Frank's outdoors...

I got on my lease real close to the start of last season.  As I sat in my tripod one morning and looked over my barren field, I started making plans for the NEXT season on how I would prepare the field.  The challenge lay before me in acquiring/coordinating getting the work done.  I don't live near my lease, and don't have any equipment.  So basically, borrowing, renting, etc. was going to be the course of action.  As with everything else, life takes over and the season was upon us before I knew it.  I still had been planning but the execution and coordination was becoming the bigger challenge.  Throw in the fact that we hadn't had ANY rain for months and it was looking like it was going to be another barren field... Well, I blogged in the past about how it all came to be... the purchase of the drag harrow, and laying the seed in the first rain in months, etc. etc. etc.  Well, I turned my game camera towards the plot the week leading up to my ta...

So I went out the day after Thanksgiving, and took my daughter on her first hunt.  We were really just there to sit and watch deer, we didn't even take a rifle.  I wanted her to experience sitting in the blind, see what comes out, enjoy the serenity of being quiet in the woods, and enjoying my time her!  For a 6 yr old, she did very well.  We were only going to sit for about an hour and a half, and that was just the right amount of time.  She started to get a little bored, so I let her play a game on my phone.  As it turns out, we didn't have anything come visit the field that evening other than an owl and quite a few doves.  Either way, she asked a lot of good questions, and was actively looking for action.  Although, as with any youngster, the question "So, when are the deer going to come?" made me laugh... as I ask myself that a lot!  :) Also while there, I noticed how well the food plot is coming in!  Lots of greenery, and than...

Opening weekend for rifles in Texas was a great weekend filled with lots of activity.  We saw a lot of deer.  The biggest issue we experienced was that the deer were constantly moving and appeared to be in the early stages of rut.  With the exception of the spikes and small bucks, the bigger bucks were actively moving and not stopping to feed.  Opening morning was cold, around 35 degrees.  I was sitting in my culdesac blind and had a nice 6 point buck come out and walk 5 yards out of the woods, turn around, and head back into the woods.  About 10 minutes later, I could see him coming through the woods again, and he walked right on out and turned and went to the side and into the woods via another trail.  I could see another buck behind him about 10 yds.  I grabbed my rifle, pulled it up, and by the time I saw the buck in the scope, I only had a side view, and couldn't tell if it was a legal buck.  I had about 2 seconds to shoot, and I couldn'...

Alright, we are 4 weeks from opening day of rifle season here in Texas, and I have everything ready.  I went out to the lease on Sunday afternoon during the first major rain in over 6 months!  Finally got my Polaris "muddy". On Friday, my buddy Mark and his friend Gary took a tractor and brush hog and cut down my field at a finishing cut length, which looked fantastic.  On Sunday, when I got there I took my new harrow, dragged it over the field with the needles down to really scratch the wet, muddy dirt/sand mixture.  It was a lot muddier than I thought.  I believed it was primarily sand, but the amount of soil is quite surprising and a pleasant one at that.  After that it was seeding time.  I used the Whitetail Institute - Imperial Whitetail Extreme seed and that covered half of my field.  The other half I covered with Evolved Harvest Throw & Grow .  Both of these I picked up at Gander Mountain.  Now it was time to fertilize....