Sorta old dog learned something new today

First sit today.

Tried a new spot at camp. After owning the place for 15 years i thought i knew all its secrets but last week i was looking at satellite images of the place mostly just for fun. Something though caught my eye. A small pocket of deciduous trees in the midst of what i know is a nasty thick cedar river bottom swamp. So thanksgiving Saturday i decided to investigate it on the ground. Found the pocket and sure enough there was a slightly elevated area that is oval shape maybe 60 yards on one dimension and 30 on the other. It is populated with mostly poplar but on the west edge there was a prize. Four apple trees loaded with large market size apples. I tried the apples and they were sweet, juicy and analagous to Golden Delicious. The apple trees are all in a 10 yard by 10 yard area and there were deer runs intersecting the trees coming and going everywhere. No brainer - gotta hunt this spot. So managed to pick a tree for the climber and get a basic lane cut that day.


Fast forward to today and the first sit - the lane - apple trees are the end of the lane at 25 to 30 yards:


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...b80a45e7_k.jpg


The action started at 355 pm with a 6 pt spike arriving to dine on the apples. He timed his arrival perfectly and caught me standing up taking a pizz. Stood there looking at me and i just stood there with my junk in the wind and no way to move. He never really took his eyes off me the whole time while he ate for 15 minutes. After he left i was finally able to move and zip up. 15 minutes later a doe wandered in followed by 2 more does. About 30 minutes after the does left a button buck came in and seemed a bit mentally challenged as he wandered around right in front of me, directly under me, and behind me for about 20 minutes but never went to the apples. He is the only one that was dumb enough to let me move enough to snap a pic:


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...a03642a8_k.jpg


Could have taken a doe or the button but decided to pass as didn't feel like punching my tag that fast. Was a beautiful weather day and a peaceful fun afternoon with 5 deer seen for the MNR survey. Plus was great to discover that the camp still has a few secrets for me to discover.

Jackpot. Nice find.

Great shots of a very nice setup!

Sounds like the prefect little hideout for them. hopefully a big boy comes through for you!

Looks like a great spot.

hopefully you have enough bees around to keep the trees producing every year
awesome find

What a great find and looks great

Nice setup.

Always enjoy when you recount your hunts. Keeps the woods front of mind during the workday haha

I know that feeling! Finding a golden little spot on your own land that you never thought to hunt before. Looks like a great spot

I guess no brainer there. Wow what a spot.

It's amazing what you can walk past hundreds of times and never see. That's my favorite part about hunting is finding new places I've never seen before. Lucky for you it was on your own property.

Yup, Honey hole forsure.

That spot will be a magnet for bucks to be scent checking in the coming weeks. I'm sure all the locals does go there, Bucks from far and wide will be checking out that apple tree leaving scrapes.

looks like a great spot nice pics

wow that is awesome. I've thought of planting some apple trees at my camp, but figure I'll be long gone before they actually produce anything.
Glad it wasn't a freezing cold windy day while you were standing there for 15min showing off to the bush ;)

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Originally Posted by FishHog

wow that is awesome. I've thought of planting some apple trees at my camp, but figure I'll be long gone before they actually produce anything.
Glad it wasn't a freezing cold windy day while you were standing there for 15min showing off to the bush ;)

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I would go ahead and plant ASAP, I planted about 15 dwarf apple trees about 15 years ago. I have lost half over that period but they started producing apples about six years after I planted.

species,

Is this land an old over grown early settlers farm?

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Originally Posted by Gilroy

species,

Is this land an old over grown early settlers farm?

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It is so. There is an old stone barn foundation that has 50+ year old trees growing inside the original barn footprint

i found something like this on the weekend in a way. there's a massive swamp in the back of this property we hunt on and i know for a fact all these deer and bedding somewhere in there deep and using it to come back and fourth from other properties to this one. well my uncles and my dad use to go here for duck hunting and use to have to use a canoe to get in for ducks.

this weekend i was determined to get back there to see how much water there is and if it would be a doable spot for deer or not, brought the one handed dewalt saw cut a few branches and small shrubs out of the way and i was in.. almost 0 water, everything has been covered in VERY thick moss and its way more open then i ever thought it was. LOTS of dog weed. i asked my dad whos been hunting this property for decades and he said no ones been back there for over 20 years because everyone thought it was all water and flooded. put up a blind so will see next week!

That’s a cool spot, good on you for finding it. I hope that you bag a good one, good luck!

so cool that was an old homestead... love finding spots like that
glad the weather was nice for you to leave it hanging for so long... that could have been worse had that 6 point pinned you on a cold november day :)

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Originally Posted by Species8472

It is so. There is an old stone barn foundation that has 50+ year old trees growing inside the original barn footprint

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I just ordered an old ariel photograph of my place from the National Air Photography Library in Ottawa after finding the image from https://www.trentu.ca/library/madgic/maps.

I had a quick look for you in your area but do not see a fly over there BUT the NAPL has their own website and hold thousands of photos from the 1930,40,50,60.

I was pretty amazed at how large the fields were on my property and how the lake north of me was so shallow at one time it was pretty well divided into two seperate lakes.

Anyway for anybody who has old farm property these old shots will give good clues where apple orchards might have been and other area's of interest to hunters. Including areas that might be re worked and a new food plot planted.

There are many Universties that keep these old photo collections, so a check on the nearest one in your area might be fruitful also, but I would refer you to the NAPL but I have to warn you their website is pretty difficult to navigate unless you are good at technology. Good hunting.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gilroy

I just ordered an old ariel photograph of my place from the National Air Photography Library in Ottawa after finding the image from https://www.trentu.ca/library/madgic/maps.

I had a quick look for you in your area but do not see a fly over there BUT the NAPL has their own website and hold thousands of photos from the 1930,40,50,60.

I was pretty amazed at how large the fields were on my property and how the lake north of me was so shallow at one time it was pretty well divided into two seperate lakes.

Anyway for anybody who has old farm property these old shots will give good clues where apple orchards might have been and other area's of interest to hunters. Including areas that might be re worked and a new food plot planted.

There are many Universties that keep these old photo collections, so a check on the nearest one in your area might be fruitful also, but I would refer you to the NAPL but I have to warn you their website is pretty difficult to navigate unless you are good at technology. Good hunting.

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Getting on close to 40 years ago but when in university doing my engineering undergrad i took a few electives in air photogrammetry. Spent course time and lots of my spare time digging up the stereo air photo pairs from the university archives that were used to create most of the topo maps for Ontario and actually all of Canada. Between 1931 and 1960 the pics were taken by the RCAF post 1960 it was primarily civilian contractors. Properly taken stereo pairs give completely accurate 3D renderings. Those 3D renderings were used to create most of the topo maps prior to satellite tech (1:50,000 NTS federal maps and 1:10,000 provincial maps that we all used back in the day were all created this way although the photos taken for the provincial series date from 1975 into the 90s). Always preferred the pairs as you could use them to identify vegetation species, bush thickness and even calculate things like tree height, building heights and dimensions and the list goes on. Lot more info than you can ever get off of a map.

Great information Species, I got real pissed off a few years back when the MNR folks down in Queens Park, Whitney block sold shop. They also sold off or gave away right to all the old arieal photos to a private company. It went from $11.00 a copy at the deak to an asking price of $120.00 by mail.

The NAPL rates are pretty reasonable at about $15.00 a copy with tax and its done for them I believe from an outside company. With your experience you could probably have no problem navigating the NAPL website which I found difficult, I was trying for a older 1930, 1940, for my place which I told does exist and this would have been when the farm was most productive.