you are gonna want to steer toward the "heirloom" varieties. The pioneers wanted the same things in an apple tree.
Look at Ganoe/Ben Davis, Johnson, Jonathan, Black Twig (a larger fruit variety but fits the other criteria) and also consider transplanting "volunteer" seedling trees from old farmsites and abandoned houseplaces. These are true "feral" trees with parent stock that may include crabapples as well as a half dozen heirloom varieties. Some of these trees have awfully tasty fruit though it is universally small, hard, and sour.
