New decade...new farm and a camp.
Posted: Sun May 31, 2020 2:52 pmSo we went into last season made aware that the farm we had been hunting since the fall of 2014 was for sale. The farm did indeed sell in February.
Rewind to November, when a friend had contacted me about an opportunity he had for a group of hunters that would be interested. I told him at the time, we were happy where we were, but this could be our last year because the farm was for sale.
We stayed in touch through the season last year, and once i heard a few discouraging details about what the new owner was wanting to do on the farm we were hunting on, I called him and let him know what was going on at our old farm and that I'd like to come look at what he had.
A couple of other hunting buddies of mine were also looking for something new after last season, so I invited them to come with me to look at the farm. So we were able to go look at the farm back on April 25th, which was a rather cool windy day. Due to recent rain events, the bigger field on the farm still had a lot of water on it, and as we approached the blind we noticed it was also holding quite a few blue winged teal. So it was neat to see them winging around the field while we checked out the pit.
What am I really excited about is that we will have a camp. I've never had a camp, so this will save me many hours of sleep and driving through the duration of the hunting season. We'll have access to 3 fields, 2 of which have nice big pits in them, and the other being the large cornfield that surrounds the camp. We'll have dove and goose hunting options in the corn around the camp.
It looks like both of the fields where the pits are will be in rice. One was planted about a week ago, and as of yesterday's work day, the farmer was doing his last bit of field prep and hoped to be planting by yesterday evening.
One interesting thing about the south field is that they have placed the acreage south of the pit into CRP, so it's been planted with trees and has lots of grass growing in it. There is a 3-4 acre area behind the pit that was not planted, so we'll have open water there, and much more open water on the north side of the pit. I've never hunted a field that offered cover, water, and food like this one will since the CRP area is also flooded along with the ag acreage on north side of levee where pit is.
The other field is a more typical agland setup with the blind sitting on a permanent levee that extends out into the field and will have water on both sides.
The camp is a small brick house that used was used for clients, but my buddy is wanting to slightly downsize his guiding operation so he's going to let us lease the camp along with the 2 pits. He''ll still be guiding 1 set of clients each day out of his smaller camp down the road. They'll be hunting another pit he has.
We'll be hunting the same flyway we have been hunting the last several years, just a good bit further south in the parish, along the same river.
We had a productive work day yesterday with 6 of the 8 members being there to do some wasp killing, weed eating, and trash pick up around the camp. I cooked a pot of jambalaya for lunch.
Rewind to November, when a friend had contacted me about an opportunity he had for a group of hunters that would be interested. I told him at the time, we were happy where we were, but this could be our last year because the farm was for sale.
We stayed in touch through the season last year, and once i heard a few discouraging details about what the new owner was wanting to do on the farm we were hunting on, I called him and let him know what was going on at our old farm and that I'd like to come look at what he had.
A couple of other hunting buddies of mine were also looking for something new after last season, so I invited them to come with me to look at the farm. So we were able to go look at the farm back on April 25th, which was a rather cool windy day. Due to recent rain events, the bigger field on the farm still had a lot of water on it, and as we approached the blind we noticed it was also holding quite a few blue winged teal. So it was neat to see them winging around the field while we checked out the pit.
What am I really excited about is that we will have a camp. I've never had a camp, so this will save me many hours of sleep and driving through the duration of the hunting season. We'll have access to 3 fields, 2 of which have nice big pits in them, and the other being the large cornfield that surrounds the camp. We'll have dove and goose hunting options in the corn around the camp.
It looks like both of the fields where the pits are will be in rice. One was planted about a week ago, and as of yesterday's work day, the farmer was doing his last bit of field prep and hoped to be planting by yesterday evening.
One interesting thing about the south field is that they have placed the acreage south of the pit into CRP, so it's been planted with trees and has lots of grass growing in it. There is a 3-4 acre area behind the pit that was not planted, so we'll have open water there, and much more open water on the north side of the pit. I've never hunted a field that offered cover, water, and food like this one will since the CRP area is also flooded along with the ag acreage on north side of levee where pit is.
The other field is a more typical agland setup with the blind sitting on a permanent levee that extends out into the field and will have water on both sides.
The camp is a small brick house that used was used for clients, but my buddy is wanting to slightly downsize his guiding operation so he's going to let us lease the camp along with the 2 pits. He''ll still be guiding 1 set of clients each day out of his smaller camp down the road. They'll be hunting another pit he has.
We'll be hunting the same flyway we have been hunting the last several years, just a good bit further south in the parish, along the same river.
We had a productive work day yesterday with 6 of the 8 members being there to do some wasp killing, weed eating, and trash pick up around the camp. I cooked a pot of jambalaya for lunch.
Need to break in new camp, new blind.
