The New Property, Part 1
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://www.biggame.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/untamed.png[/author_image] [author_info]Larry Weishuhn is a widely known writer, speaker, raconteur and world hunter. He co-hosts “DSC’s Trailing the Hunter’s Moon” on Pursuit Channel, CarbonTV and the show’s YouTube Channel.[/author_info] [/author]
“Would you be interested in leasing a bit more of our land? We like how you’ve taken care of the property you have been leasing from us. It’s a bit over 50 acres, mostly woods with a nice pond. It’s close to what you already lease.” Read a recent text. I knew the property, it was adjacent to one of my immediate neighbors and west of my brother’s place.
Yes, I was interested and immediately stated I wanted to lease it. I would have a check coming their way before day’s end. OK…Not a big place by normal Texas standards, but for the area where I now live, pretty well the average landholding.
My primary interest in the property is that it is nearly totally wooded with thick youpon understory, an excellent evergreen deer browse in our area. The primary trees are a variety of oaks, and who can forget the fact that it adjoins property my brother and I hunt. Too, it has a pond or as we say in Texas, a tank, which my brother said had been there for at least eight or ten years. No doubt it has some fish in it, possibly and hopefully a variety of sunfish. It could at one time have been stocked with largemouth bass and/or channel catfish. Too, looking at the property via “Google Earth” the pond likely based on how it is laid out, oak trees overhanging the water’s edge, it will attract ducks. Based on the variety of oaks I strongly suspect it too has squirrels. And, I would be willing to bet it has either resident or transient wild hogs found throughout the area.
As this is being written I have not yet set foot on the place, but have driven along the east side perimeter fence, on property belonging to my brother. In so doing I found several deer trails coming and going under the five-strand barbed wire fence between the two properties and a few hog tracks.
I plan to spend some time on the new lease during late winter, at which time I will thoroughly walk it, look for old and current deer sign, and then start looking for areas where I plan on setting up deer stands. I am thinking of setting up two different primary hunting spots. One will be on the western side of the property on what from the aerial I looked at is an opening adjoining the pond. A second set up will be a ground blind in the center of the property. I will put a three or five strand barbed wire fence around this area to keep cattle out, since it is being grazed by livestock, within the center plant a spring food plot (probably iron clay peas), which I’ll later replace late with a fall/winter crop (triticale and winter pea).
My intention is to take no more than one buck and one doe from the property. But this will be based on population estimates. Currently, we are taking one buck per 200 acres on the adjoining property over which my brother and I have control.
The new lease will be an interesting project, one of fun and learning. I can hardly wait to get started. I will keep you updated on the progress.
Regardless of what is going on in the world, there are always small things, of beauty and splendor, for us to enjoy, admire and appreciate!
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