Here is an image of the land I get the privilege of hunting. It is owned by in-laws and a family friend. The area in red covers 240 acres. My stand is in the NW 40, on the south edge of an area clear cut 3 years ago (@6 acres) marked by the green dot. Here is my view today with a little area I cleared, sprayed and planted. Trim a couple small pines and I will have a good shooting area from 20 - 35yds furthest. The area I planted isn't looking bad and has had some regular visitation from a couple does and one fawn, along with one bear. Just this last Friday night/Sat morning had an 8pt pay its first visit. My goal for this area is to knock down the 3 years worth of growth since being cleared and keep it planted, not yet sure what I want to plant yet but have until next spring/summer to figure that out. It is going to take a lot of elbow grease because I will be doing it with hand tools mostly.
Taking my daily walk at lunch there is a small place that does local online auctions. Saw this sitting outside and thought it might be a good acquisition to take some of the manual labor out of this project. I believe it is a Brinly I think it could use some customization for weight but should work for me.
Drop a couple cinder blocks or sandbags on that disc and you should be good to go. I rented one similar to that a month or so ago and it worked great. Pulled it with my 570 Ranger no sweat. Then I used an old section of a chain link fence as a drag.
I'm in love with the overall make up of your spot man, lends itself to some awesome habitat sculpting! Good find on the small disc too! I'm constantly looking for one...but may just get a Groundhog Max and use my buddy's four wheeler to save time moving forward. Good luck and keep us all posted.
During later days of rifle season, I did some walking and located a new spot to try. Red spot is where I put my stand, the Green spot is the kill zone (hopefully). 1 - Kill zone from the tree. Can see the Mineral Block I dropped on Thanksgiving deer have been hitting it hard at night. Tracks in and out from all directions. 2 - View South into Spruce Pine bedding area. Picture 3 - View North towards Maple Hardwoods. Deer travel across it from the Pine Peat Moss area on the north edge of property. Picture 4 - Behind me into clear cut. Plan on making this area into a food plot that will be about 100 yards North to South, 30 yards across. Left hand edge can see the poplar growth in the adjacent clear cut which I would also like to be food plot, covers about 1.5 acres. Finally the Goofy Tree I stuck my hang on in. Good size trunk but at about 30 feet just stopped growing up, which is good because that just means less to catch the wind and sway.
Sure looks a lot different when green and growing. This is looking south, in the background you can see the pines where I know some of the deer bed at least in the fall and winter. There are some springs so there is always areas of water within the pine area also. I sprayed this a while back. Was hoping to plant 2 weeks ago but had car trouble on my way that kept me from getting the seed down. It has been really wet since then, to the point where I won't even attempt to bring an ATV in and tear up the trails. My plan is to leave as much of this natural as I can. The area I sprayed to plant is about 15 yards x 30 yards. As long as I can get some good low vegetation I should have some nice clear shots WHEN the big bucks walk through. Also had Boo boo playing peek-a-boo with one of my cameras which is about 20 yards from this spot. Camera is about 5 1/5 feet off the ground. No bucks or fawns on camera yet this year.
