Hooked for Life

A few days ago we bought Caleb his first rod & reel.  It was a Mickey Mouse combo and looked deadly.  He spent the first couple days practicing off the deck, perfecting his jigging and casting.  Then yesterday we put his newfound skills to the test.

He was fishing the buggy bottoms of the East Fork Des Moines River in Kossuth County.  We were on a camping trip visiting an old friend and his family.  Caleb's first fish was a respectable, yet catch-and-release sized channel catfish.  He caught it on a Mickey Mouse combo with a 12" steel leader, two split shot sinkers, and a gob of worm on a barbed hook.

Patiently waiting.......



Reeling in the monster

Caleb's First Fish....a channel catfish!

Food Plot #1 and #2: DONE!

I got both my plots planted a few weeks ago. The 1st particular plot is my favorite spot to hunt even though its really not a very productive stand.  I think the allure comes from the sights and sounds of hunting this stand, it makes me feel like I'm hunting in a place like you see on the hunting shows and DVDs. 

It's in a small seven acre block of timber but it feels bigger than that.  My stand sits along a winding creek in a tall straight ash tree.  On the other side of the creek is a hard wood ridge and beyond that is crop fields.  In front of the stand is a 1/4 acre clearing I've maintained a food plot in for the last 5 or so years.  I've had white clover, turnips, winter rye, and I even made an attempt at corn which failed miserably due to the severe drought last year.

This year I'm going back to the ol' bread and butter: clover. This year presented some challenges that stood in the way of getting the plot done.  Namely getting to the plot with equipment.  The flash flooding we've encountered this year silted/mudded in the creek crossing and I could not get across with the tractor and disk.  So I loaded up the garden tiller in the truck, used my loading ramps as a makeshift bridge, got across, and got after it! 

Here are a few views of the plot.  You can see my stand in the first pic in the really straight tree behind the tiller off the edge of the plot. The other two pics are from my stand.  

After I got it all tilled up, I cultipacked it to prepare a nice firm seedbed.  My dad had some leftover red clover seed and he came down and broadcasted it onto the plot with a bag seeder.  I then used the same seeder to broadcast some 10-10-10 starter fertilizer and then I cultipacked it again to press the seed into the soil.  

Here's the finished product!  We've done our part and as they say, "It's in God's hands now."  

I got in about a 1/3 acre of soy beans the other night. I used my 6 year old ATV to pull my 60 year old planter. I spaced the beans apart in 30 inch rows and after they emerge I'll give them a shot of roundup to kill any weeds and then broadcast some purple top turnips, dwarf Essex rape, ground hog radishes and some 20-10-10 fertilizer into the beans. Hopefully it all turns out well and I'll have good late season plot to hunt!

The Solon Albino

Well it's no secret anymore that there is an albino doe living west of Solon near the McBride golf course.  Yesterday I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her and snap a few quick photos.  The zoom isn't the greatest on an iPhone so the photos aren't be best.  Recently there have been several articles about the deer with better photos than I have so you might have some luck doing a google search.  

It's pretty neat to see in person considering the odds are something like 1 out of 100,000 that a deer will be born an albino.  I definitely don't think I'll see another one in my life time but you never know.  

Stay tuned to the blog, both my brother and I should be making some posts about food plots and sharing trail cam pics in the coming weeks! 

Puttin' in the Work

I spent most of the day today doing a lot of food plot maintenance and site prep for a new plot.  Not to mention mowing & packing trails and finishing a small construction project on our property.

I spent about half the morning at Turkey Top.  I finally got the last third of the clover plot mowed with my string trimmer.

This is a section I mowed 10 days ago.  You can see how the clover is doing well since the grass was cut back.  Hopefully after applying Arrest, the grass will be no more and the clover will really take off.

I also found a break in the weather today and suitable conditions to spray the plot with Arrest herbicide.  I only sprayed the part of the plot that I mowed last week.  I saved the part that I mowed today as a "control". 

I then had a small strip of land between the end of the planted corn field and the edge of the timber that'd I'd never done anything with before.  I mowed it down and sprayed with round-up. 

The farmer we rent to left me a pretty wide strip of land between the forest & his first row of corn this year, so I might try to seed a strip plot the entire length of the field.

 

I have a bag of clover still left to be planted, but I kind of want to try something new here.  If anyone actually reads this and has some suggestions, it'd be much appreciated.  The site receives almost full sun the entire day.

Turkey Top update

This past Saturday I had a chance to get up to Turkey Top and check out the progress of my clover plot.  To say the grass had taken it over was an understatement.

However, there is good news.  The clover is thriving under all this grass.

It just needed a good mowing.  Unfortunately this plot's located in an area of our property only accessible by foot.  That makes driving or even pushing a mower to get to it impossible unless accessed from the neighbor's property...but that's another issue all in itself!  So I used my string trimmer and got about 2/3 of the plot mowed down before a storm chased me back to the truck.

In the next week or two I'll be hitting it again, this time with a herbicide called Arrest that's designed to kill only the grasses & leave the clover to thrive. 

From the pictures you can also see that there's a dead Locust tree in the middle of the plot.  I girdled this tree last winter to kill it and it makes a good place for my trailcam.  However, there were some honeysuckle sprouts that grew up in front of the camera since the last time I'd been to the plot.  So my SD card was maxed out with 2905 pictures, of which about 3/4 were honeysuckle shoots blowing in the breeze!  Here's a couple from before the camera got blocked though.

Seems like a popular place to be.

First fawn picture of the year!

Getting The Most Out Of What You Got and Garage Sales With The Wife.

Well today I took the Exmark out to mow trails and food plots.  I've got to say, that thing has become a Swiss Army knife for me. I have used it for the initial purpose I purchased it for- mowing the yard. However, I have found with some creative thinking, it can accomplish a lot of things.  

I have pulled hay rakes, yard sweepers, grain augers, and trailers.  With enough passes it can turn 5 foot of grass into a fareway at Augusta.  If you ease into it and lead with the open, ejection side of the deck, you can cut most brush up to one inch in diameter.  Recently I was sick of mowing around a small pile of dirt so I turned off the PTO, set the deck as low as it would go, and leveled it off by straddling the pile and using the front edge of the deck as a dozer blade.  

Every spring there is a multitude of branches in the yard that fell victim to the weight of the previous winters snowfall.  Why pick them up when you can just mow them into pieces?  Of course it does dull the blades but you should sharpen them every spring anyway so why not wait until after you have mulched up some sticks first.  Now all this does put some wear and tear on the machine but if you have something that's built well (i.e. has more metal than plastic parts) if something breaks its an easy fix with some pliers, wrenches, and maybe a hammer. Here's a before and after shot of the plot grooming capabilities of the ol' Exmark.  This plot was clover, volunteer oats, and weeds.

This morning I woke up at 6 and went garage sale-ing with my lovely wife.  That statement might make most men cringe but I have found it has paid off big time for me.  Last year I scored 3 lone wolf climbing sticks (retail over $100) for $10.  This morning we were cruising by a sale and my wife immediately liked the way it looked so she did the tuck n roll out the door while the mini van was still doing 20 mph.  I parked and waited for her to return. 5 minutes later I looked in the rear view mirror and there she was smiling and carrying a shot-at-twice-almost-new $5 archery target towards the van.  "Happy Father's Day!" she said.  Happy Father's Day indeed.  And here's to all you Dads out there including mine- Happy Fathers Day.

Turkey Top Results!

3 weeks after establishing my food plot, I checked my trailcams.  The plot was seeded on April 7th and by April 11th it saw its first good action.

This old boy and about 5 hens spent a good part of the morning hanging out in the plot on the 11th.  He gave me lots of great footage and pictures from up close!

One of 3 Jakes that cruised through