New Hunting Camp

[Omega]

I bought a parcel of land in a conservation management program, so no permanent structures can be erected, and no travel trailers can be left on site. After a theft at my other place, I changed my mind about leaving a travel trailer out there anyway. So I decided to get the required permit to clear an area to camp in, met the conservation guys out there and walked the area explaining what my plans were and asking about what is permitted. Turns out, it's not that bad, I can put deer stands, or shooting houses up as long as I don't sink them in cement. The planted trees are in rows, and I am permitted to cut down the "volunteers", trees that grew on their own between the rows. I can also do away with the invasive trees, like Bradford pear and privet, which as it turned out, a large pear tree was in a perfect spot to begin cutting my way in.

This is how thick it is in there, and these are Willow Oaks (hate them), which do not bend to let you through.

I cut the pear tree down, and a few volunteers to get a spot large enough to pull my truck into, out of sight from public right-of-way.

On that first trip, I managed to cut a trail all the way to the creek, you can make out the power cord on the left running my electric polesaw.

I camped out there for the first time, and even though it had rained hard that morning, I managed to get a fire going, which was good because it dropped to 29 deg that night. Stayed pretty basic, no cooking, just an MRE, and some green tea and water for beverages because I wasn't even sure I would spend the night on the first trip. Notice I have a bag of mulch there on my tailgate, I planted a wild plum, two pecan, and an elderberry from TN tree day program too on that trip.

The creek is full of bass and other fish, has some beaver, wood, and/or mallard duck plus I am sure a few water moccasins though have yet to see any snakes yet. This is from the North side, it opens up toward the middle about 200 yards in

This was taken in warmer month at the middle somewhere.

I'll continue on a follow-up post with the second over-night.

 

[Hduke86]

Looks great brother and I hope it brings you joy, relaxation and big deer for years to come.

 

[Omega]

This past weekend, I decided to return for some more maintenance, decided to clear the leaves and plant some grass to see if it would dry the soil up a bit, figured the grass would help evaporate the moisture vs a layer of wet leaves, I guess we will see. I didn't want the area to be easily seen from the outside so started about 15-20' back from the entrance, which is where I'll be setting up camp anyway.

It was not supposed to rain so brought along some edger bricks to make a fire to burn off some leaves and the willow oak branch piles I had left previously, they are as bad as briars so don't want them around the camp.

Also brought a better tent, for those wondering, yes they're great. It rained for almost three hours on the second day and it kept me, and the bed of the truck dry.

This time I decided to bring my kitchen, figured bacon and eggs would be a good lunch or brunch. Blackstone worked great, and even though it didn't make the kettle scream, it was hot enough for some coffee from a pour over filter. Though right now I think it's overkill for just me, I may stick with sandwiches and or MREs but I'll keep trying it for a bit see if it changes my mind.

I raked up the leaves, spread the grass seed and placed some hay with some kind of tack to keep it from flying away or being rained off, I'll see how that works out. Oh yea, you can also see I added some reflectors to the trail, they start deep enough so they will not be reflected unless someone directs light right down the camp site, which is my private road so yea, should be good.

I checked on the bareroot trees I planted to see if they had survived, the wild plum and elderberry have greened up a little, but the pecan is still a stick. I caged them so the deer won't eat them. This is when I planted them, barely a twig.

 

[Gravey]

Looks like a cool place for some peace and quiet.

 

[DoubleRidge]

Congratulations on your land purchase...sounds like you have gotten a great start...working on the land and making improvements is very rewarding.

 

[PossumSlayer]

I'm jealous

 

[Forvols]

Nice

 

[Lt.Dan]

Looks like you have a good thing going there.

 

[Omega]

So went back on Memorial Day to check on my spot and to place the Ridgeline stand from our buddy @gatodoc . The grass is coming along nicely, hope it sticks around, but I was disappointed a little when all I seen was grass. The brand I used usually had a bunch of clover in it, but now that I want it their quality gets better.

I usually work alone so had to figure out how to get the stand to the spot I wanted without help, so decided to go back to my army days and used two skedcos tied together to drag it to its spot then used the ladder trick to flip it upright though I modified it a bit. After installing two legs, the ones off the ground, I placed a ratchet strap around the stand at the top, then ran a ratchet strap from that strap, over the ladder down to an anchor tree. I tightened the strap until the bottom of the legs touched the ground then anchored the legs in place with ground anchors. From there I installed a second strap, then it was just a matter of tightening the straps one at a time and alternating once the spool was full on one. Once the stand was upright, I went a little further to install the other two legs. No pics of the process unfortunately as I was racing a storm that was coming in, but did manage one when on the skedcos.

 

[gatodoc]

Looks like you're gonna have a great little hunting camp…