Weekend Deer habitat Porject

[mconway951]

Well i recently stumbled across a chunk of 50 acers just on the edge of the Mpls and st paul metro area that hasn't been hunted ever as far as I can tell and there is no huntable land around for miles. I put out some trail cams and did a lil obsevation in the little 2 acre clearing one night we counted 57 deer of which 8 were antlered bucks. With the help of a coupld of huntng friends we have decided to clear 5 more acers as a destination food plot we were in this weekend and were using my skidloader to clear some atv trails when we hit a spot that was real soft. It has been real cold here in MN and everything is froze execpt this one spot only had about 2 inches of frozen mud on top. the right side of the skid loader droped in and there was nothing solid for 2 feet we ended up digging out all of the muck and using the bucket of the skid to push the track up and fill the hole with logs and pull using a come along 4 hrs of working by hand no way to get another machine to it.

anyway this will be an on going project and Ill have pics down the road of how it turns out .
Thanks for looking.

 

[MN Public Hunter]

Sounds like fun. Let me know if you want another set of hands to help out.

 

[Bio Bo]

Looks like it must be a spring there... Might be worth developing into a waterhole for habitat improvement? Just a thought...

 

[Wyodeerhunter]

Awesome! But I have a couple questions....

Why did you use a skid steer over a backhoe? Is that skid steers yours?

I have found I get better bang for my buck using a backhoe. You can change the bucket to one that has the big frost breaker teeth and then you can really dig deep and tear stuff up!

Of course I could babble all day long about the pro's/cons of a skidsteer/bobcat vs backhoe.

On to the more pressing question....what are you using for your foodplots? Biologic? Homeblend? What? Or are you going to mix it up?

 

[mconway951]

Awesome! But I have a couple questions....

Why did you use a skid steer over a backhoe? Is that skid steers yours?

I have found I get better bang for my buck using a backhoe. You can change the bucket to one that has the big frost breaker teeth and then you can really dig deep and tear stuff up!

Of course I could babble all day long about the pro's/cons of a skidsteer/bobcat vs backhoe.

On to the more pressing question....what are you using for your foodplots? Biologic? Homeblend? What? Or are you going to mix it up?

We were using the skid steer besause we were just using it to make some atv trails the property is full of small growth like us see in the pic and we were just laying the bucket on the ground and shearing the brush off to create a rough trail that we coul then brush hog. We were not trying to dig a hole just did that on accident.
As far as food plot it will be one giant destiantion corn field with a could of mall 1/4 acre homeblend plots mostly oats and barasicas. To clear the food plot area we are having a john deere dozer brought in next weekend

 

[Wyodeerhunter]

We were using the skid steer besause we were just using it to make some atv trails the property is full of small growth like us see in the pic and we were just laying the bucket on the ground and shearing the brush off to create a rough trail that we coul then brush hog. We were not trying to dig a hole just did that on accident.
As far as food plot it will be one giant destiantion corn field with a could of mall 1/4 acre homeblend plots mostly oats and barasicas. To clear the food plot area we are having a john deere dozer brought in next weekend

Man I must of been tired last night. It is quite obvious that you were making a trail. For some dumb reason I thought you were clearing out the whole plot.

Good call on the oats and barasicas. When I have any doubt on what food plot to do, I go with oats and barasicas. Its like "insurance" for whitey's.

How much is the john deer dozer going to run you? Typical rate here is 175/hour or 800 a day.

I found that with a little bit of sweat, and a bunch of mexicans a fair sized plot can be cleared out for 1/2 the price of renting a dozer and the money can be spent on such other projects like lumber for a pernament treestand etc....

 

[JoseCuervo]

I found that with a little bit of sweat, and a bunch of mexicans a fair sized plot can be cleared out for 1/2 the price of renting a dozer and the money can be spent on such other projects like lumber for a pernament treestand etc....

I am not sure that using a bunch of Mexicans would be a good economic value yet. I would guess that until the ATV trails get cut into the place it would be a big waste of time (and time is $$$$$ ) for the Mexicans to be hiking into that area.

Do you have any idea how long it would take to walk in to a 50 acre area???

It might make sense to use Mexicans after you get the ATV trails cut into the area so you don't waste all your time marching your Mexicans when you can just shuttle them in on the ATV.

 

[Wyodeerhunter]

I am not sure that using a bunch of Mexicans would be a good economic value yet. I would guess that until the ATV trails get cut into the place it would be a big waste of time (and time is $$$$$ ) for the Mexicans to be hiking into that area.

Do you have any idea how long it would take to walk in to a 50 acre area???

It might make sense to use Mexicans after you get the ATV trails cut into the area so you don't waste all your time marching your Mexicans when you can just shuttle them in on the ATV.

Thank you Jose. Wisdom with age I suppose. I would also assume (and correct me if I am wrong) that an ATV simply would not do to haul in my brothers.....and sisters. I don't discrminate. Women can chop down trees too.

I'm thinking more along the lines of some sort of van with decent all terrain tires on it. In the off season you can use it to shuttle kids to soccer practice.

Mconway,
I hope all these practices we posted up will help you make that dream food plot with the least amount of $$$$ possible. After all we are in a recession. But why should the whitetails suffer?? Thats not american. Thats not even mexico.

You should throw out some alfalfa seeds also. Even though alfalfa requires more aqua (thats water in english) it should produce the fat to get those big boys through the rut.

I will go to sleep tonight dreaming of big whitetail bucks.

wyowhitetailhunter

 

[Bio Bo]

I am not sure that using a bunch of Mexicans would be a good economic value yet. I would guess that until the ATV trails get cut into the place it would be a big waste of time (and time is $$$$$ ) for the Mexicans to be hiking into that area.

Do you have any idea how long it would take to walk in to a 50 acre area???

If this 50 acres is on the metro edge, it might take those Mexicans 5-10 minutes of walking... unless they are walking all the way from Mexico. But I'm not in favor of illegal immigration labor anyway... I just thought it funny, or fecicious, that you would come up w/ that sort of comment...

 

[JoseCuervo]

Thank you Jose. Wisdom with age I suppose. I would also assume (and correct me if I am wrong) that an ATV simply would not do to haul in my brothers.....and sisters. I don't discrminate. Women can chop down trees too.

I'm thinking more along the lines of some sort of van with decent all terrain tires on it. In the off season you can use it to shuttle kids to soccer practice.

You can do it, I just have never thought it was that good of idea to haul 5-7 mexicans on one ATV. My experience is 1, maybe 2 mexicans per ATV and still have places for shovels, short hoes, and other tools to do the work.

One of the best solutions is if you can find a Mexican with a van and an ATV. I think that might solve all of mconway's issues.

These types of plots really do need extensive ATV trail systems whey you consider that a 50 acre place like this could have distances of up to 500 yards from the edge of the property. If that doesn't scream out for the need of an ATV trail system, what does?

And please don't call me old.....

 

[mconway951]

hey guys sorr been a way a while.
Well I am a contractor and am borrowing a dozer for $100 for the delivery for the weekend and that is it just friends helping friends. Also i grew up on a farm in SE MN and we have all of the equipment to plant so I am not real worried about that.

 

[mconway951]

Well leaving here in a few min to head out to the property again we were suppose to get the dozer delivered yesterday but some mechanical problems "ice in the fuel" provented us from getting it but it was dropped of bout midnight so it is off to clear brush I will send pics soon.

 

[mconway951]

Well We had a great day yesterday we cleared about 8 or 9 acers with the dozer and i got a feeder and a camera setup. It was a blast I love running heavy equipment and the little holes that the skid loader droped into were no match for the bulldozer. I brougth my 2yr old daughter out for a ride and she loved it we had deer close to dark coming out and feeding on the browse and explorering the new feild.
Here are dozer pics thanks for looking

 

[Bucnutz.wis]

I have about 1 acre I need cleared for a new food plot if you're really ambitious.... Thanks for sharing your pics!!

 

[mconway951]

I have about 1 acre I need cleared for a new food plot if you're really ambitious.... Thanks for sharing your pics!!

I wouldnt mind at all if you went and rented the equipment i would come help ya for the price of lunch.

 

[mconway951]

Well Feeder up and a couple of pics on already (547 to be exact) from sunday.
Just a couple I took off of the camera no antlered bucks thinking must have droped there rack already.

 

[mconway951]

Went out thursday after work to see if we could get the bush piles burned it has been great weather here in MN for the last week. However it was still just tow wet for them to take off at all burned for a little bit but not very productive so we just did lil hiking and scouting. We will just wait a month or so and try it again.

 

[mconway951]

Just thought I'd add a couple of interesting pics

 

[mconway951]

Went to the property last night and burned the piles of brush and now it is cleared out and ready for tiling

 

[mconway951]

Well corn is about knee high now had to spray several times ot kill the buckthorn off and keep from taking back over but corn looking good gonna start on getting ground ready to plant oats and brassica mix in next couple of weeks on the cams we have 5 different bucks and lots of does kinda hard to tell those all apart so not sure how many there are.
Here is a pic of the best buck so far on the property. Looks like he is gonna be lopsided